Ode to "Point d’orgue"

[Melora24]

Melora, amazing research. thank you!

Actually, it was not research, I do play the organ. I just took my good camera with me once! The organ I was playing on when I was taking organ lessons last year in France is beautiful. To access it, you need to climb the stairs inside the bells tower and you find yourself behind the organ. Then you need to climb down a tiny stair and walk next to pipes to reach the keyboards. The pictures above are the pipes you can see from the stairs

 

[Melora24]

Each series of pipes (one for each key on the keyboard) is call a stop. There are buttons that allow the organist to decide if (s)he's going to use them. They are usually labeled with the name of the stop. If you pull just one, only one set of pipes will be used, and the organ will be almost quiet (as much as on organ can be quite). When you pull lots of them, all the pipes are used at the same times, which allows the organ to be quite noisy That's how an organ can replace a full orchestra by itself!!

 

[momasaurus]

Each series of pipes (one for each key on the keyboard) is call a stop. There are buttons that allow the organist to decide if (s)he's going to use them. They are usually labeled with the name of the stop. If you pull just one, only one set of pipes will be used, and the organ will be almost quiet (as much as on organ can be quite). When you pull lots of them, all the pipes are used at the same times, which allows the organ to be quite noisy That's how an organ can replace a full orchestra by itself!!

Such fun pix, Melora! Thanks.

 

[klynneann]

Each series of pipes (one for each key on the keyboard) is call a stop. There are buttons that allow the organist to decide if (s)he's going to use them. They are usually labeled with the name of the stop. If you pull just one, only one set of pipes will be used, and the organ will be almost quiet (as much as on organ can be quite). When you pull lots of them, all the pipes are used at the same times, which allows the organ to be quite noisy That's how an organ can replace a full orchestra by itself!!

Yay - this is the part I was waiting for! I could see the words off to the side in some of the pictures but never clearly enough to see what they said. This is so wonderful - thank you so much Melora!

 

[Melora24]

Yay - this is the part I was waiting for! I could see the words off to the side in some of the pictures but never clearly enough to see what they said. This is so wonderful - thank you so much Melora!

I know it's not often on pictures! I only have this picture because I wanted to list the stops on the organ I was playing on. I didn't even think on taking them when I took pictures in preparation for this thread.

Do you (or others) also want explanations on the numbers that go with the names?

 

[klynneann]

I know it's not often on pictures! I only have this picture because I wanted to list the stops on the organ I was playing on. I didn't even think on taking them when I took pictures in preparation for this thread.

Do you (or others) also want explanations on the numbers that go with the names?

Yes, please!

 

[Melora24]

Ok, this is going to require basic math and music notion

First of all, you need to remember that the shorter the piper, the higher the note.

When you have use just one basic stop on an organ, like montre 8', you will hear the exact same sound you have on any other instrument. The reason it's called "8" is that the pipe corresponding to the basic C is 8 feet long (or high).
What is funny, is that when you go up the scale till the next C, the size of the pipe is... 4 feet! Continue to go up, and the next C pipe will be 2 feet high. And the next... yes, just 1 foot.

So now, you can imagine another stop, where the first pipe would be 4 feet high instead of 8. It could be called Principal 4'. Every pipe would be half the size of those on montre 8', and the sound would be one octave higher.

It's also possible to work the other way: soubasse 16' sounds one scale lower.

There are also stops with more weirds names like 1 3/5', but the explanations requires English vocabulary that I don't possess

Fun fact 1: Prestant 8' is the basic stop, but it's usually called Montre 8' because the pipes are visible. So Prestant 4' and Montre 8' sound exactly the same.
Fun fact 2: if you make a higher or lower trumpett (trompette 8'), the name changes! You'll never see Trompette 4', but you'll see Clairon 4'. Trompette 16' doesn't exist either, it will be called Bombarde 16'.

And yes, this is a domain where even Europeans don't use metric...

 

[katekluet]

You realize this is all probably going to cost many of us a lot.....we will surely want the new organ scarf now! It is so interesting, thanks.....and are you going to explain all those pedals too?

 

[klynneann]

That's pretty cool. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this! It really is very interesting (maybe more so because I have a music background? ).

 

[Melora24]

You realize this is all probably going to cost many of us a lot.....we will surely want the new organ scarf now! It is so interesting, thanks.....and are you going to explain all those pedals too?

As long as you don't buy all of them before I get the chance to choose the cw that will work best for me, it's OK
Don't worry, I won't forget the pedals, the keyboards, the clock.

<spoiler alert>
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And did you notice... the ladder?

 

[klynneann]

Ladder?! I have questions for you, but I don't know what things are called so it's hard to describe lol!! I'm sure you'll hit everything eventually though, so I will just wait.

 

[Melora24]

Some other stops use roman numbers. This is a complete different story: it refers to the number of pipes used for that single stop. The Cornet V for instance is usually made of pipes in the size 8, 4, 2, 2 2/3 and 1 3/5. Each time you press a key, you use all 5 of them! Cornet IV is usually the same without the 8' or the 4'.

