Organ matters - Organs matter!

Elsewhere the subject of transportable organs has come up, and I thought a new topic was in order...

A few questions to warm the gray-matter among those of you lurking in the shadows who build pipe organs...

Could using exotic, "space-age" high-tech (I know, I know... high co$t!) materials and construction techniques be used to enhance the durability of key components employed in pipe organs which will be by their very nature "physically abused" in the course of everyday use?

How big is too big? Conversely, How small is too small?  Could the pipework be constructed in "block" formations and "folded" to reduce space without suffering in the Tonal Quality department?
Here I am thinking of getting at least one, maybe more, 32' pitch ranks as part of the specification through a stadium utility entrance, and still be transportable in ISO containers...

Like any project, it starts with an idea...

Eric
KB7DQH

Read somewhere, likely a Youtube comment, about a group who offered for hire a complete Wurlitzer
Theatre instrument,  the comment mentioning that keeping it tuned and regulated was a serious PITA,
but it enjoyed a certain amount of popularity in the Pacific Northwest corner of the USA in the 1970's...

My thoughts are along those lines but designing everything to be as quick to unload/assemble/test/play/disassemble/load/transport, step-and-repeat... as the rest of the gear a typical touring musical group would drag around with them...

Material choices here become a tad more exotic I would think, as one would want the instrument to be considerably more durable than something installed at a fixed location... I'm thinking carbon-fiber windchests for a start...

This could become an interesting "dream exercise" for the organ building area I would think...

I certainly agree that the "electronic noise" on that forum is way too high for my tastes and finding
anything there of usefulness to our growing group of wind-driven keyboard instrument enthusiasts will be difficult, especially due to the sheer size of the information being exchanged there :-[

Occasionally someone will throw up a note about a pipe instrument looking for a new home and that thought  loaded into Google landed me there...

I did spot a thread describing the difficulty of finding a home for what amounts to a monster of an analog electronic organ, which had been made redundant by a Real Pipe Organ 8) 8) 8)

Some stuff in the thread about "not being able to get parts", etc... ;D ;D ;D 
The description of the console alone meant that would completely fill my living room!  The rest of the house would be occupied by the tone generators, amplifiers and speakers... Hmmm...  Sounds like a Wurlitzer in Australia rescued from a redundant movie theater, and installed in a house literally "built around the organ"...  That's on Youtube someplace I think...  But I digress...

After filtering out some of the "noise" over there...
methinks the "church world" is finding out the expensive way that where there is space for the "real thing" in the long run it will end up being less expensive and more enjoyable than something that "sounds like"...  What the gizmo sellers aren't telling church congregations is the service life of the electronic can never approach that of a pipe organ >:(   

A link to an article about a local church that found that out the hard way... and why this forum can be an important resource to others in a similar situation 8)  http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20100206/NEWS01/702069955

QuotePipe organ music fills Trinity Episcopal Church again
By Amy Daybert, Herald Writer
advertisement | your ad here
EVERETT — Parishioners at Trinity Episcopal Church have wanted a pipe organ in their church for almost 40 years.

The Balcom and Vaughan pipe organ now in the sanctuary is the fulfillment of their longstanding dream, according to music director David Spring.

Trinity's original pipe organ was installed in the late 1940s and could not be repaired when it broke down in the early 1970s. That organ was replaced by a Baldwin electronic organ that lasted another 25 years before it stopped working during a Christmas Eve service.

Shortly after, a church committee was formed to find a new mechanical action pipe organ. At the time, costs from a building renovation project kept the church from being able to fund a custom-built organ.

The search fizzled. Trinity borrowed a portable organ from another church.

A digital organ was purchased in 1999 when the loaned organ had to be returned.

As the new music director in 2001, Spring started to revive the effort to find a pipe organ.

"There's a strong sense if you're going to have an organ that the pipe organ is what it's supposed to sound like," he said. "Just like a real hollandaise sauce tastes better than the kind you make out of a package and add water."

He started looking at pipe organs for sale by churches that were consolidating or taking their music programs in different directions and no longer had a use for their pipe organ.

In January 2005, organ builder Frans Bosman convinced Spring to look at a 1971 pipe organ used by Covenant Christian Church in Spokane.

After seeing the instrument, Spring was impressed. He told church parishioners the chance to buy the organ was a rare opportunity that he believed shouldn't be ignored. They listened and for $40,000 they finally had their instrument.

The used organ cost about 10 percent of what new ones were going for, Spring said.

Bosman went to work refurbishing the instrument, to use as much of the original pipe work as possible.

