Another Organ Project: A First Step

A pipe organ is categorized as a wind instrument although it has a keyboard. Although all organs have at least one keyboard, the differences between instruments can be huge depending on the building style chosen. There are large industrial organs, and small historically based organs. I chose to build after a style based on the earlier history of the organ in its most simple and primitive form when mechanical action connected each key to its corresponding pipe valve. See the first pipe organ I built on that style here.

I modeled my keyboard design on several examples of eighteenth-century European organs I was fortunate enough to examine and play, and had an actual keyboard built to a 53-note specification some time ago by a German firm. I recently placed that keyboard on one of the shelving units I previously assembled in my workshop to get a better understanding of its relationship to the evolving design of a new pipe organ I intend to build as I work on other projects.

I think that every small shop owner must make decisions about what he or she can realistically build given resources available, and what should be jobbed out to another individual or firm. With respect to the organ, I find it unrealistic to gather the equipment needed to build either keyboards or metal organ pipes when there are others out there who can provide these items built to my standard and specifications just as I would want them built if I were doing it myself.

I recently computer modeled the 53-note keyboard in solids so that I can incorporate its design into new organ design assemblies. It in fact, was originally modeled in two-dimensions using AutoCad. Placing the keyboard on a shelving unit in my workshop allows me to visualize different organ design arrangements with regard to the minimalist concept I introduced in my last entry based on a reductionist approach, summed up well by Antoine de Saint Exupery, who said that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove.

I may in the end modify that existing keyboard into something less than 53-notes, and I will occasionally play out a piece of music on it to see just how few notes would actually be required to perform something within the reasonable limitations of my new organ design. I made a recording some time ago of a short choral number on one of the church organs I built using just two of its stops and playing it down one octave, and discovered a unique and wonderful interpretation of that number even with the bass octave removed.

A short recording with two stops, less notes, and a new sound. Something to drive this project forward in fact.