In the wind...

Abstract 

Whether mechanical organ actions allow organists to control the way in which they move the key and thus influence the transients has been discussed for many decades, and this is often given as their main advantage. However, some physical characteristics of mechanical actions, notably pluck, make it difficult for the player to control the key movement and thus vary the transient. This project looks primarily at how organists use rhythm and timing to play expressively, but also provides some evidence about whether transient variation is significant. Rhythmic variation can be through the use of deliberate “figures”, or the player may be unaware that they are making such variations. These variations in style lead to clear groupings of the pressure rise profile under the pipe and thus limit the amount of transient control possible. This is supported by informal listening tests. It also considers other factors that might lead to transient variation that are outside the player’s direct control.

Introduction 

This paper presents results from a project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council at the University of Edinburgh and is based on papers presented at ISMA 2010 (International Symposium on Musical Acoustics) in Australia¹ and Acoustics 2012 in Nantes.²  The organ has been described as a “dangerously inexpressive” musical instrument.³ The project set out to investigate the extent to which organists use rhythm and timing to achieve expression on mechanical action pipe organs rather than varying the transient by the way in which they move the key, although it inevitably also considered the latter. Transient control is widely considered a basic factor of organ playing but this is not universal, and a number of prominent organists and builders, such as Robert Noehren,⁴ disagree. However, there is little published research about this or whether other mechanisms may be important for expressive organ playing. 

This project originally started because  of the construction of a number of large organs in the UK that have dual mechanical and electric actions. The curators of these organs reported that the mechanical consoles were hardly ever used, suggesting that any advantage was not overwhelming. It also implied that there may be significant unnecessary expenditure and also the possibility that either or both of the actions were compromised. 

The PhD work that preceded this project concluded that players did not vary the way in which they moved the key to the extent that they thought they did.⁵

Background 

The bar (groove) and slider windchest has existed more or less unchanged for some 600 years even down to the materials generally used. 

The one characteristic that defines the nature of the touch of a mechanical pipe organ action is pluck (being analogous with the feel of the plectrum plucking the string of a harpsichord. It is also called “top resistance”). Pluck is caused by the pressure difference across the closed pallet (H) in Figure 1, which is a modification of an illustration by Audsley of a cross section of a bar and slider windchest.⁶ The bar is the channel on which all the pipes for one note are planted. The sliders (S) are movable strips, traditionally of wood, that determine which ranks of pipes receive air from the groove, by lining up holes in the slider with corresponding holes on the top of the groove. They move perpendicularly to the plane of the diagram. With the pallet closed, the pallet box (ABDH) contains pressurized air whereas the groove contains air at atmospheric pressure. The net force of the pressurized air on the bottom of the pallet has to be overcome in order for the pallet to start opening. As soon as the pallet starts opening as the tracker (attached to N) moves downwards, the pressures on either side of the pallet start to equalize and the additional force reduces very quickly (Figure 3). The feeling has been likened to pushing a finger through a thin layer of ice. 

When a note is not sounding, the pallet is kept closed by the force exerted by the pallet spring (G) and the air pressure  against its lower surface. As a force is applied to the key, the various action components bend (key levers, backfalls), twist (rollers), stretch (trackers) and compress (cloth bushes), etc., until sufficient energy is stored to overcome the force keeping the pallet shut. Figure 2 shows a 200g key weight on a key of the model organ in Edinburgh just before the pluck point, with the pallet still closed. The key is depressed by about 40% of its total travel. Any further movement will result in the pallet immediately opening by a similar amount before the key has moved significantly further—the pallet “catches up” with the rest of the action. 

The need to keep the playing force and repetition rate within acceptable limits means that the action can never be made completely rigid, and it will always act like a spring to some extent. The basic characteristics of the movement of a key through to the sounding of the pipe are illustrated graphically in Figure 3. 

The low frequency variation in the pressure at the beginning of the note is due to the delay of the pressure regulator, described more fully later, and the high-frequency component throughout is due to the pipe feeding back into the groove. The most important features of Figure 3 are: 

• The key moves a significant distance before the pallet starts to open and catches up with the rest of the action ~ 40% 

• The key slows down due to the increasing resistance as the action flexes (rollers twisting, washers compressing, levers bending, etc.) 

• As the resistance due to pluck is overcome, the key increases in speed of movement, as it is not possible to reduce the force being applied by the finger in the time available 

• The air pressure in the groove starts to rise at the same time as the pallet starts to open 

• The force applied to the key increases until just after the pluck point, when it reduces, although not suddenly. This is probably due to the airflow through the pallet opening applying a closing force to the pallet 

• The force increases suddenly as the key hits the key bed 

• The air pressure reaches a peak early  in the pallet movement (after about 45% pallet travel) 

• The pallet starts to open at about 40% of key travel and the pressure in the groove reaches a maximum at about 57% key travel. This is the only part of the key movement that could affect the transient, but during this movement the  pallet is out of control of the key because  it is still catching up with it 

• There is a delay before the pipe starts to speak 

• The key is on the key bed and the pallet is fully open before the pipe has reached stable speech 

• There is a delay before the pallet starts to close when the key is released (probably due to friction) 

• Later in the release movement the pallet starts to close in advance of the key movement (due to air pressure) 

• The pallet is firmly seated before the key has returned to its rest position (in this case the key has 23% travel to go) 

• The sound envelope does not start to diminish until the point at which the pallet closes 

• During the key release, the force is gradually reduced but the key does not start returning until the force due to the  pallet spring is greater than the force applied by the finger 

• There is slight increase in force as the pallet “snaps” shut due to the flow of air through the opening. This helps to reduce leaks around the closed pallet, but would also make it very difficult to control the pallet in the final stage
of travel. 

The time of travel of the pallet from starting to open to fully open is typically  around 30ms (0.03 seconds). Reaction times in sporting events are generally around a best of 100ms.⁷ This implies that the player is unlikely to be able to respond to pluck and reduce the force being applied by the finger. 

These effects were noted in every organ measured, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the size and rigidity of the action and the magnitude of pluck, and even on a light, suspended action the effect is significant. 

Initial work

Some tests were carried out with the University of Edinburgh organist, Dr. John Kitchen, playing the 1978 Ahrend organ in the Reid Concert Hall. This has a very “light” suspended action (50g key force, 50g pluck, Hauptwerk, middle C Principal). In the first exercise he played an improvised theme and was then asked to repeat it, varying nothing but the speed of key movement. The measurements of the key movements are shown in Figure 4, in which the curves are superimposed on the main part of the key movement rather than the pluck point.⁸ Kitchen felt that he had moved the key “five times faster” the second time (black curve) and changed nothing else. In fact, the time from the key starting to move to hitting the key bed in the fast note was about half the length of the slow note, with all of the difference at the beginning. Figure 4 does not show that the overall tempo was also faster with the fast key movement, but it can clearly be seen that the fast attack has resulted in a significantly shorter note. Even on this relatively rigid action, the effect of pluck is apparent at the beginning of the key movement at about 0.8mm key travel. 

In the next exercise Kitchen tried to accent a note by “hitting it harder.” Figure 5 shows that again with the non-accented movement the effect of the flexibility of the action is apparent, but the majority of the movement is very similar in both cases. 

In the two previous examples, the main part of the key movement has been superimposed. Since the relative timing of the pluck point varies, a further test was designed to indicate the point at which the player perceived the note to start. He was asked to play in the two manners from Figure 4 one octave apart simultaneously. Figure 6 shows the two notes to the same time reference and indicates that the player perceived the start of the note to be the point at which the key started to move. This introduces a timing difference between the two notes of approximately 30ms as the pipes will not start to speak until after the pluck point at a displacement of approximately 10% of travel. The “slow” note will sound after the “fast” note and is also slightly longer by about 10ms. The differences between the shapes of the beginnings of the key movements are discussed later. It is interesting that the notes do not end simultaneously. 

A further exercise was carried out at the Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh (Frobenius 1998, IIP20). A simple visual examination (confirmed by informal listening tests) shows that distinctly different key movements are not reflected in the sound profiles. Figure 7 represents a “fast” attack and Figure 8 represents a “slow” attack as perceived by the player. As observed throughout, the “slow” attack also resulted in a longer note. 

Rhetorical figures 

A frequent comment by organists was that even if it were possible to vary the way that they moved the key at the start of a piece of music, it was not possible to maintain these variations throughout a piece. Dr. Joel Speerstra is studying rhetorical figures at the University of Göteborg, based on his research into clavichord technique. These are physical gestures that can be maintained throughout a performance and are based on rhetorical figures in German baroque music described by Dietrich Bartel.⁹ 

Examples of Speerstra’s figures are listed below with his descriptions,¹⁰ along with graphs of some of these showing the key movements, pallet movements, pressure rise in the groove, and sound recordings. The measurements taken showed that phrasings closely followed the descriptions given, and some examples are shown below. 

Transitus (Figure 9) 

“You are standing a certain amount of the weight of your arm on a stiffened finger with a relaxed elbow, and moving from the first finger to the second without completely engaging the muscles of your arm that would lift it off the keyboard. This technique makes it easy to control heavy actions, and you would expect this kind of paired fingering to have fast attacks for both notes and a longer first and third note a shorter second and fourth note and, hopefully, as slow a release as possible after the second and fourth note.” 

The releases of the second and fourth notes are not significantly different from the others. 

Suspiratio (Figure 10) 

“It is a figure that starts with a rest followed by three notes, so the first note is now an upbeat, and I would expect that there is a faster release after the first note, and the second and third would form a pair much like the first and second in the transitus example.” 

Portato (Figure 11) 

“Portato [uses] separated notes but with slower attacks and releases.” 

To these can be added more familiar styles such as legato and staccato, although these may benefit from being more clearly defined. Whenever players were asked to play fast attacks, they also played shorter notes. 

Measurements were made of Speerstra playing in these styles on the North German organ in the Örgryte Church in Göteborg (built in the style of Arp Schnitger by the Göteborg Organ Art Centre [GOArt] as a research instrument). The key movement (middle C, D, E, F), pallet movement (C, D) and pressure in the groove of middle C (measured by removing the Principal 8′ pipe) were measured, as well as sound recordings being made. All magnitudes are to an arbitrary scale. 

Figure 12 shows all of the key movements and pressure profiles for the rhetorical figures described above. Despite the low number of data points, it can be seen that there are two groups of key movements and two very close groups of pressure rise profiles. The graph has been produced to show the two groups superimposed within the group but separated between the groups. If the player perceives the note starting at the point at which the key starts moving, there will also be time differences between the start of the notes as in Figure 6 above. There is an initial pressure drop in the “faster” group. Full listening tests have not been carried out, but initial tests across a wide range of musical levels did not indicate consistent differences in flue pipe transient between styles, although highly trained ears will detect subtle changes that others may not be able to. Reed pipes were not included in this study, although clear control of the final transient of some of the solo reeds was apparent when played in isolation. 

