Design Lighting a choir loft for easier reading

[Moose Hatrack]

I'm questioning a plan developed by a lighting engineer. Our choir loft is a balcony in the back of the church. The choir is meant to be heard and not seen, so the only objective of the plan is to improve illumination of hand held music. The singers stand shoulder to shoulder and work from anything from books to stapled sheets of paper. Maybe the engineer is right and I am wrong... he did the math and prescribed track light heads aimed to make an array of pools. But each pool is lit from only one source. A few of the heads will be aimed straight down so the music below should be in pretty good light, but to reach the singers in the center, some of the heads will be aimed at an angle. For singers under the angles, I'm imagining shadows caused by thumbs and gutters and floppy pages. Am I all wet to predict that this single source plan will leave the choir frustrated? I'm thinking maybe each pool should really have two sources, roughly speaking, as much as the architecture allows, one from the left and one from the right.

 

[Kurt]

Well, Moose (I'm also Moose),
floppy pages and thumb shadows are gonna be a problem no matter how you light those books. Lighting straight from the top is your best bet for getting their books lit without being concerned about shadows from their bodies, heads, etc.

Any way you can get the fixtures pointed directly down is ideal, but as soon as you start angling a fixture you run the risk of shadows. Singers in the very front row could be okay with lights hung slightly from the front but too much and they'll start seeing some broader thumb shadows. Singers in the back can take a slight angle from behind but too much and they get shadows from their own heads.

Depending on your budget having a secondary source for each area you want to light will *help* but you're still going to have shadows, and the eyes will want to adjust to the varying degrees of light and you end up with really bright parts of the page and dim parts of the page, which isn't THAT much better, but it is better, provided your budget will allow for such an arrangement.

 

[Moose Hatrack]

And now... the rest of the story. (Apologies to the late Moose Harvey) For once it's not a budget problem. The steep angles are happening because the tracks will be attached to wood beams. I marked those beams blue in the photo. During the initial meeting with the engineer I asked if we could install the tracks on a "bridge" BETWEEN those beams like the yellow lines in the photo. That would provide exactly what you advise... straight down light for 90% of the choir. (Two or maybe three such "bridges" might be required to cover the rows.) But the engineer's answer was absolutely not, the architect won't allow it. (My thought was, well, why doesn't the architect figure out a way to make the bridge look like it belongs there?) Most importantly, I now know this: if we somehow get the "bridges" approved, the heads on the tracks should NOT cross for double coverage like I described in the original post.
Many thanks Kurt Moose. I hope the third base Moose wins us the Series.

 

[JohnD]

Why does it have to be track on beams, wouldn't wire cable track lighting work, and hopefully pleasing to the artistic vision of the architects.

 

[Moose Hatrack]

Our choir director suggested wire cable tracking immediately after my bridge idea was rejected. He got the same answer... Disallowed. That's something to bring back up.

 

[microstar]

Just a question: who is the architect working for?

 

[Moose Hatrack]

The pastor makes the call. He was present and silent during the discussion, indicating no willingness to disagree with the architect. The choir director wants to keep after the pastor until he hears us out. The direction I'm getting here in CB will be invaluable when we sit down with him, and I am grateful for the expertise! May God reward you!
A word about the lighting engineer... maybe you know someone like him... SUPER nice- great guy, but he's all numbers. He holds up the meter and says the pulpit is lit perfectly. But the light he's measuring is a straight down light and anybody standing in the pulpit has black eyes. I told the pastor we light actors that way in the theater when we want a tortured, skull-like look. Here's another interesting lesson... The engineer told us the nave didn't need to be very bright because people don't read in church. Well, that's our fault. Nobody told him most of us use hand missals wherein the largest characters are 7 point!

 

[RickR]

The lighting guy is depending on ambient lighting to fill in the shadows. It will come from daylight and bounce from all the fixtures that happen to be on at the moment. There is probably also some spill from the fixtures that isn't included in the pool calculations. Yes all that is included in the right calculations, which he may or may not have done. So I conclude; his plan will work, but more is better. (Especially with the typically older choir members.) Some heads aiming up at the ceiling will add to the ambient and reduce shadowing. Have him add a few fixtures and/or some spread lenses. (Most MR16 fixtures will take lenses, but might have trouble with a snoot and a lens.) Keep in mind that with track you can add fixtures later (if dimmer allows) so a mistake here is not the end.

I can't tell from the photo but the track on beams is not a bad idea if they are high enough. A crossing of beams is good if you have enough fixtures that everything is in 1/2 shadow. There isn't anything magical about straight down. I know some singers that hunch over their music so that you can't see their face or hear them well. After all they aren't pros Anyway a mix is what you want but a count of the circles covering the area won't be enough fixtures.

