pāḷi chanting with no soul, understanding long and short syllables

 In pāḷi chanting, long syllables are twice as long (temporal) as short syllables.

This gives chanting kind of syncopated rhythm, kind of like jazz.

It's not just an aesthetic issue  or a minor detail that you can choose to obey if you like.

If you don't get the long and short correct, you're often saying a completely different word

with a completely different meaning.

In an oral tradition, where Dhamma (teachings) are recited, memorized, the syncopated rhythm helps to differentiate words and phrases when you memorize it.

It gives you audio cues for your memory to detect errors when you've for example reciting a sutta you haven't done in a long time.

As opposed to if the rhythm of the memorized Dhamma words was not syncopated, it would sound more bland, monotone, undifferentiated, and harder to detect memorization errors.

Following the proper rules of chanting pāḷi is like the difference between this:

and this.

Sanskrit pronunciation, as far as I can tell, on the rules of long syllables being twice as long (temporal) as short syllables,  is nearly identical to pāḷi.

Here's a very good chanting of the Heart Sutra in Sanskrit.

Be sure to turn on close captions, for sanskrit text, you can recognize the same pali words in there.

Here is the same heart sutra, with no regard for pronunciation rules, especially the differentiation between long and short syllables.