This organ is unbushed and there is a considerable range of noise response from the action—from almost silent to distinctly audible in the church, depending on the performer’s technique. This noise can mask the attack transient of the pipe, particularly close to the console. This issue was also encountered later in Rochester, and Speerstra considers that playing in a way that causes excessive noise is both undesirable and avoidable. John Kitchen also stated that he played in a style that minimizes the action noise on the Ahrend organ in Edinburgh. This avoidance of excessive action noise may limit variations in key and thus pallet movements. Excessive noise on key release may also mask the release transient. 

An example from each group is shown in the following graphs. Figure 13 illustrates an example from Group 1 and shows a relatively gradual start of the key movement, the first in the sequence. The accent is on the second note of the sequence.

Figure 14 shows a comparable note from Group 2. The key initially accelerates quickly and shows a distinctly different form of movement from Figure 13. The accent is on this note. 

The initial movement of the key is fundamentally different, and tests on the model at Edinburgh indicate that in the case of the portato playing style, the finger was in contact with the key at the start of the movement, whereas in the transitus example, the finger started its movement from above the key and thus was moving with significant speed when it contacted the key, causing a much greater acceleration of the key. 

Measurements were also made on the copy of the Casparini organ of 1776 from Vilnius, Lithuania, built by GOArt in Christ Church, Rochester, New York, for the Eastman School of Music (ESM). A number of doctoral organ students played in styles of their choice that they considered resulted in variations of expression, including different transients. They used their own descriptions of these styles; some of these were long and descriptive and cannot be incorporated onto the graphs. The pressure was measured directly under the pipe foot using a device made by the ESM organ technician Rob Kerner, and is not directly comparable with the previous example. The groupings of pressure rise profile have again been superimposed to highlight the similarities, and the time scale does not represent a constant start point of the note. All recordings are of the same theme used in the previous exercise.

Figure 15 shows the measurements from the first student, CP. There appear to be three distinct groups. The initial gradient of the first group shows some variation, but again, initial listening tests did not consistently identify differences even between the two extremes. The other two groups are more closely matched. It is not clear why there is a pressure reversal in group 2. Note again the initial pressure drop in group 3 and the extreme pressure variation. It is not yet clear what differentiates group 3 from the others. There were significant variations in the overall tempo, length of individual notes, relative lengths of adjacent notes, and overlap of notes.

The student’s description of each of the styles is shown in the following tables:

Table 1. Descriptions of playing styles in Group One, Figure 15. Student CP

259	Classical Mendelssohn
260	Romantic pp
262	Romantic pp
265	Baroque, two beats per measure
269	Bach 1st inversion suspiratio
270	Legato

Table 2. Descriptions of playing styles in Group Two, Figure 15. Student CP

256	One accent per measure
257	One accent per measure
258	Classical Mendelssohn
267	Baroque, one beat per measure
268	Baroque, two beats per measure
271	Harmonized

Table 3. Descriptions of playing styles in Group Three, Figure 15. Student CP

263	Virtuosic light ff
264	Virtuosic light ff

Two styles, 265 and 268—Baroque two beats per measure, and 258 and 259—Classical Mendelssohn, fall into both groups one and two, implying a fundamental difference between the two finger movements.

The key movements of the two extreme styles, Romantic pp and Virtuosic light ff, are shown on page 26. Figure 16 shows Romantic pp (262).

Figure 17 shows “Virtuosic Light ff” (263) to the same scale. It is unnecessary to state that the overall tempo is different.

Figure 18 shows the measurements of the first note in each sequence from student LG. Here there are two groups for the Principal 8′ alone, corresponding with groups one and two of CP’s playing. The measurements from the plenum are not readily distinguishable from the Principal alone. 

The descriptions of the styles are:

Table 4. Descriptions of playing styles in Group One, Figure 18. Student LG

274	Normal
277	Weight on 2nd
278	Weight on 2nd
283	Plenum equal accents
284	Plenum accent on 1st of pair
285	Plenum accent on 1st of pair
286	As 285 but faster tempo

Three of these are played on the plenum and not a single stop as with the others.

Table 5. Descriptions of playing styles in Group Two, Figure 18. Student LG

273	Normal
275	Paired notes with more weight on 1st
276	As 275
280	Weight on 2nd, 3rd and 4th finger
281	As 280
287	Fast, stronger on 1st

All of the pallet movements are shown in Figure 19. There is little difference in the initial movement, even though there were much wider variations in the key movements (Figures 20–22). There is very little difference in the key releases, but with two exceptions. In the case of examples 277 and 278, “Weight on 2nd” (marked with X on graph 17), there was a distinct elongation of the pre-pluck part of the key movement and the key, and thus the pallet did not reach full travel. As the pallet stopped at exactly the same point in each case (the key stopped at very slightly different points), it seems probable that there was high friction at this point. The attacks of these two key movements produced a shallower gradient at the start of the pressure rise, although informal listening tests did not indicate that this variation was sufficient to produce an audible difference with the single stop used in this test. The key and pallet movements for one of these are shown in Figure 20. The two “Normal” playings are split between the two groups, which again suggests a very distinct difference between them.

The curves are in sequence of time of closing and are from left to right, using the numbers in Tables 4 and 5, 278, 277, 287, 280, 274, 273, 286, 276, 281, 284, 285, 283. The consistency in speed of closure is worthy of note. The two curves at P are for the plenum and not a single pipe. It is possible that two non-accented notes marked with X would have closed similarly to the others had the pallet not stopped part way. There is a wide variation in the length of the notes and the overlap with following notes.

Two of the plenum notes in Figure 19 are marked with P at the point at which they cross. One of them shows a slower release of the pallet, whereas the other is similar to the rest of the movements. The key and pallet movements of the slower release are shown in Figure 21. This clearly shows that the pallet shuts before the key is fully released as shown in Figure 3. The key movement slows down when the pallet is no longer being pulled shut by the airflow round it.

Figure 22 is an example of a typical key and pallet movement, no. 275 “Paired notes with more weight on 1st.” Note that in all of Figures 20–22 the pallet does not start closing until after the key has started moving, indicating a degree of friction in the action.

Comparing Figure 20 with Figure 22, the weak note in Figure 20 has resulted in an extended pre-pluck movement of the key compared with the strong note in Figure 22. This is not reflected in the pallet movements to the same extent and, as discussed above, may result in timing differences in the sounding of the pipe if the player perceives the note as starting when the key starts to move.

All of the six student subjects demonstrated significant groupings of pressure along the lines of the examples shown above.

Key release 

Throughout this project, players have stated that even if there may be reasons why the attack may be difficult to control, it is possible to control the release accurately. There seems little evidence that this is actually the case.

While it is possible to control the initial movement of the key during the release stage because there are no similar effects to pluck, this does not necessarily allow for control of the ending transient. In the same way that the pressure in the pipe foot reaches its peak very early in the pallet opening it starts to reduce very late in the pallet closure. The corollary of pluck is felt as the airflow around the nearly closed pallet starts to “suck” it shut. Due to the flexibility in the action, the pallet closes before the key has returned to its rest position. Also, because the key force reduces due to this effect it is very difficult for the player to control the last part of the key release.

Some key releases were recorded at Göteborg. A fast release is shown in Figure 23 and a slow release in Figure 24. The blue line is the key movement and the pink line the sound recording.

By editing the steady part of the slow movement out to make the notes the same length just leaving the transients, informal listening teats confirmed that there is no difference in the sound of the transients. The difference between the notes is that the slow release results in a longer note.

Pressure changes in the wind system

In most organs the pressure regulator is remote from the windchest. Any variation in the air supply, such as when a note is sounded, will not be immediately compensated for. There will therefore be an overall pressure reduction when a note is started and a pressure increase when it is released. This was investigated by Arvidsson and Bergsten at GOArt in 2009.¹¹ This has been extended at Edinburgh to consider how these pressure waves in the wind system might affect pipe speech. Figure 25 shows a single note being played, and it can clearly be seen that the pressure in the pallet box reduces as the pallet opens, oscillates for a few cycles, and then steadies. This is reflected in the pressure measured under the pipe foot and also in the sound envelope of the pipe speech. When the pallet closes there is a corresponding increase in pressure. The variations shown here are around 35% of the steady pressure. These measurements were made on the model organ in Edinburgh and, while the effect will occur in any organ, the magnitude of these effects may be greater than normally encountered. A schwimmer system will reduce these effects.

Figure 26 shows the effect of playing a note before the note being measured. The pipe of the first note, E, was removed so that its sound did not interfere with that of the pipe being investigated. It can be seen that the effect of the release of the first note and of the attack of the second, F, have resulted in an even greater variation in the pressure throughout the wind system, and this is reflected in the outline of the sound recording. Listening tests have not been carried out, but this may lead to an audible difference in the transient of the second pipe.

Many notes being played together will produce large and random pressure variations in the wind system. These effects are also apparent with electric actions.¹²

It should also be noted that since pluck is directly related to the pressure in the pallet box, it will vary in proportion to it. It is thus possible that a momentary change in the magnitude of pluck could influence the time at which a key is depressed—especially if the player is already applying some force to the key.

Length of transient

In Figures 27 and 28, played on the ca. 1770 Italian organ in the Museum of Art, Rochester, New York, the pipe is slow to speak and starts at the octave and then breaks back to the fundamental. 

If a short note is played, as when the player is asked to make a “fast” attack, most of the pipe speech will be at the octave and that is what the listener perceives as the pitch of the note.  If a longer note is played, most of the pipe speech will be at the fundamental, and that is what the listener will hear. If the player is expecting a variation in transient, he may associate the different perceived sounds with what he believes are different key movements. In Figure 27, there is also evidence of initial mechanical noise. Note again that the nature of the attack has been reflected in the length of the note.

Conclusion

There is clear evidence that rhythm and timing are critical aspects of organ playing. In some cases they are the result of deliberate and systematic efforts by the player, as in the use of rhetorical figures, and in others the players may be unaware that they are making variations. Analysis of the various performances of the same sequence of notes showed wide variations in overall tempo, relative lengths of notes, and degree of overlap of notes, all of which will affect how it sounds to the listener. These and some other effects like variations of pressure in the wind system are independent of the type of action.

There is some evidence that transient control is difficult to achieve by the inherent design of the mechanical bar and slider windchest. Variations in key and thus, to some extent, pallet movement cause the pressure rise in the pipe foot to fall into distinct groups, the reason for which is still under investigation but would appear to be due to whether the finger starts in contact with the key or is already moving from above the key when it starts the note. Whether these differences result in audible changes is not clear and is likely to vary from organ to organ, and it is necessary to carry out properly controlled listening tests. Action noise may be a factor in informal listening tests. The player cannot react to pluck and any variations in key movement are predetermined.

Many of the characteristics of the bar and slider windchest work against transient control and this may have been one of its advantages—the aiding of clean consistent attacks due to the rapid opening of the pallet when pluck is overcome, but there is clear empirical evidence that players like mechanical actions. The immediate reason for this may be that it provides good tactile feedback. The organist can apply a certain force to the key in the certain knowledge that the note will not sound, but the force reduces to a comfortable level when the key has been depressed. It may also help reduce the risk of accidentally sounding a note if an adjacent key is brushed. 

It is unlikely that the original builders of the first windchests applied theoretical fluid dynamics to the design, and other reasons for its endurance may include:

• Ease of construction

• Reliability

• Ease of repair

• Snap closing of the pallet to give a good seal.