 

[JohnD]

Looking at the picture again, I think it would be worth setting up a demo of spotlights bounced off the ceiling which would give you a diffuse shadow free light for them to read by. Maybe it would work, maybe not, but would be easy to set up.

 

[Moose Hatrack]

Soft, diffused light would be welcome. The whole interior of the church is 12 volt, and there is no soft light anywhere. The windows are stained glass, and the light through them is soft as a cloudy day, but it's also deeply colored; and it's reliable as a cloudy day! More history: The existing choir loft fixtures were pointed at the ceiling in the original design. They lit the ceiling, but they didn't bounce enough light for reading. Right away they pointed those lights down. That helped a lot, but those original lights are on the lower wooden beam so, with such a short throw, they hit the floor early in the cone. In the redesign it makes perfect sense to move to the higher wooden beam, to let the beam spread out. For testing, I don't have any MR16s to play with, but I could bring in a couple 300 watt pars, or even S4 jrs at 575 and point them at the ceiling. Is that the right approach?

 

[FMEng]

The architect is probably fine, but I am concerned about the lighting consultant. Lighting an entire church with 12 volt lights? That just seems strange to me. In our church, all of the lighting is 120 V, controlled from a dimmer rack and a stage console, along with architectural control stations for everyday use. Dimming for all parts of the space is something we use quite a bit, and I doubt you could do that with 12 volt lights.

It seems to me that the best way to light the choir's music is with direct lighting. Indirect prevents shadows, but it also loses efficiency. Anyone reading music needs a fair amount of light, especially past the age of 50. One source per area is fine, but it needs to straight above or a little forward so that the person's head or body does not cast a shadow. The main this is the source can't be behind or too steep of an angle from the side. This is easy to illustrate with a flashlight and a person acting as a test model.

As for lighting the chancel, altar, and pulpit, light it just like you would a stage, with theatrical instruments properly placed and controlled. You are quite correct that downlighting on that area will look ghastly. That alone should immediately disqualify the consultant, in my opinion. Few lighting engineers venture out of offices, stores, restaurants, and the like. My guess is that's where this guy is coming from. You'd be better off with a theater consultant if you can't find someone that's done a few churches.

Rambusch Lighting is a manufacturer that specializes in lighting for churches, and they have been around since at least the 1950s. Their halogen downlights with parabolic reflectors are well designed, well made, reasonably efficient, and attractive. Maybe Rambusch could point you to a local or regional lighting consultant that is a bit more familiar with good church lighting.
http://www.rambuschlighting.com/site/index.html

There are also church technical consultants around, that handle lighting, sound, acoustics, and video. They are used to working with local architects who might be a little out of their element.

 

[Moose Hatrack]

FMeng, I think you nailed the problem... we never had a consultant... The engineer and the architect came up with the specs in a vacuum. We've been in the church for several years, and we're just now correcting the choir loft lighting. I'm afraid that once the electrician leaves it will be years another couple years before we get another opportunity to revise.
I very much appreciate ALL of the time and thought put into these replies. Please be confident that I won't waste what you have invested in this project- and with your help we MAY just get this right this time!

 

[RickR]

I would think about a mix of up and downlight, 20/80 or 30/70. All one or the other is far less than ideal, especially in a dark room. These are concepts familiar to architectural lighting folks. I would also try to use something other than MR16s for the uplighting, but since they are there (in the plan) you could get a bit of it easily. Uplighting is not very efficient but looks and feels wonderful. Likely the original plan was just too little.

You're right that once the electrician leaves not much will happen. "But we just spent a lot of money on the choir loft."

I've designed several church lighting systems. So naturally I second @FMEng in calling for a real lighting consultant. IMHO Many church consultants are primarily sound guys and don't get lighting.

 

[Moose Hatrack]

Back when the building was purchased the pastor asked me to handle the sound. I went with a vendor I use at work- they are widely respected in the area. I talked to the designer\engineer until his ears were bleeding to make sure he knew exactly how we use the church. (I assumed the pastor asked somebody to do the same thing for lighting, but I guess lighting never left the architect, engineer and electrician's control.) The result was that we've had ZERO complaints about the sound system. On the contrary, many went out of their way to compliment the sound. [The church building we left for this one had three Pioneer car stereo speakers screwed to the back of each pew. It was a swell plan when it was new I'm sure, but it dated back to the 70's so it failed routinely. Toward the end of our tenure there, the squelch on the wireless receiver would occasionally be momentarily fooled causing a deafening burst of white noise to fill the church. It could seriously give somebody a heart attack!]

 

[robartsd]

I'd try to get a one-on-one discussion with the pastor pointing out what you did to get the complimented sound system in hopes that you'll get more influence in how this decision is made.