About $110,000 was spent on the organ's framework and swell boxes where pipes are located. A custom loft was constructed to hold the swell boxes before Trinity's new organ could be played.

"The overall project, by the time it was all said and done, was probably what the church would have spent on just a new organ alone," Spring said. "A lot of people got behind this thing."

The fundraising took three years and was two-fold, senior warden Evie Beard said. People from the parish raised $650,000 with the help of a consulting firm. The goal was to use the money to purchase a pipe organ and install an elevator in the church. Beard expects the elevator will be installed sometime within the next three to five years.

The pipe organ, she said, looks like it has always been in the church.

"I love it. It's beautiful in any register," she said.

Trinity's pipe organ comprises 28 ranks, or sets, of pipes and includes recycled parts from 1915, Spring said. It's also listed in the Organ Historical Society's database.

A dedication service of the organ was held on Jan. 9 at the church. Organist David DiFiore played during a dedication recital on Jan. 29. There will be one more dedication event at 8 p.m. on March 26 at Trinity Episcopal Church, 2301 Hoyt Ave.

The program is planned to bring the season of Lent to a close and will feature DiFiore with a chamber orchestra and the church chorus conducted by Spring.

   Yes, a pipe instrument has its own "care and feeding" requirements...  but then again the human race has been building and repairing these for nearly a thousand years...


One of the few places a "large" electronic has an advantage over "pipe" is, depending on how its configured, is transportability... for now.    I have a few engineering ideas which may make possible the transport and "instant installation" of "concert-size-instruments" in venues which do not already have such an instrument on hand, venues typically employed by traveling musical acts
such as rock bands that want to do "something completely different".

But for now they will have to suffer along with looped samples playing into stacks of speakers ;)

Eric

HTML can do strange things... Assuming your internet works like mine, the link brings up a picture at the top of the page of the completed instrument, followed by the stoplist, (which I copied and hand-typed below 8)

Pedal                           Manual I                            Manual II

Subbass         16         Stopped Flute  16              Chimney Flute    8
Principal           8          Principal             8              Gamba               8
Stopped flute   8          Stopped Flute   4               Celeste              8
Choral Bass     4          Octave               4               Principal             4
Bassoon         16         Chimney Flute    4               Nasard            2 2/3
Bassoon           8         Octave               2               Block Flute          2
                                    Mixture           III                 Tierce             1 3/5
                                    Trumpet             8               Clarinet               8




then below a picture of what the organ looks like after a motor vehicle drives through the wall of the church,  thence the console, and comes to rest beyond, displacing a few rows of pews in addition to the organ...



Links on that page will take you to other news articles and photos of that unfortunate event...

Eric

We are talking about "small" organs, right ??? ??? ???

Well, I gave  this one a listen today...http://members.cox.net/subbass16/opus8.htm

It sounds a bunch bigger than it might appear at first glance... A couple times I had to tell myself I wasn't in Lagerquist Hall 8) 8) 8)  and I give much credit to the skill of the organist.  This instrument has no couplers or combination action,  the organist making registration changes between verse changes in the hymns... the "hard" way ;)   Moreover, she chose to register the instrument differently for each piece of music for which the organ was used, and during the service  it got used a lot!   And I still believe it would take a great many services to hear all this instrument is capable of. 

The "post-accident" rebuilt instrument came in at USD$125,000 8) 

And USD well-spent!

Happy ending as the driver recovered and the organ was rebuilt.

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/sep/08/organ-music-could-return-soon-to-bremerton/

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/38558897.html

Builder's website:http://members.cox.net/subbass16/cook.htm

Organ Specification:http://members.cox.net/subbass16/opus8.htm

http://www.pasiorgans.com/instruments/opus14.html

http://www.pasiorgans.com/instruments/opus19prop.html



[url=http://www.plu.edu/about/tours/art9.html]http://www.plu.edu/about/tours/art9.html]http://www.sacredhearthouston.org/OPUS19/index.html[url]

[url=http://www.plu.edu/about/tours/art9.html]http://www.plu.edu/about/tours/art9.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m09QGDMOEa8  and the builder's spec:http://www.pasiorgans.com/instruments/opus5.html

Or in some cases, rebuilt:http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/sep/08/organ-music-could-return-soon-to-bremerton/ 


An interesting series of videos about another Paul Fritts instrument can be found after clicking:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMk0FydxT4


Concert listings (primarily US):http://www.organfocus.com/search.php3?keywords=Nebraska&month=&year=&offset=40

Discography:http://www.gothic-catalog.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=LRCD%2D1025&Show=TechSpecs
                           http://www.ohscatalog.org/hiorofse.html


Radio broadcasts:http://pipedreams.publicradio.org/

Another forum sort of like this one:http://organforum.com/ 

A great resource!http://organsociety.bsc.edu

My Youtube channel:www.youtube.com/user/kb7dqh

More to follow...