Every organ is different and this project has been limited by the instruments available. While this work may suggest that direct transient control is difficult, this may not be the case on instruments with different characteristics. There are, however, other mechanisms in play that may explain different perceptions of the sound.

This project is continuing and, with the cooperation of our colleagues around the world, it is expected that a clearer understanding of these important issues will emerge. 

Acknowledgements

My thanks to the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Professor Murray Campbell and Dr. John Kitchen at Edinburgh, the staff and students of GOArt and the Eastman School of Music, Joel Speerstra for his very helpful review of this article, Dr. Judit Angster and Professor Andras Miklos, Laurence Libin, John Bailey of Bishop and Sons in Ipswich, David Wylde of Henry Willis and Sons in Liverpool, and many others.

Notes

1. Alan Woolley, Mechanical Pipe Organ Actions and why Expression is Achieved with Rhythmic Variation Rather than Transient Control (Proceedings of ISMA, Sydney and Katoomba, 2010), paper number 2.

2. Alan Woolley, How Mechanical Pipe Organ Actions Work Against Transient Control (Proceedings of Acoustics 2012, SFA, Nantes, 2012), paper number 410, pp. 1969–1974.

3. Stephen Bicknell, “Raising the Tone,” Choir and Organ (March/April 1997), pp. 14–15.

4. Robert Noehren, An Organist’s Reader (Michigan: Harmonie Park Press, 1999), p. 161.

5. Alan Woolley, The Physical Characteristics of Mechanical Pipe Organ Actions and how they Affect Musical Performance (PhD Thesis, University of Edinburgh 2006).

6. George Ashdown Audsley, The Art of Organ Building (Mineola: Dover, 1965 republication of 1905 edition, Dodd, Mead & Co.), p. 215.

7. International Amateur Athletic Association, Rulebook, Chapter 5, Rule 161.2.

8. Alan Woolley, “Can the Organist Control Pallet Movement in a Mechanical Action?” (Journal of American Organbuilding, December 2006), pp. 4–8. 

9. Dietrich Bartel, Musica Poetica: Musical-Rhetorical Figures In German Baroque Music (University of Nebraska Press, 1997), pp. 57–89.

10. Discussion with author.

11. Mats Arvidsson and Carl Johan Bergsten, Wind system measurements in the Craighead Saunders organ (GOArt 2009), unpublished.

12. Alan Woolley, Transient variation in mechanical and electric action pipe organs (Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustical Society of America, Montreal June 2013, Volume 19), Paper no 4aMU3.

 

A church musician’s perspective on the Boston Marathon bombings

 

On April 15th, tragedy marred the famed Boston Marathon when two bombs went off at the finish line. Three people were killed and 260 persons injured. Over the next week the nation was transfixed by news of the investigation and manhunt that culminated in the unprecedented lock-down of a major metropolitan area. Many still struggle to make sense of these terrible events. Richard Webster, director of music and organist of Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston, ran the Boston Marathon, completing the race moments before the blasts. His story provides a compelling context for how church musicians can respond to disaster with hope. 

Jason Overall: What is your background as a runner?

Richard Webster: I started running around 1980 when I quit smoking. At first I couldn’t run around the block without collapsing in a heap, but I found running to be a cleansing distraction from nicotine craving. Eventually, regular running became a habit. I completed my first marathon in 1995 at age 43. I had read a book on marathon training and followed its instructions. As race day approached, I was not overly confident that I could run 26 miles, but I did it. Crossing the finish line was like walking through the gates of heaven. I was hooked. The race I ran this year in Boston was my 25th marathon. With adequate training, anyone can run a marathon. Runners come in all shapes and sizes. 

How often do you run marathons?

Usually two a year—Chicago in October and Boston in April. I run Chicago in order to qualify for Boston, an elite race open to those who have run a previous marathon under a certain time, based on your age. I turned 60 just prior to the 2012 Chicago race, which meant that my qualifying time for Boston went up by 10 minutes. As my husband says, “you don’t have to get faster, just older.” 

Have you found a spiritual dimension to running?

Absolutely. I empathize with those who call the great outdoors their “church.” Being in the glory of nature, even on a bad day, doing what God designed your body to do, is hard to top. If your body is the “temple of the Holy Spirit,” then exercise of any kind is basic housekeeping. There is a deep spiritual component to running. As Eric Liddel said in his Chariots of Fire sermon, “When I run, I feel God’s pleasure.” For me, running is meditation. As a composer, some of my best ideas result from a long run when the mind is receptive, empty. I never run with music, earbuds, or paraphernalia. I love the silence. My footfalls and the wind in my ears are music enough. 

What is a typical weekly schedule for your running?

I would love to run daily, but a church musician’s schedule is so wonky that some days it just doesn’t happen. If I put it in my calendar, like a rehearsal, then I’m more likely to do it. I try to run four to six times a week. A day or two off each week is good. Your body needs to rest, repair and restore itself. In the months leading up to a marathon, one long run a week (8 to 20 miles) is key.

Are there parallels between running and musicianship? Has your musicianship benefitted from running?

Exercise, especially the aerobic kind, increases blood flow. More blood through the brain improves concentration, something vital to musicians. Running has increased my stamina in general. This week I’ve been directing the Grand Rapids Choir of Men and Boys in recording sessions for a new CD. I stand for hours, waving my arms, doing all I can to help this fine choir achieve its best. I don’t tire. Being a distance runner steels you. It gives you endurance.

What were your expectations before this year’s Boston Marathon?

The best day of the entire year in Boston is Patriots’ Day, the third Monday in April, commemorating Boston’s role as the cradle of the Revolution. It’s the day of the Boston Marathon, the world’s oldest and most prestigious marathon, something our city is rightly proud of. As a state holiday, businesses and schools are closed. Everyone has the day off. From the starting line in Hopkinton to the finish line in Copley Square, throngs turns out to cheer the runners and enjoy the race. It’s a 26-mile long party. On Patriots’ Day Boston truly becomes that “city on a hill” for all the world to see. The energy, enthusiasm and electricity flowing back and forth between the runners and the fans is hard to describe. It’s like really good church. I find it to be incredibly spiritual.

I usually run marathons in costume. It’s more fun and it jazzes up the fans. Kids particularly love it. I’ve run as the Easter Bunny, Paul Revere, Abraham Lincoln (in 2009 for his 200th birthday), Robin, J. S. Bach (to raise funds for the Bach Week Festival in Chicago), Robin Hood, Cat in the Hat, and a bumble bee. This year, to raise funds for the Trinity Boston Foundation, we held a costume contest. “See Richard run . . . as an Angry Bird, the Pope, or Prince William.” Votes were cast by making contributions to the Foundation. Prince William won handily. The costume was handsome—a red military jacket and sash, à la Prince William on his wedding day. I had a framed photo of Kate Middleton dangling from my neck and wore a big crown so fans could see me coming. All in all, it was a heady mix of fun, adrenaline, and enthusiasm, and for a worthy cause.

Did you have any goals?

No. Unlike Chicago, which is a flat course, Boston is notoriously hilly. Heartbreak Hill is only one of many “ups and downs” in this race. A “personal best” in Boston is as elusive as the Holy Grail. I’m always happy just to finish. Last year’s race, when it was 88 degrees, I ran in 4:30. This year I lopped off nearly a half hour, finishing in 4:03. 

Runners, especially marathoners, rely on their fans to help get them through the race. I knew I’d see one of my choir members at Mile 11 in Natick. She was there with a banana, a swig of water and a hug. Mile 13 is the “Wellesley gauntlet,” with thousands of Wellesley College women hanging over the police barricade screaming and begging for kisses from runners. So inspiring. So fun. At Mile 19 a group of Trinity choir folks awaited me, near the beginning of Heartbreak Hill. One of my tenors jumped into the race. For the next two miles, he ran with me, sticking by my side until we had crested Heartbreak Hill. Thanks to Mark, I forgot about the agony of those two relentlessly uphill miles. A gaggle of friends had gathered at Coolidge Corner, Mile 23.5, cameras and iPhones poised. Their wild cheering jazzed me up so much that I ran the rest of the race. Usually the agony of the last 3–4 miles is so acute that I can’t run continuously. It’s more a mix of running, walking, and hobbling. Lots of runners resort to this toward the end. For me, this time was different. My Mile 26 was the second fastest mile of the entire race. Inexplicably, I just kept running and crossed the finish line several minutes before I should have. Was it the Holy Spirit? Coincidence? The fans? The costume? I don’t know. 

Did you have friends waiting for you at the finish line?

I did, but I didn’t know it. Just after finishing, I spotted one of my choristers and her father in the crowd in front of Old South Church. I went over to the barricade for a quick hug and chat. Soon after leaving them, the first explosion went off a half block away. I will never forget how loud it was. It doesn’t surprise me that some who were close to the blast suffered hearing damage. At this point you think, “Is this a stunt? Fireworks? Something electrical?” Utter bewilderment. When the second blast struck, further down Boylston Street, you knew something was terribly wrong. Suddenly, chaos was everywhere. Sirens. Medical personnel careening toward the scene with stretchers. Emergency vehicles appearing out of nowhere. Choirs of sirens. Race volunteers moving the finishers away from the scene. A cluster of us were standing around trying to figure out what was going on when another runner who had just crossed the finish line, his forehead bloody, staggered up to us. Choking on his words, he said, “I can’t believe I saw limbs lying in the street.” We began to cry. How could this be happening? As this group of strangers wept, race volunteers surrounded us, asking, “How can we help? Can we call a relative for you?” That was futile, of course. Cell phone service was completely down. In the face of evil, the impulse is to overwhelm it with kindness and compassion. People were desperate to find a way to help, to bring relief to the suffering. In the weeks following, this response did not abate. Boston has felt like the Kingdom of God. Goodness, gentleness, and generosity are everywhere. Traffic is less aggressive; crowding onto a rush hour subway more deferential. Our city responded by saying, “The last word will not be evil, but kindness and mercy.” 

Some days later, the same chorister and her father with whom I had spoken at the finish line on race day said to me, “You saved our lives. We had been standing where the first bomb went off, waiting to see you finish. When you crossed the finish line, we left to go find you. Had you not finished when you did, we would have still been standing at that spot.”

How do you make sense of that? Maybe God gave me what it took to run faster than usual in order to spare their lives. But what about those who were not spared? These are hard spiritual questions with no facile answers.

What elements of your spirituality or musicality have nourished you during this time?

It has been a difficult time at Trinity. Our church is near the finish line. For ten days, the Copley Square area was closed as a crime scene. No one could get near the church. We were in exile. Where would we worship the following Sunday? The Church of the Advent graciously invited us to join them. Liturgically, our two churches are famously different. The two congregations worshipping together would have been something to behold. Temple Israel also reached out to us, offering their beautiful, modern building in the Longwood Medical area. “Come and hold your services here,” they invited. Not only did these kind people open up their building, they demonstrated radical hospitality, laying on coffee hour, serving as ushers, directing us to the restrooms. The chief Rabbi publicly welcomed us. We celebrated the Eucharist before the Torah ark in the Jewish temple. Who would ever have thought? Their only request was that we not bring crosses into the building. Roughly 900 people worshipped in a space as un-Richardsonian Romanesque as one could imagine. With a choir of eighty, a grand piano and flute, we were good to go. There was a lightness, grace, and holiness to it all. The congregation belted the hymns as never before, much to the amazement of the Jews, who blogged about “how those Christians really sing!” No one there will ever forget that service. The psalm appointed for Good Shepherd Sunday was Psalm 23. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” What more needs to be said?

