Reference Material
Planning An Organ In Installments
Is it reasonable to get an organ in installments?
Yes, especially if preparations are made for the additions when the organ is first built.
General Guidelines
- Provide for emotional satisfaction and for essential musical requirements in the first installment. Otherwise, people will lose interest in the organ. Lay persons expect impact from a pipe organ. It is better to omit high-pitch voices and soft voices than to omit bass voices and dramatic voices such as Trumpets.
- Make omissions and preparations obvious, especially in a visual sense. Omit an entire department. It is better to have an entire set of keys mute so that anyone can see that those keys do nothing.
- Do not engrave the stopkeys for "prepared" voices. Leave them obviously blank.
- Be sure the first installment is not irritating.
If an organ is too soft, the organist will use high-pitched voices too often in an attempt to compensate for the softness. The congregation will be annoyed that the organ sounds too bright.
Planning an electric-action organ for future additions
Modern windchests and control circuitry can be added to very easily.
- Plan from the beginning what the additions will be.
- Allow space for the future pipes.
- From the beginning, put blank stop controls for the future additions in the console.
Planning a mechanical-action (tracker) organ for future additions
- Plan from the beginning what the additions will be.
- Allow space for the future pipes.
- From the beginning, put blank stop controls for the future additions in the console.
- Strategize the growth process by choosing one of the following:
- Omit an entire department.
- Now: console for 2 manuals and Pedal. Pipes and chest for only the Swell and Pedal.
- Later: add Great pipes and chests.
- Omit most of the Pedal.
- Now: complete Swell and Great, but only one electric-action Pedal stop.
- Later: add mechanical-action Pedal.
- Omit some voices in each department.
- This choice is dangerous, because the omissions may not be apparent to lay persons.
Is it reasonable to move an organ to a new building?
Yes.
If there is a possibility that an organ will be moved, do 2 things:
- Be sure the architect works with the organbuilder in designing the new place, especially regarding space, acoustics, location of organ, heating/cooling, relationship between organ and choir.
- When the organ is first built, use pipes large enough for the second location. Large pipes, even if they must be voiced softly for the first location, sound better than small pipes which are later made louder for the second location.
Revised 11/14/96
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