Eric
KB7DQH

And hey, free admission! ;D


   

Organ Concert
     Sunday, April 25, 2010
3:00 pm
Francesco Cera, Organist, Rome, Italy Italian Baroque Music on the Meantone Organ **Master Class on Italian Organ Music – Saturday, April 24 – 8:30-11:30 a.m. Admission Free

This:
http://organforum.com/

Will have to trawl around and see if there is anything particularly useful there...

Eric
KB7DQH

Bumper sticker:  My Karma just ran over your Dogma

Sooo... Has it ;D?

On Contrebombarde.com, user Faziolli has uploaded two performances of the same piece on the same (Isnard St. Maximin) organ,  the first in the organ's "as-built" temperamenthttp://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/1907

the otherhttp://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/1908 in equal temperament...

I encourage all who visit this post to download and play both, one after the other, and think carefully about what your ears are telling you...

   Just to make sure my mind wasn't playing games I messed about with the "key change" feature on my Realtek AC 97 soundcard...  Apparently the "equal" temperament shifts the key "flat"... but not a full note interval...  at least that is what I "think" is going on :-\  I don't have the tuning chart for that organ in front of me so I don't know if the "original" is tuned to A=440hz or not... or what is happening when Faziolli shifted his Hauptwerk organ into equal temperament... :-[

Either way the perceived emotional feel of the piece shifted remarkably with the temperament change, regardless of which key I played it back in 8) 8) 8)

Eric
KB7DQH

Well, I will just have to ask, won't I?

After looking at thishttp://www.gothic-catalog.com/Tacoma_WA_Pacific_Lutheran_University_Fritts_organ_s/772.htm
one might assume the instrument has 'some' versatility... 
Eric

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMk0FydxT4

Inauguration and dedication 17 April 2010 ;D ;D ;D

Finally heard the following instrument, on a radio broadcast.  Against the "largest preserved organ of Bach's time" (Toccata and Fugue in D minor) also heard in the same broadcast and thus over my "built out of "OK-quality second-hand-used- and in many cases rebuilt by myself equipment (to and including speaker repairs)" home audio system,  the

Paul Fritts Magnum Opus installed in Lagerquist Concert Hall, Mary Baker Russel Music Center,  Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA...

competently holds it own 8) 8)

Elsewhere on this forum is information on a couple concerts to be given in the coming months on this magnificent piece of modern organ construction patterned after German/Dutch instruments with enough French Baroque thrown in to make it really fun to listen to!

http://www.plu.edu/about/tours/art9.html

Pity, really, as the organist was first-rate 8) 8) 8)  playing on a first-rate instrument 8) 8) 8) in a most marvelous adjustable-acoustic hall, set up without dampening, for the longest "reverb" possible! 8) 8) 8)

An experience I will not soon forget. 

The Program:

Toccata in D minor, BuxWV 155   Buxtehude

Fantasia Crommatica a' 4   Jan Pieterszoon Sweenlinck

Pie'ce d'Orgue, BWV 572       J. S.  Bach
      Tre`s vitement
      Gravement
      Lentement

Celebration of God in Nature        Robert Ward
           The Glorious Sun

From Six Studies in Canonic Form, Op.56    Robert Schumann
          II. Mit innigem Ausdruck (With heartfelt expression)
          III. Andantino-Etwas schneller (a little faster)-Tempo I

Fantasy on the chorale
Halleluja! Gott zu loben bleibe meine Seelenfreud, Op. 52, no.3        Max Reger
(Hallelujah! To praise God will forever be my soul's joy)


Light refreshment was available in the lobby afterward, giving an opportunity to chat briefly with
the organist, and the organ tuner!  Even met the recital series patron,  Richard D. Moe...

The organ tuner from  the Fritts Organ co. (name escapes me :-[  did attend the concert and I had an opportunity to talk with him briefly after the concert about the instrument, in particular the Kellner temperament and any limitations on the repetoire it imposes.  With the exception of some music by C`esar Franck,  he claims "you can play most anything" on it...