The Trinity choirs have been a unifying thread through these trials. The day after the attacks, a choir dad e-mailed, “My daughter insists that the Choristers go ahead with rehearsal today. She is adamant that they be together. If they can’t go to Trinity, then why not rehearse at Mr. Webster’s house?” A 10-year old gets it. When you’re the choir, you come together to do your job. You have a mission. Two days after the bombings, with the church still closed, our Wednesday Evensong morphed into an open-air service at the police barricade two blocks from the church. Colin Lynch led the choir, and clergy offered prayers for the healing of our city. Though our church building was closed, the community of faith carried on. Trinity finally reopened the following Wednesday. The first public service was Evensong with the Choristers. TV cameras rolled. It was another step in a painful, uncharted, redemptive journey that no one could have foreseen. 

At a time like this clichés are helpful because they convey truth. Life is precious. Life is a gift. It can be taken away or altered in an instant. Thank God for it every day, and tell those you love that you love them. Tell them often.

You express yourself so eloquently through your compositions. Can you envision responding to these events through your music?

I don’t know yet. Here’s another irony. The day before the race was a Sunday, known in Boston as Marathon Sunday. It’s a big day in the city churches, with scores of out-of-town runners on hand. At Trinity we bless the athletes during the services. I had composed a new anthem, Have you not known? Have you not heard? based on Isaiah 40, to be premiered that day. The text includes, “They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.” It had been commissioned by Stephen J. Hendrickson, a parishioner whose partner, David McCord, was about to run his first marathon. The energetic music weaves in the famous theme from Chariots of Fire. The Trinity Choir gave it a rousing first performance. Given the following day’s events, the piece has acquired a particular poignancy.

Are there other aspects of this that you would like to share?

There is no doubt that evil exists. We saw it in twelve horrifying seconds in Boston. But evil is everywhere, every day. Though there was injury and death on Patriots’ Day, there is violence in the streets of Boston, Chicago, Baghdad, and Damascus every day. We who claim the faith of Jesus are called to respond to the world’s brokenness passionately, with courage, mercy, and healing. 

Richard Webster, FRSCM, is director of music and organist at Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston. He is also music director of Chicago’s Bach Week Festival, and president of Advent Press (www.advent-press.com).

John Bishop

Valve jobs, ring jobs, and protection

Most faucets and spigots have rubber washers that act as gaskets. When you turn off a faucet, the washer is compressed, sealing the opening to the pipe and stopping the flow of water. If you turn faucets too hard when shutting off the water, you compress the washer more than necessary—not too big a deal, except the washer will squish and wear out more quickly.

The smooth operation of your automobile’s engine is all about controlling leaks. Piston rings, which are metal washers that seal the pistons against the cylinder walls, isolate the combustion chamber above the pistons from the lubrication of the piston rods and crankshaft. When the rings fail, the oil from below splashes up into the combustion, and now you’re “burning oil.” That’s what’s going on when excessive black and stinky smoke is coming out of your tailpipe. You need a ring job.

Above that combustion chamber are the valves that open to allow the air/fuel mixture from the carburetor or injector in to be ignited by the spark plug, and those that open to allow the exhaust to escape after the cylinder fires. (I know, I know, you diesel guys are waving your arms in the air, saying “OO, OO, OO . . . ” We’ll talk about diesel combustion another day.)

The valves are operated by the camshaft, which is also lubricated by the engine oil. If the valves leak, fuel and exhaust can trade places, and the engine’s operation gets screwed up. You need a valve job.

Perhaps you’ve had car trouble caused by a worn timing belt. That belt turns the camshaft at just the right ratio to the engine’s revolutions, so that intake valves open, letting in the fuel before the spark plug ignites it, and exhaust valves open after the firing, letting the exhaust out. My car’s engine has eight cylinders, and at highway speed, runs at about 2,500 revolutions per minute, which is 41.6 revolutions a second. All eight cylinders fire with each revolution, so there are 332.8 valve openings (and closings) each second. That’s cutting things pretty close. But we sure expect that engine to start every time, and to run like a clock hour after hour. Say you’re driving three and a half hours from New York to Boston. To get you there, you’re asking for 4,193,280 precisely timed valve repetitions. It’s a wonder it works at all.

 

It’s all about the holes.

I like to describe the art of organ building as knowing where to put the holes. Organbuilding workshops include immense collections of drill bits. My set of multi-spurs goes from half-inch to three-inches. They graduate in 64ths up to one inch, 32nds up to one-and-a-half, 16ths to two-and-a-half, and 8ths up to three inches. I have two sets of “numbered” bits (1-60 and 1-80), one of twist drills from 1/16 to one-inch, graduated by 64ths, and one set of “lettered” bits (A–Z).

If you’re interested in knowing more about those sets, follow this link: www.engineersedge.com/drill_sizes.html. You’ll find a chart that shows the numbered, lettered, and fractional sizes compared to ten-thousands of an inch: #80 is .0135″, #1 is .228″, just under ¼″ (which is .250). If you have all three sets, and mine are all packed in one big drill index, you’re covered up to nearly half an inch in tiny graduations. 

Why so fussy? Say you’re building tracker action parts, and you’re going to use #10 (B&S Gauge) phosphor bronze wire (.1018) as a common axle. You want the axle to be tight enough so there’s minimal slop (no one likes a rattly action), but loose enough for reliable free movement. A #38 drill bit is .1015 B&S Gauge—too tight by 3/1000s. Next one bigger is #37, .1040″. That’s a margin of 22/1000s, the closest I can get with my sets of bits.

 

And there are lots of holes.

Lots of the holes in our organs allow the passage of wind pressure. In the Pitman windchests found in most electro-pneumatic organs, there are toe-holes that the pipes sit on and rackboard holes that support them upright. There are holes that serve as seats for primary and secondary valves. There are channels bored in the walls of the chests to allow the exhausting of pouches and there are exhaust ports in the magnets. All of those holes, except in the rackboards, have valves pressed against them to stop the flow of air. 

Let’s take that a step further. A fifty-stop organ has over 3,000 pipes. That’s 3,000 pipe valves. If that organ has seven manual windchests (two in the Great, two in the Swell, two in the Choir, and one in the Solo), that’s 427 primary valves, 427 secondary valves, and 427 magnet exhaust ports, in addition to the pipe valves. There’s one Pitman chest in the Pedal (Spitz Flute 8′, Gedackt 8′, Chorale Bass 4′, Rauschpfeife III) with 32 of each. And there are three independent unit chests in the Pedal with 56 of each. Oh, wait. I forgot the stop actions, 50 times 3. And the expression motors, eight stages each, 16 times 3. And two tremolos . . . That’s 9,162 valves. Not counting the expressions and tremolos, every one of those valves can cause a cipher (when a stop action ciphers, you can’t turn the stop off). 

How many notes do you play on a Sunday morning? The Doxology has 32 four-part chords. That’s 128 notes. If you play it using 25 stops, that’s 3,200 notes, just for the Doxology! Are you playing that Widor Toccata for the postlude? There are 126 notes in the first measure. Using 25 stops? That’s 3,150 notes in the first measure! There are 61 measures. At 3,150 notes per measure, that’s 192,150 to finish the piece. (I haven’t counted the pedal part, and while the last three measures have big loud notes, there aren’t that many.) Using this math, you might be playing four or five hundred thousand notes in a busy service. And remember, in those Pitman chests, four valves operate for each note (magnet, primary, secondary, pipe valve), which means it takes 12,800 valve openings to play the Doxology, and 768,600 for the Widor. Let’s take a guess. With four hymns, some service music, an anthem or two, plus prelude and postlude, you might play 1,750,000 valves on a Sunday. (Lots more if your organ still has the original electro-pneumatic switching machines.) No ciphers today? Organ did pretty good. It’s a wonder it works at all.

Next time the personnel committee sits you down for a performance review, be sure to point out that you play 500,000 notes each Sunday morning.

 

Dust devils

Pull a couch away from the wall and you’ll find a herd of dust bunnies. Messy, but innocent enough, unless someone in your household is allergic to dust. But dust is a real enemy of the pipe organ. Fire is bad, water is bad, vandalism is bad, but dust is the evil lurker that attacks when you least expect it. A fleck of sawdust coming loose inside a windchest, left from when the organ was built, finds its way onto a pipe valve, and you’ve got a cipher.

Imagine this ordinary day in the life of a church. The organist is practicing, and the custodian is cleaning up in the basement. Airborne dust is sucked through the intake of the organ blower, and millions of potential cipher-causing particles waft through the wind ducts, through the reservoirs, and into the windchests, there to lurk until the last measure of the Processional March of the wedding of the daughter of the Chair of the Board of Trustees—whose family gave the money for the new organ. One pesky fleck hops onto the armature of the magnet of “D” (#39) of the Trompette-en-Chamade, and the last of Jeremiah’s notes continues into oblivion. (Ciphers never happen in the Aeoline when no one is around!)

I’m thinking about valves—how they work, what they do, what are their tolerances, and how many times they repeat to accomplish what we expect—because I was recently asked to provide an estimate for the cost of covering and protection of a large pipe organ during a massive renovation of the interior of a church building. There are organ cases on either side of the huge west window, and another big organ chamber in the front of the church, forming the corner between transept and chancel. There are lots of mixtures, and plenty of reeds—and with something like 3,500 pipes, a slew of valves.

The stained-glass west window will be removed for restoration, and the general contractor will construct a weather-tight box to close the hole. That’ll be quite a disturbance for the organ, with its Trompette-en-Chamade and mixture choruses. The plaster walls will be sanded and painted. The wooden ceiling with its complex system of trusses and beams will be cleaned and refinished. The entire nave, transept, and chancel will be filled with scaffolding, complete with a “full deck” 40 feet up, which will serve as a platform for all that work on the ceiling.

To properly protect a pipe organ against all that, removing the pipes, taping over the toeholes, and covering the windchests with hardboard and plastic is an important precaution. That means that all those little valves cannot be exposed to the dust and disturbance around the organ. To do that, you have to vacuum the chest surfaces, and organbuilders know how to do that without shoveling dust directly into the pipe holes.

The pipes that are enclosed in an expression chamber can be left in place if you disconnect the shutters, and seal the shutters closed with gaffer’s tape and plastic. Even, then, all the reeds should be removed, packed, and safely stored. 

The blower is the best way for foreign stuff to get inside the guts of the organ. It’s essential to prepare the organ blower for the building renovation. Wrap the blower’s air intake securely with plastic and heavy tape. Those 42-gallon “contractor” trash bags are great for this. And cut the power to the blower motor by closing circuit breakers, to be sure that it cannot be inadvertently started. Before you put the blower back into service, give the room a good cleaning, and allow a day or two for the dust to settle before you run the blower. It’s a simple precaution, but really important.

 

§

 

It’s a lot of work to do all this to a big pipe organ. And it’s a lot more work to put it all back together and tune it. For the same amount of money you could buy a brand-new Steinway Concert Grand piano if it’s a big organ. But if you fail to do this, the future reliability of the organ may be seriously compromised. 

A bit of dust gets into a toehole, and winds up sitting on the note valve. Even if the valve is held open a tiny slit, the resulting trickle of air is enough to make a pipe whimper. A fleck of dust gets caught in the armature of a magnet, and the note won’t stop sounding. And I’m telling you, you wouldn’t believe how tiny, almost invisible a fleck is enough to do that. Lots of organ reed pipes, especially trumpets, are shaped like funnels, and they aggressively collect as much dust as they can. A little speck jolted off the inside of a reed resonator falls through the block and gets caught between the tongue and shallot. No speech.

To the hard-hat wearing, cigar-chewing general contractor, the organbuilder seems like a ninny, fussing about specks of dust. To the member of the vestry that must vote in favor of a huge expenditure to do with flecks of dust, the organbuilder seems like a carpetbagger, trying to sneak an expensive job out of thin air. To the organbuilder, the idea of all that activity, all that disturbance, all that dirt, all those vibrations, and all those workers with hammers, coffee cups, and sandwich wrappings swarming about the organ brings visions of worship made mockery, week after week, by an organ whose lungs are full of everything unholy.

Think about Sunday morning with Widor, Old Hundredth, and all the other festivities, think about valves opening and closing by the millions, and don’t tell me that “a little dust” isn’t going to hurt anything.

 

§

 

This lecture is about caring for an organ during building renovation. If your church is planning to sand and refinish the floor, paint the walls and ceiling, replace the carpets (hope not!), or install a new heating and air conditioning system, be sure that the people making the decisions know about protecting the organ from the beginning. Your organ technician can help with advice, and any good organbuilder will be available and equipped to accomplish this important work for you. Any good-quality pipe organ of moderate size has a replacement value of hundreds of thousands of dollars. If yours is a three-manual organ with fifty stops, big enough to have a 32-foot stop, it’s likely worth over a million. The congregation that owns it depends on its reliable operation. A simple oversight can be the end of the organ’s reliability.

When there is no building renovation planned, we can carry these thoughts into everyday life. Institutional hygiene is essential for the reliability of the organ. Remember the custodian sweeping in the basement while you’re practicing? Think of the staff member looking for a place to stow a bunch of folding chairs, finding a handy closet behind the sanctuary. That pile of chairs on the bellows of the organ raises the wind pressure and wrecks the tuning. Or those Christmas decorations leaning up against those strange-looking machines—the roof timbers of the crèche may be leaning against a primary valve. You turn on the organ, draw a stop, and a note is playing continually. Organ technicians usually charge for their travel time. It could be a $300 service call for the right person to realize that a broomstick needs to be moved!

 

§

 

When I hear a great organ playing, I often think of those valves in motion. The organist plays a pedal point on the 32′ Bourdon while improvising during Communion, and in my mind’s eye, I can see a five-inch valve held open, with a hurricane of carefully regulated wind blowing into an organ pipe that weighs 800 pounds. A few minutes later, the organist gives the correct pause after the Benediction, swings into a blazing toccata, and thousands of valves open and close each second. Amazing, isn’t it?

Releathering and repairing pneumatic windchests, I’ve made countless valves myself. I know just what they look like and what they feel like. I like to dust them with talcum powder to keep them from sticking years down the road, and I picture what they smell like—the smell of baby powder mingling with the hot-glue pot. Hundreds of times during service calls or renovation jobs, I’ve opened windchests and seen just how little it takes to make a note malfunction. I’ve seen organ blowers located in the filthiest, stinkiest, rodent-filled, dirt-floored, moldy sumps. I’ve seen the everyday detritus of church life—hymnals, vestments, decorations, rummage-sale signs, and boxes of canned goods piled on organ walkboards and bellows, even dumped on windchests loaded with pipes. Can’t understand why the organ sounds so bad. 

Earlier this week, I visited an organ in which the static reservoir and blower were in a common storage space. A penciled sign was taped to the reservoir at chest height: “Please do not place anything on this unit. Sensitive parts of pipe organ. If you have any questions, see Norma.” When we say, “do not place anything,” how can there be questions?

To the untrained eye, the pipe organ may appear as a brute of a machine. But inside, it’s delicate and fragile. If “cleanliness is next to Godliness” in the wide world, cleanliness is the heart of reliability for the pipe organ. Institutional hygiene. Remember that.

John Bishop

The start of a century

At 10:24 a.m. on October 15, 1947, Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager flew the X-1 experimental aircraft faster than the speed of sound. That’s 761.2 miles per hour at 59-degrees Fahrenheit. It was quite a technological achievement. You have to generate a lot of power to move a machine that fast. But there was a spiritual and metaphysical aspect to that feat. Engineers were confident that they could produce sufficient power, but they were not sure that a machine would survive the shock wave generated by a machine outrunning its own noise. They supposed that the plane would vaporize, or at least shatter, scattering Yeager-dust across the landscape.

In his swaggering ghost-written autobiography, Yeager, he casually mentions that he had broken ribs (probably garnered in a barroom brawl) and had to rig a broomstick to close the cockpit hatch. He took off, flew the daylights out of the thing, and landed, pretty much just like any other flight. By the noise, and by the cockpit instruments, he knew he had broken the sound barrier, but to Yeager’s undoubted pleasure and later comfort, the worries of the skeptics proved untrue.

 

Invisible barriers

Remember Y2K? As the final weeks of 1999 ticked by, residents of the world wondered if we would survive the magical, mystical moment between December 31, 1999, and January 1, 2000. Of course, the world has survived some twenty-five changes of millennia since we started to count time, but this would be the first time with computers. The myth that computers would not be able to count to 2000 had us hyperventilating as we ran to ATMs to grab as much cash as we could. People refused to make plans that would have them aloft in airplanes at that horrible moment, supposing that cockpit computers would fail and planes would fall from the sky. The collapse of the world’s economy was predicted. Public utilities would cease to function. Nuclear power plants would overheat, and soufflés would fall.

As the clock ticked closer to midnight on New Year’s Eve, we waited breathlessly. Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen…sometimes it causes me to tremble…eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven…all good children go to heaven…four, three, two, one…

Humpf.

I have no idea how the venerable astronomers settled on how to organize the calendar and define our concept of time. I imagine a committee of bearded and wizened wise men gathered in a pub, throwing darts at a drawing of a clock. However they did it, they didn’t fool us. Cell phones, ATMs, airplanes, power plants, railroads, and thank goodness, icemakers just kept on running. However accurately that moment was defined, it was meaningless—a randomly identified milestone amongst the multitude.

Then we worried about what we call those years. The oughts? The Ohs? Shifting from ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine to oh-one, oh-two, oh-three seemed impossible. I managed, and so did you.

 

Centennials

The twentieth century started without the computer-induced hoopla, but I suppose that our heroes—Widor, Puccini, Saint-Saëns, Dvorák, and Thomas Edison—watched in suspense as the clock ticked past the witching hour. The real upheaval happened more than thirteen years later. On May 29, 1913, Ballets Russe danced the premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Stravinsky had used traditional and familiar instruments and all the same notes that people were used to, but the way he arranged the tonalities, the maniacal organization of rhythms, the angular melodies, and the radical orchestration set the place in an uproar. The bassoon that played those haunting melismatic opening solos could have been used to play continuo in a Bach cantata the same day. Legend has it that the audience couldn’t contain itself and there was wild disturbance. How wonderful for a serious musical composition to stir people up like that. I haven’t seen people so worked up since the Boston Bruins failed to win the Stanley Cup.

 

Everything’s up to date in Kansas City

About five weeks before Stravinsky tried to ruin the theater in Paris, the Woolworth Building designed by Cass Gilbert was opened on Lower Broadway in New York, April 24, 1913. Like Stravinsky, Cass Gilbert used a traditional vocabulary—the prickles and arches given us by the Gothic cathedrals. But Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “gone and built a skyscraper seven stories high” was not as high as a building ought to go. Cass Gilbert went fifty-seven stories—792 feet; the building remained the tallest in the world until 1930. Gilbert hung those classic Gothic features on a high-tech structure and startled the world of architecture and commerce.

Besides the technical achievement of supporting a massive structure that tall, the building had thirty-four newfangled elevators. The engineers executing Gilbert’s design had to figure out how to get water more than 700 feet up. Just think of that: pulling up to the curb in a shiny new 1913 Chalmers Touring Car, and stepping in an elevator to go up fifty-seven stories. Those folks in Kansas City would have flipped their wigs.

The Woolworth building is still there a hundred years later. Like The Rite of Spring, it’s a staple in our lives, and it seems a little less radical than it did a century ago. After all, a few blocks away at 8 Spruce Street, by the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, the new tallest residential building in the Americas (seventy-six stories and 876 feet), designed by Frank Gehry, towers like a maniacal grove of polished corkscrews. Gehry took the functional aesthetic of the glass-and-steel Seagram Building (375 Park Avenue, designed by Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, built in 1958), and gave it a Cubist ethic by twisting the surfaces to create the signature rippling effects.

How poetic that the Woolworth Building and 8 Spruce Street, opened almost exactly a century apart, stand just a few blocks apart, trying to out-loom each other. I took these photos of them while standing in the same spot on City Hall Plaza.

Frank Woolworth made a fortune in retail, the Sam Walton of his day. F. W. Woolworth stores dotted the country, making goods of reasonable quality available to residents of small towns. However, I doubt that anything sold in his stores would have been found in his houses. His principal residence, also designed by Cass Gilbert, was at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 80th Street in Manhattan, across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among dozens of priceless artifacts was a large three-manual Aeolian organ. Woolworth was one of Aeolian’s prime customers, and, rare among that heady clientele, he could play the organ. 

His estate Winfield (the “W” of F. W. Woolworth) on Long Island boasted the first full-length 32-foot Double Open Diapason to be built for a residence organ. Now that would shake your champagne glasses.

Woolworth’s funeral was held in the Fifth Avenue mansion. Frank Taft, artistic director of the Aeolian Company, was on the organ bench.

 

The twenty-first-century pipe organ

There’s a lot going on here in lower Manhattan. South of Union Square at 14th Street, Broadway stops its disruptive diagonal path across the city, and assumes a more reliable north-south orientation, forming the border between Greenwich East Village and Greenwich West Village. On the corner of 10th and Broadway stands Grace Church (Episcopal). Three blocks west on the corner of 10th and Fifth Avenue stands Church of the Ascension (Episcopal). Both are “Gothicky” buildings—Grace is whitish with a tall pointed spire, while Ascension is brownish with a stolid square tower with finials. Both have pretty urban gardens. Both are prosperous, active places. And both have radical new 21st-century organs.