He also mentioned he tuned ALL the reeds  the day before the concert 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

 8) I once served as part of a small security detail on a motion picture film project 20 years ago...
One of the traditions in film making is the party thrown after the 100th roll of film is shot...
Sorry I will have to miss the "over 100 posts" party as the local radio program featuring Organ and Choral music (listed elsewhere on this forum ;D  begins in just a few minutes 8) 8) 8) 8)

Eric
KB7DQH

Really good question.  Having found from various sources information about public concerts being given on instruments I had mentioned, I figured it would be prudent to bring these to the attention of
our forum members and guests.

In particular a concert next Sunday at Pacific Lutheran University featuring this organ      http://www.gothic-catalog.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=LRCD%2D1025&Show=TechSpecs

which I plan to attend.


I hope you have had a chance to read all of the reviews in the above link, one would understand why I wish to attend... Especially the review from  Magazine Orgue...  I need only burn off a quarter-tank of petrol... (much less expense than flying halfway round the world 8)  pay the $15.00 admission and "hear and see it in person" 8)   Having just heard a radio broadcast of it... only one piece (Bach Fugue in B minor) I want to hear more, more, more ;) ;) ;)

Eric

Hmmm... Lemme think on this a bit....  You do bring up an interesting scenario...  Much depends on the
"outcome" of the planned work... and the nature of "alteration" of an original instrument over the course of time.  Maybe one has to define the nature of "de-alteration" required to "restore" an instrument ???

What distinctions need to be made as to the entropic alteration due to time and "fair wear and tear"
on an instrument when it was first placed into service  versus as the instrument exists currently?

I guess it depends on "how far you wind the clock back" with the current project.  In the case of the Albi instrument the clock was wound "all the way back"...

In the case of the "biggest organ restoration project ever"  one could wind the clock back to "day one" and not change the tonal quality of the instrument one little bit, because good or bad, better or worse, "nobody %$*#'ed with it".   Its present deplorable condition due to the total lack of
preventive maintenance coupled with damage done by hurricanes which was never repaired,  and careless work done around the instrument resulting in it at one time rendering it completely unplayable. :'(   Oddly enough, the work done to restore the hall, although damaging vital parts of the instrument (but not the pipework! 8) has allowed for proper access to parts of the instrument prevented by the presence of Asbestos in the building material.  A real double "win-lose" scenario has played out in Atlantic City...
And I do hope "we can learn from the mistakes of others" ;D

Eric

Now for a slightly longer answer ::)


Years ago a book was written:  "How to keep your Volkswagen Alive-- Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot"    In "plain english" explained just about everything one needed to know in order to keep their air-cooled Volkswagen vehicle properly maintained, to and including engine overhaul. 8)
Also explained which parts of the vehicle would need to be attended to by a properly equipped shop, as the tools and training needed to perform certain tasks was not economically available to a typical vehicle owner.   

SO... Does such information exist for the pipe organ?  I imagine it is "out there" but not conveniently
ordered ???   

Could reasonably  skilled tradesmen within a church congregation take care of the necessary preventive maintenance and extend the "mean time between failure" of their instrument or would this be too much to ask?  I am thinking about stuff like keeping the wind system in good order, lubricating blower motor bearings if so equipped, making sure the wildlife doesn't befoul or consume the mechanical and electrical devices,  cleaning, etc...

Just HAD to throw that bit of fat into the fire...

Now... My definition of a "Restoration" lies in the root "Restore"... That is, make the instrument function as it did when new.   If what I suggested above took place, shouldn't be too much of a job
for the local organ builder to remove pipes, open windchests, renew pallet leather and felts, etc...
clean internal components not otherwise accessible during preventive maintenance, reassemble and tune.  May require attention to wind delivery/regulation,  but that should largely be accomplished in the proactive/preventive maintenance program "within the organization" unless special, custom parts need to be procured.

Anything "beyond" that could be classified as alteration, expansion, modernization.

Modernization could include the upgrading of electrical components to devices more available/serviceable, adding of electronic combination action, but would NOT include conversion from mechanical key action to electrical, etc...  I would firmly classify that as an ALTERATION, as "tracker action"  allows for some measure of control of how the pipe speaks by the organist, whereas an "electrical" action sufficient to accomplish this would be an extremely expensive affair indeed ???  Look at the prices on servo controls for radio-controlled  stuff, you will plainly see what I mean! 

So there it is... A starting point from which I hope much discussion ensues.

Can of worms open, flame suit on ;) ;) ;) ;)

Eric

http://www.organfocus.com/  should get you most anything here in the US, anyway.
Likely worth bookmarking.