Taylor & Boody of Staunton, Virginia, is coming toward completion of the installation of their Opus 65 at Grace Church, where Patrick Allen is the Organist and Master of the Choristers. In 2011, Pascal Quoirin of Saint-Didier, Provence, France, completed installation of a marvelous instrument at Church of the Ascension, where Dennis Keene is Organist and Choirmaster.

Both of these organs have as their cores large tracker-action organs based on historic principles—and Principals. And both have large romantic divisions inspired by nineteenth- and twentieth-century ideals. Both are exquisite pieces of architecture and furniture, and both have been built by blending the highest levels of traditional craftsmanship with modern materials and methods.

At Church of the Ascension you can play the core organ from a three-manual mechanical keydesk, and the entire instrument from a separate four-manual electric console. At Grace Church, the whole organ plays from a four-manual detached mechanical console, and contacts under the keyboards allow access to electric couplers and the few high-pressure windchests that operate on electric action.

A more detailed account of the organ at Church of the Ascension has been published (see The Diapason, November 2011) and no doubt, we can expect one about the Grace Church organ—so I’ll limit myself to general observations, and let the organbuilders and musicians involved speak for themselves. I admire the courage and inventiveness exhibited in the creation of these two remarkable instruments.

I expect that purists from both ends of the spectrum will be critical, or at least skeptical of these efforts to bridge the abyss. But I raise the question of whether purism or conservative attitudes are the best things for the future of our instrument. We study history, measure pipes, analyze metal compositions, and study the relationships between ancient instruments and the music written for them. We have to do that, and we must do that. 

After finishing the restoration and relocation of a beautiful organ built by
E. & G. G. Hook (Opus 466, 1868) for the Follen Community Church in Lexington, Massachusetts, I wrote an essay in the dedication book under the title, The Past Becomes the Future. In it I wrote about the experience of working on such a fine instrument, marveling at the precision of the workers’ pencil lines, and the vision of conceiving an instrument that would be vital and exciting 140 years later. I saw that project as a metaphor for a combination of eras. And I intended the double meaning for the word becomes. The past not only transfers to the future, but it enhances the future. I could carry the play on words further by misquoting the title of a popular movie, Prada Becomes the Devil! 

Another tense of that use of the word become is familiar to us from Dupré’s Fifteen Antiphons: I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem. We don’t typically use the word that way in conversation, but if you read in a Victorian poem, “she of comely leg,” you’d know exactly what it meant!

 

Speaking of the ballet…

Recently, renowned organist Diane Belcher mentioned on Facebook that the recording she made in 1999 (JAV 115) on the Rosales/Glatter-Götz organ in the Claremont United Church of Christ, Claremont, California, has been released on iTunes. Buy it. This is a smashing recording of wonderful playing on a really thrilling organ. It’s a big, three-manual instrument with mechanical action and a wide variety of tone color. The recording has long been a favorite of mine—I transferred it from the original CD to my iPhone and listen to it in the car frequently.

The first piece on the recording, Tiento de Batalla sobre la Balletto del Granduca by Timothy Tikker, was commissioned by the organbuilder to showcase the organ’s extraordinary collection of reed voices. The piece opens with a statement of a measured dance, familiar to organists who grew up listening to the recording of E. Power Biggs, and proceeds in a dignified fashion from verse to verse. I picture a large stone hall lit by torches, with heavily costumed people in parade. But about three minutes in, things start to go wrong. It’s as though someone threw funky mushrooms into one of the torches. An odd note pokes through the stately procession—you can forgive it because you hardly notice it. But oops, there’s another—and another—and pretty soon the thing has morphed into a series of maniacal leaps and swoops as the reeds get more and more bawdy. Tikker established a traditional frame on which he hung a thrilling, sometimes terrifying essay on the power of those Rosales reeds.

 

New threads on old bones

• Igor Stravinsky used an ancient vocabulary of notes and sounds to create revolutionary sounds. The same old sharps and flats, rhythmic symbols, and every-good-boy-deserves-fudge were rejigged to start a revolution.

• Cass Gilbert used 500-year-old iconography to decorate a technological wonder.

• Frank Gehry gave the familiar skyscraper a new twist.

• Taylor & Boody and Pascal Quoirin have morphed seventeenth- and eighteenth-century languages into twenty-first-century marvels.

• Timothy Tikker painted for us a portrait of the march of time.

 

Organists are very good at lamenting the passage of the old ways. Each new translation of the bible or the Book of Common Prayer is cause for mourning. I won’t mention the introduction of new hymnals. (Oops!)

We recite stoplists as if they were the essence of the pipe organ. We draw the same five stops every time we play the same piece on a different organ. And we criticize our colleagues for starting a trill on the wrong note. 

I don’t think Igor Stravinsky cared a whit about which note should start a trill.

 

The end of the world as we know it

Together we have witnessed many doomsday predictions. I’ve not paid close attention to the science of it, but it seems to me that the Mayan calendar has come and gone in the news several times in the last few years. A predicted doomsday passes quietly and someone takes another look at the calendar and announces a miscalculation. Maybe the world will end. If it does, I suppose it will end for all of us so the playing field will remain equal.

But we can apply this phrase, the end of the world as we know it, to positive developments in our art and craft as the twenty-first century matures. Your denomination introduces a new hymnal—the end of the world as you know it. So, learn the new hymnal, decide for yourself what are the strong and weak points, and get on with it.

Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, and kept flying faster and faster. On October 15, 2012, at the age of 89, Chuck Yeager reenacted the feat, flying in a brand new F-15 accompanied by a Navy captain. But imagine this: it was the same day that Austrian Felix Baumgartner became the first person to break the sound barrier without at airplane! He jumped from a helium balloon at an altitude of twenty-four miles, and achieved a speed of 843.6 miles per hour as he fell before deploying his parachute. Both men lived to see another day.

A Taylor & Boody organ with multiple pressures and expressions, powerful voices on electric actions, and seething symphonic strings—the end of the world as we know it. Embrace the thoughtfulness and creativity that begat it. And for goodness’ sake, stop using archaic words like comely and begat. ν

John Bishop

John Bishop is executive director of the Organ Clearing House.

Wind
I’m a nut for a good wind. We live by the ocean, and I never tire of the feeling of the wind coming off the water bringing fresh air and all the good tidal smells into the house. I love to open the sliding doors that face the water and a door at the other end of the house to create a wind tunnel. (It’s not always popular with other family members.)
Years ago I was active in a small inland sailing club on the shore of a lake in the center of a suburban town. The lake was less than two miles north-to-south, and less than one mile east-to-west, so you couldn’t go for very long without coming about (turning to take the wind on the other side of the boat).
Since ours was a single-class racing club, the size of the lake didn’t matter. Depending on the speed and direction of the wind, the race committee set a course using inflatable markers (yellow tetrahedrons) with anchors. The classic Olympic sailing course uses three marks labeled A, B, and C set in an equilateral triangle. A is directly upwind from the starting line, C is directly downwind, and B is to the left, so boats go clockwise around the upwind mark. The basic course is A-B-C-Finish, but you can add an extra lap or two, and we often modified it to read A-B-C-A-C-Finish. These patterns would expose all the sailors to all points of sail as they went around the course.
One drizzly afternoon I headed the race committee. The wind was northerly, so I set the upwind mark close to the northern shore. A few minutes after the start, I noticed that the entire fleet was heading in the wrong direction. These were pretty good sailors, and it would be unusual for the whole group to get the course wrong. They were following what looked like a yellow tetrahedron that was a little east of upwind—a fellow in a yellow slicker and a yellow kayak who was heading away from the mark! I flew the recall-signal flag and started the race again, but not until we had all had a good laugh.

Know your wind
To sail a small boat is to be intimate with the wind. You have telltale streamers on the sails so you can tell exactly where the “lift” is and you watch the surface of the water for the ruffles that indicate the presence of wind. When there’s an updraft on the shore, air rushes in off the water to fill the void—so hawks, ospreys, and eagles soaring can tell you something about the wind on the water. In fact, this is the cause of a “sea breeze.” When the sun heats up the land in the afternoon, air rises off the land and the cool air rushes in off the water to take its place. Where we live, you can have a quiet picnic in the boat around twelve-thirty and put your things away in time for the sea breeze to come in around two in the afternoon.
If you sail often in the same place, you get used to how the wind comes around a certain point, swirls in a cove, or rushes directly from the sea toward the land depending on the time of day. There was an old salt at that inland club who had figured out how to predict the local wind by observing which direction airplanes were traveling to and from Boston’s Logan Airport twenty miles away. During a race you’d notice him heading off alone to some corner of the lake only to pick up the strongest wind of the afternoon and shoot across to a mark ahead of the rest of the fleet. I never did figure out how that worked, but he sure won a lot of races.

§

The steadiness, reliability, and predictability of wind is a huge part of playing and building pipe organs. We compare “wobbly” with “rock-steady” wind, debating their relative musical merits. One camp hates it when the organ’s wind wiggles at all (ironically, those are often the same people who love lots of tremolos!), the other claims that if the wind is free to move a little with the flow of the music, there’s an extra dimension of life. I think both sides are right. I love good organs with either basic wind characteristic, but because they are so different it seems awkward to try to make real comparisons. The instrument with gentle wind that makes the music of Sweelinck sing does not do well with the air-burning symphonies of Vierne or Widor.
As a student at Oberlin in the 1970s, I spent a lot of time with the marvelous three-manual Flentrop organ in the school’s Warner Concert Hall. The organ was brand new at the time (dedicated on St. Cecelia’s Day of my freshman year) and is still an excellent study of all the characteristics that defined the Classic Revival of organbuilding. It has a large and complete Rückpositiv division (Rugwerk in Dutch) and a classic-style case with towers. There are independent sixteen-foot principals on manual and pedal, and the whole thing was originally winded from a single wedge-shaped bellows behind the organ. End a piece with a large registration and make the mistake of releasing the pedal note first, and the wind slaps you in the back, giving a great hiccup to the grand conclusion.
As students, we worked hard to learn to control the organ’s wind, marking in our scores those treacherous spots where the wind would try to derail you. There were no hawks there to warn about the updrafts. A little attention to the lift of your fingers or a gentle approach to the pedal keys would make all the difference, and I remember well and am often reminded that such a sensitive wind system can be very rewarding musically.

Totally turbulent
It’s interesting to note that while the older European-style organs are more likely to have unstable wind supplies, organs like that were originally hand-pumped and had more natural wind that anything we are used to today. The greatest single source of turbulence in pipe organ wind is the electric blower. Because the wind is hurried on its way by a circular fan, the air is necessarily spinning when it leaves the blower. If the organbuilder fails to pay attention to this, the organ’s sound may be altered by little tornados blowing into the feet of the pipes.
I learned this lesson for keeps while renovating a twelve-stop tracker organ in rural Maine ten years ago. Before I first saw the organ, the organist said that the sound of the Great was fuzzy and strange, but the Swell was fine. Sure enough, she was exactly right, and I was surprised by the stark contrast between the two keyboards. Every pipe of the Great wobbled like the call of a wild turkey.
This was the ubiquitous nineteenth-century American organ, with an attached keydesk and a large double-rise parallel reservoir taking up the entire floor plan. There were wedge-shaped feeder bellows under the main body of the reservoir and a well at each end to provide space for the attachment of the square wooden wind trunks. In the 1920s an electric blower was installed in the basement some thirty feet below the organ, and a metal windline was built to bring the air to the organ through a crude hole cut in the walnut case (Oof!). The easiest place to cut into the organ’s wind system was the outside face of the Great windtrunk—piece of cake. But the effect was that the Great was winded directly from the violently turbulent blower output, while the wind had to pass through the calming reservoir before it found its way to the Swell. Every wiggle and burble of the wind could be heard in the sound of the pipes. Relocating that blower windline sure made a difference to the sound.
That lesson was enhanced as I restored a wonderful organ by E. & G. G. Hook in Lexington, Massachusetts. Part of that project was to restore the feeder bellows and hand-pumping mechanism so the instrument could be blown by hand or by an electric blower. Of course, it’s seldom pumped by hand, but there is an easily discernible difference in the sound of the organ when you do.
The introduction of electric blowers to pipe organs must have been a great thrill for the organists of the day. Marcel Dupré wrote in his memoir about the installation of the first electric blower for the Cavaillé-Coll organ at St. Sulpice in Paris, where Charles-Marie Widor was organist between 1870 and 1933. I have no idea just when the first blower was installed, but it was certainly during Widor’s tenure, and it must have been a great liberation. I suppose that for the first forty years of his tenure, Widor had to arrange for pumpers. That organ has a hundred stops (real stops!), and pumping it through one of Widor’s great organ symphonies must have consumed the calories of dozens of buttery croissants.
Since electric blowers became part of the trade, organbuilders have worked hard to learn how to create stable air supplies. A static reservoir in a remote blower room is the first defense against turbulence. We sometimes attach a baffle-box to the output of a blower—a wooden box with interior partitions, channels, and insulation to interrupt the rotary action of the air and quiet the noise of the large-volume flow.
Another source of turbulence in organ wind is sharp turns in windlines. The eddy caused by an abrupt ninety-degree angle in a windline can be avoided by a more gradual turn or by the geometry of how one piece of duct is connected to another.
Air pressure drops over distance. Run a ten-inch (diameter) windline above the chancel ceiling from Great to Swell chambers and you’ll find that four inches of pressure going in one end becomes three-and-a-half inches at the other. Drop the diameter of the windline a couple times along its length (first to nine, then to eight inches for example) and the pressure doesn’t drop. As pressurized air and pressurized water behave in similar ways, you can see this principle demonstrated in many large public rooms in the layout of a fire-suppressing sprinkler system. The water pipes might be four inches in diameter at the beginning of a long run and step down several times, so the last sprinkler head has only a three-quarter inch pipe. It’s a direct inversion of the sliding doors in our house. When four big doors are open facing the wind and one small one is open at the other side of the house, all that ocean air gets funneled into racing down the corridor past the kitchen and out the back door. If you don’t prop the door open, it slams with a mighty bang.
We measure air pressure in “inches of water.” The basic gauge (called a manometer) is a U-shaped tube filled halfway with water. Water under the effect of gravity is the perfect leveling medium—when the U-shaped tube is half filled with water, the water level is exactly the same on both sides of the tube. Blow into one end, and the water on that side of tube goes down while the other side goes up. Measure the difference of the two water levels and you have “inches of water”—we use the symbol WP.
Many of the ratio-based measurements we use are two-dimensional. When we refer to miles-per-hour for example, all we need is a statement of distance and one of time. To measure pipe organ air we consider three dimensions. The output of an organ blower is measured in cubic-feet-per-minute at a given pressure—so we are relating volume to time to pressure. Let’s take a given volume of air. There’s a suitcase on the floor near my desk that’s about 24″ x 18″ x 12″. I make it to be three cubic feet. We can push that amount of air through a one-inch pipe at high pressure or through an eight-inch pipe at low pressure. The smaller the pipe and the higher the pressure, the faster the air travels. It doesn’t take much of an imagination or understanding of physics to realize that those two circumstances would produce air that behaves in two different ways.
A mentor gave me a beautiful way to understand the wind in a pipe organ—simply, that air is the fuel we burn to make organ sound. Put more air through an organ pipe, you get more sound. To get more air through an organ pipe, you can make the mouth (and therefore the windway) wider. A pipe mouth that’s two-ninths the circumference can’t pass as much air as one that’s two-sevenths. You can also increase the size of the toe hole and raise the pressure.
I’m not doing actual calculations here, but I bet it takes the same number of air molecules to run an entire ten-stop Hook & Hastings organ (ca. 3″ WP) for five minutes as it takes to play one note of the State Trumpet at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York (ca. 50″ WP) for thirty seconds. Imagine trying to hand-pump that sucker. It was mentioned in passing that when that world-famous stop was being worked on in the organbuilder’s shop during the recent renovation of that magnificent organ, the neighboring motorcycle shop complained about the noise!
I’ve written a number of times in recent months about the project we’re working on in New York. Because it’s an organ with large pipe scales and relatively high wind pressures, we’re spending a lot of time thinking about proper sizes of windlines to feed various windchests. I use the term windsick to describe an organ or a portion of an organ that doesn’t get enough wind, as in, “to heal the windsick soul . . .”
This organ has a monster of a 16′ open wood Diapason that plays at both 16′ and 8′ pitches. The toe holes of the biggest pipes are four inches in diameter (about the size of a coffee can). If the rank is being played at two pitches and the organist plays two notes (say for big effect, lowest CCC and GGG), we have four of those huge toe holes gushing wind. If we might have as many as four of those big holes blowing at once, what size windline do we need going into that windchest? To allow for twice the flow of air do we need twice the diameter windline? Here’s pi in your eye. To double the airflow, we need twice the area of the circle, not the diameter. The area of a four-inch circle (πr2) is about 50.25 square inches. The area of a five-and-a-half inch circle is about 95 inches. The larger the circle, the bigger the difference. The area of a nine-inch circle is 254.5 square inches. Two nine-inch windlines equals 509 square inches. One twelve-inch circle is 452 square inches, almost twice the area of the nine-incher.
That Diapason plays on 5″ WP—a hurricane for each note.
You can use any liquid to make a manometer. We can buy neat rigs made of glass tubes joined at top and bottom by round fittings. A longer rubber tube is attached to a wooden pipe foot (such as from a Gedeckt). You take an organ pipe out of its hole, stick the foot of the gauge in the same hole, play the note, and measure the pressure. You can also buy a manometer with a round dial, which eliminates the possibility of spilling water into a windchest—heaven help us. Measuring to the nearest eighth-inch, or even to the nearest millimeter, is accurate enough for pipe organ wind pressure. But using a denser liquid allows for more accurate measurement.
A barometer is similar in function to a manometer, except that it measures atmospheres instead of air pressure. Because the difference between high- and low-pressure areas is so slight, mercury (the only metal and the only element that’s in liquid form in temperate conditions) is commonly used in barometers. The unit of measure is inches-of-mercury (inHg); 29.92 inHg is equal to one atmosphere. Right now, right here, the barometer reading is 29.76 inHg. According to my dictionary, the record high and low barometric readings range from 25.69 inHg to 32.31 inHg. I guess today we’re pretty close to normal.
Measuring and reading barometric pressure takes us back to my eagles and hawks. An updraft creates a low-pressure region, which is filled by air rushing in from areas of higher pressure. That’s how wind is made. Wind doesn’t blow, it’s just lots of air running from one place to another.
On July 4, 2002, Peter Richard Conte played Marcel Dupré’s Passion Symphony on the Grand Court Organ of Philadelphia’s Wanamaker (now Macy’s) Store as a special feature of that year’s convention of the American Guild of Organists. It was an evening performance, and the store’s display cases were moved aside to allow for concert seating. This was early in the great rebirth of that singular instrument, and organists and organbuilders were thrilled by its majesty. Dupré conceived this monumental work of music as an improvisation on the Wanamaker Organ in 1921. (You can purchase the live recording of Conte’s performance from Gothic Records at <http://www.gothic-catalog.com/The_Wanamaker_Legacy_Peter_Richard_Conte_…;.)
The last minutes of that piece comprise a barrage of vast chords, chords that only a monster pipe organ can possibly accomplish. When I hear an organ doing that, I picture thousands of valves of all sizes flying open and closed and the almost unimaginable torrent of air going through the instrument. I remember thinking (and later writing) that as Conte played the conclusion of the symphony, barometers all across New Jersey were falling. Must have been some eagles soaring above the store. 

John Bishop

Where’s the fire?

Throughout my organbuilding career, I’ve owned and driven large vehicles. There was an interval when I tried a mini-van. It was a nice car with lots of space inside, but it was no truck. It only lasted 185,000 miles, by far the least of any car I’ve had. The transmission couldn’t take the loads.

The current job is a black Chevy Suburban—think presidential motorcades (Wendy thinks Tony Soprano!). It has a big V-8 engine and a 31-gallon gas tank. It’s a 5,800-pound carbon footprint. I know it’s environmentally irresponsible, but I justify it because of my work as an organbuilder. As often as not, the car is loaded with ranks of organ pipes, a reservoir or two, a windchest, or at least, five or six boxes and bags of tools and supplies. It’s also great for taking organ committees on field trips to visit our past projects. Three ranks of reeds or a six-member committee takes the GVW up to nearly 7,000 pounds!

Even though the car is big and heavy, that engine has power to spare. Trusting that there are not many state troopers reading The Diapason, I confess that I routinely drive close to 80 miles-per-hour. I know I’ve exceeded 90 going downhill and not paying attention, but I’ve never “maxed out” the speed. I’m pretty sure I could pass 95, maybe even 100—but I doubt I’ll
ever try.

 

How fast is too fast? 

When I joined the Organ Clearing House, I knew I was taking on a travel schedule that would preclude my work as a church musician, so after thirty years on the bench, I hung up my cassock. It’s been fifteen years since I played for worship. Of course I miss it, and I may go back to it someday. But in the meantime, it’s been fun to mix having free weekends (!) with hearing other people play for worship. 

The huge repertory of music for the organ is chock-full of fast passages, and any good organist is capable of sending salvos of notes across a room faster than a speeding bullet. And good bel canto singers can dazzle listeners with fast passages. But the ordinary person in the pew is comfortable at a slower pace. Though I’m not a trained singer, I think I do pretty well, and I’m certainly familiar with most of the hymns we sing, but still I find that sometimes I have trouble keeping up. And I’m uncomfortable when I’m not given enough time to breathe. It’s easy to tell if an organist is paying attention to the words, even singing them as he plays, because he needs time to breathe also.

How loud is too loud?

Several years ago, Wendy and I attended a recital by a visiting European organist played on the Kotzschmar Organ in Portland, Maine’s City Hall. He came out on the stage to the customary applause. When he got to the bench, the audience went silent and the lights dimmed. The first chord he played was so furiously loud that we jumped, and I set my teeth against liking the rest of the program, which predictably continued in bombastic style.

My Facebook page regularly lights up with posts from organists who indignantly report to the community that a parishioner had the audacity to complain that “the organ was too loud.” No doubt, some are meant in fun—one exchange included the quip, “if they don’t like it, they can sit in the hallway.” Surely, no organist would say something like that in earnest. Would they? But I often read similar comments that I know are heartfelt.

No other musical instrument can approach the dynamic range of the pipe organ. Organbuilders tell an old joke: 

 

The voicer, seated at the console, cups his hands to his mouth and yells to his assistant in the distant chamber, 

“Is the Aeoline playing?” 

Barely audible, from the distance, “Yes.” 

“Make it softer!”

 

The Aeoline in the Echo is barely audible; with the box closed it’s but a heavenly whisper. And the full organ is mighty roar—a hurricane of sound to be used with discretion.

Of the hundreds (thousands?) of pipe organs I’ve heard and played, I’ve experienced only one that was so much too loud that there was no single stop soft enough to accompany a solo singer. There are many organs that are infamous for their power, but even they can be used with discretion. As organists, we have become inured to the mighty tones of our instruments. We sit on the bench, alone in a dark church, challenging the muses to our hearts’ content, in the thrall of the power of the tone. For many congregants, not so much.

I have to admit that when sitting in the pews, I often feel that the organ is too loud. I wonder how many of you would simmer down your registrations if you had the chance to sing to someone else’s hymn playing a couple times a year. Besides, if you’re always playing “with the pedal to the metal,” you’re making organbuilders look bad. We’re supposed to provide instruments that can challenge the Gates of Hell once in a while, but thank heaven we’re not always facing the Gates of Hell.

 

What’s your job?

I often ride the train between Boston and New York. It’s a beautiful route along the Connecticut coast, passing tidal inlets loaded with osprey, egrets, and herons. There’s a wonderful sensation as those trains leave a station. I’m daydreaming, gazing out the window, and suddenly realize the train is moving. There’s no sound of locomotion, or clanking as links between cars take up slack. My imagination goes next to the expert bus driver and his ability to operate the vehicle smoothly. His foot on the brake pedal is feather-light, his speed through turns is just right, and his passengers are free to enjoy the ride, knowing that they’ll arrive safely and promptly at their destination.

I know, I know, that may be a fictional driver. The New York to Boston route is crowded with budget bus companies that have terrible safety records. That’s why I take the train. But I like the image and compare it to the “hymn driver” at church. He goes fast enough that the words make sense, but not so fast that the average congregant can’t keep up.

When an organist is really focused on the words of a hymn, both pace and registration follow. The other night, Wendy and I attended a service of Evensong, and the devil made an appearance in a middle verse. The organist led us to safety, acknowledging Satan’s presence with a growling registration for those few bars, and returning to something more soothing. There’s the majesty of the organ, painting pictures with tone color.

 

A happy little cloud

Bob Ross (1942–95) was a teacher of painting who famously hosted a series on PBS called The Joy of Painting. He had a goofy way of chattering as he painted that I think was intended to make aspiring painters feel at ease. Make a little mistake, a slip of the brush? No problem, make it into a bird. It’s a bird now! His brush strokes were quick and easy, and he often suggested dropping in “a happy little cloud.”

The pipe organ has a greater expressive range and wider variety of tone colors than any other musical instrument, and the expressive musician uses those characteristics like a brilliant painter with a lovely palette of colors. Think of the landscapes of Meindert Hobbema (1638–1709) with those magical patches of sunlight glowing through the trees. How did he do that? I think he always included trees just so he could do his sunlight trick. I love it when the organist gives me glimpses of sunlight through the trees, or happy little clouds. If you play through all the verses of a hymn on full registrations, loud, louder, loudest, you deprive the listener/singer of the beauty of it all.

You can use your palette like sunshine and clouds, and you can use it like an arsenal. The arsenal is fine with me at the right moment—that powerful Tuba giving the melody in the tenor is an awesome effect, but I don’t want to hear it in every hymn. 

Many of us are inclined to characterize the pipe organ as a keyboard instrument, as if it is common with the piano or harpsichord. In the matter of tone production, the organ has more in common with a trumpet or flute, the piano has more in common with a xylophone, and the harpsichord has more in common with a guitar. I consider the organ first to be a wind instrument. Making organ music happen is about managing air. This, simply, is why the organ is ideal for leadership of our singing—both the organ and the human voice are wind instruments. We circulate the same air molecules through the organ’s pipes and through our voices in sympathy. We’re all in it together.

 

You can’t play a tune on a Mixture.

Since the revival of classic organbuilding in the mid-twentieth century, many of us have had love affairs with Mixtures. They provide brilliance and clarity in polyphonic music, and their harmonic structures blend wonderfully with choruses of stops. I say this assuming that the Mixtures on your organ are well planned, well voiced, and balanced with the other voices. In my days as a student, I was organist at a church in Cleveland that had an aging Austin organ. Originally, there was no Mixture, and one had been added not long before I got there. But even in my brash youth, steeped in the ethic of Northern European classic organs, I couldn’t bear to use the thing. It was just too loud, and had nothing to do with the rest of the Great division.

Mixtures in pipe organs are harmonic tricks. The typical Great Mixture comprises four ranks, meaning four pipes are speaking on every note. My organbuilding colleagues know that I’m leaving out a lot of exceptions and variations as I describe Mixtures generally, but it’s enough to say here that those four pipes each speak a different harmonic, and the harmonics “break back” each octave. It’s formulaic. At low C, those four pipes typically speak at 11⁄3′–1′–2⁄3′–1⁄2′, which are logical additions to “Principals, 8-4-2”. At tenor C, they jump back a notch: 2′–11⁄3′ –1′–2⁄3′. The 22⁄3′ pitch enters at middle C; 4′ pitch enters at “soprano” C. In the top octave, some builders omit the scratchy 51⁄3′ and jump directly to 8′.

Follow me carefully. A 4′ pitch at soprano C is the same note as 1′ pitch at tenor C. A 11⁄3′ pitch at low C is the same note as 51⁄3′ pitch at middle C. Think this through, and you’ll realize that an ordinary Mixture has pipes at soprano C that speak the same, and even lower pitches than at tenor C. Sounds like a muddle, doesn’t it? Well friends, use it wrong, and it is a muddle. Just for fun, play the melody of a hymn on Mixture alone, especially a hymn whose tune passes out of the middle octave past soprano C. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

Now play all four voices of the same hymn on Mixture alone. Wacky. Absolutely wacky. Imagine that as a tool for teaching a tune to someone for the first time. Now play the same hymn on 8′ Principal alone. That’s better. What’s my point? Be sure that every hymn registration includes enough fundamental tone that the tune is easily recognizable when playing four-part harmony.

If you’re playing on a large organ, you likely have more than one Mixture on each keyboard. Listen to each one carefully, octave by octave, and try to analyze what pitches are actually playing? Use that to inform how you use them. A Principal Chorus with Mixture(s) is ideal for playing a fugue, because the graduated harmonics of the Mixture help project inner and lower voices of the polyphony. Mixtures are great with Reed Choruses, because they emphasize the rich harmonics of the Reeds. But Mixtures are like icing on a cake—they enhance, even decorate, but substance is in the batter. All icing, and your teeth will hurt. Do I sound like the parishioner who says the organ is shrill? Maybe it is. The math says so.

 

It’s all in the numbers.

Here are some pipe organ facts for nothing. The reason reeds sound more brilliant than flutes or Principals is that reeds have richer development of overtones—those secondary pitches present in every musical tone. 

Pythagoras (571 BC–495 BC) was the first to understand overtones. He proved that they follow the simple formula of 1:2, 2:3, 3:4, 4:5, etc. That simple progression was later defined by Leonardo Bonacci (c. 1170–c. 1250) as the Fibonacci series. Google that, and you’ll find terrific articles that show how the Fibonacci series describes the shell of the Nautilus, pineapples, artichokes, pine cones, and magically, the Romanesco broccoli, which I think is one of the most beautiful and delectable vegetables.

 

Break a head of Romanesco apart into florets, toss them in olive oil and salt, and roast them at 400° for 40 minutes (or less if want to keep some “tooth”), maybe sprinkle a little lemon juice and parmesan.

 

What does all this have to do with playing hymns? Pythagoras’s overtones can be defined this way. Play low C on an 8-foot organ stop, and you’ll be producing the following pitches: 8′, 4′, 22⁄3′, 2′, 13⁄5′, 11⁄3′, 11⁄7′. Recognize those? It’s nothing but a list of the most common pipe organ pitches. Accident? I don’t think so. You may find these hard to hear, and as a practical matter, lots of them are inaudible, but they’re there. 

I demonstrate this at the console using voices like Oboes or Clarinets. They have especially rich “second overtones,” which is the equivalent of 22⁄3′ pitch. Play and hold tenor C on the Clarinet. Then, on another keyboard, tap third G on an 8′ stop. (That’s the equivalent of 22⁄3′ pitch at tenor C.) That should enhance your ability to hear the 22⁄3′ pitch present in the Clarinet note. Move around to different notes, and you’ll likely hear that overtone a little better in some notes than others. Then, play and hold tenor C on the Clarinet, and on your second keyboard, tap fourth E of an 8′ stop. That’s the equivalent of 13⁄5′ pitch, and you should be able to hear the Tierce independently in the Clarinet note.

Have you ever wondered why a Nazard and a Tierce sound so good with a Clarinet or Cromorne? It’s because the Clarinet and Cromorne (those two stops are very similar in construction) both have prominent 22⁄3′ and 13⁄5′ overtones. That explains the origin of the French registrations Cornet (8′, 4′, 22⁄3′, 2′, 13⁄5′), and by extension, Grand Jeu (Trompette 8′, Octave 4′, Cornet). Accident? I don’t think so.

Because of this, it’s often easiest to tune high mutations to reeds, assuming that the reeds are trustworthy, because the harmonics of the reed pipes are so clear. Draw 4′ Principal and 13⁄5′ Tierce, and play up the top octaves of the keyboard. Substitute a Clarinet for the Principal, and do it again. I’ll bet a tuning fork that you hear the pitch of the Tierce more clearly with the Clarinet.

Why is a Rohrflute brighter than a Gedeckt? Because the hole in the cap with the little chimney emphasizes the second harmonic, which is 22⁄3′ pitch. 

What does all this have to do with playing hymns? It tells us that higher-pitched stops are secondary to fundamental pitch. What is fundamental pitch? Eight-foot tone. It’s that simple. If your hymn registrations favor higher pitches, you’re back at that exercise of playing a hymn on a Mixture alone. Awareness of all this is at the heart of good pipe organ registration.

You can’t play a tune on a Mixture. It’s confusing to the singer, especially if that singer doesn’t know the tune. Suggestion? Introduce the tune on a simpler registration, and bring in bigger sounds as appropriate. If you have a variety of lovely solo sounds, use them. Play one verse on Trumpets alone. Play another with Principals but no Mixtures. Just be sure they can hear the tune. And be sure that your choice of sounds supports the words. There’s more to hymn playing than a blur of harmonics.

Gentle on the accelerator and the brakes, paint beautiful colorful pictures, “ . . . and the wheels on the bus go round and round . . .”