This is the only mistake I saw on this fabulous scarf: « Cornet IV 4' » doesn't mean anything, it should have been "Cornet IV".
But I read somewhere, and I totally agree with that: little imperfections make the work even better, as they highlight the hard work needed.

Pierre Marie, if someday you come across this: I love your work, this is the most beautiful scarf ever made!

 

[Melora24]

OK, I won't finish today. I have to watermark the detail pictures of my scarf because I don't want someone to use them for a scam on the bay, and I need to resize the photos of the organ because they're to big for tPF.

Anyway, here come the keyboards!!! A basic organ has one keyboard. It's pretty similar to the keyboard of the piano, except for 2 or 3 things:
- the keys are usually shorter.
- the keyboard is only 5 octaves long (correct me if this is not the word to use). That means there are only 61 keys, instead of 88 like on a piano.
- on some organs, the white keys are black, and the black keys are white!

Depending on the size of the organ, there can be more keyboards. Having 2 keyboards allows to play the melody on one keyboard, and use another one to support it.
For instance on this video, with Marie-Claire Alain, who was one of the greatest French organists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcWZexmBe20 You can watch the entire video if you're interested (there are English subtitles), or you can just watch at 2:00 a little bit of a Bach piece of music that illustrate the use of 2 keyboards.

Big organs can have 3 or more keyboards. The biggest organ in the world is in Atlantic City, NJ, and has 7 keyboards!!

Pierre Marie also drawed little round things on the sides of the keyboard (I circled one). They have their use too! They are used to push a keyboard and connect it to the keyboard directly above, or to pull a keyboard and connect it to the one underneath, depending on how they are installed. Once they are connected, if you play a note on the main keyboard, it's as if you were playing it on the second at the same time. This can be pretty useful

 

[MYH]

Each series of pipes (one for each key on the keyboard) is call a stop. There are buttons that allow the organist to decide if (s)he's going to use them. They are usually labeled with the name of the stop. If you pull just one, only one set of pipes will be used, and the organ will be almost quiet (as much as on organ can be quite). When you pull lots of them, all the pipes are used at the same times, which allows the organ to be quite noisy That's how an organ can replace a full orchestra by itself!!

Some other stops use roman numbers. This is a complete different story: it refers to the number of pipes used for that single stop. The Cornet V for instance is usually made of pipes in the size 8, 4, 2, 2 2/3 and 1 3/5. Each time you press a key, you use all 5 of them! Cornet IV is usually the same without the 8' or the 4'.

This is the only mistake I saw on this fabulous scarf: « Cornet IV 4' » doesn't mean anything, it should have been "Cornet IV".
But I read somewhere, and I totally agree with that: little imperfections make the work even better, as they highlight the hard work needed.

Pierre Marie, if someday you come across this: I love your work, this is the most beautiful scarf ever made!

OK, I won't finish today. I have to watermark the detail pictures of my scarf because I don't want someone to use them for a scam on the bay, and I need to resize the photos of the organ because they're to big for tPF.

Anyway, here come the keyboards!!! A basic organ has one keyboard. It's pretty similar to the keyboard of the piano, except for 2 or 3 things:
- the keys are usually shorter.
- the keyboard is only 5 octaves long (correct me if this is not the word to use). That means there are only 61 keys, instead of 88 like on a piano.
- on some organs, the white keys are black, and the black keys are white!

Depending on the size of the organ, there can be more keyboards. Having 2 keyboards allows to play the melody on one keyboard, and use another one to support it.
For instance on this video, with Marie-Claire Alain, who was one of the greatest French organists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcWZexmBe20 You can watch the entire video if you're interested (there are English subtitles), or you can just watch at 2:00 a little bit of a Bach piece of music that illustrate the use of 2 keyboards.

Big organs can have 3 or more keyboards. The biggest organ in the world is in Atlantic City, NJ, and has 7 keyboards!!

Pierre Marie also drawed little round things on the sides of the keyboard (I circled one). They have their use too! They are used to push a keyboard and connect it to the keyboard directly above, or to pull a keyboard and connect it to the one underneath, depending on how they are installed. Once they are connected, if you play a note on the main keyboard, it's as if you were playing it on the second at the same time. This can be pretty useful

Melora - thank you so much for the detailed organ lesson. I feel like you should charge some sort of ticket admission to allow us to learn all this! I love that you caught the little goof on the stop. And the thing about keyboards is so interesting. An organ in AC has 7?? So how do they expect an organist to play all that? Grow another arm? Which leads me to my next question. Between the person manning the pipes and all the other stuff going on , how many people does it take to operate an organ and how do all the people communicate with each other so the music sounds good? Or does each person have the sheet music and know exactly what to do at a certain time? Sorry for all the questions. I'm genuinely interested.

 

[Melora24]

Melora - thank you so much for the detailed organ lesson. I feel like you should charge some sort of ticket admission to allow us to learn all this! I love that you caught the little goof on the stop. And the thing about keyboards is so interesting. An organ in AC has 7?? So how do they expect an organist to play all that? Grow another arm? Which leads me to my next question. Between the person manning the pipes and all the other stuff going on , how many people does it take to operate an organ and how do all the people communicate with each other so the music sounds good? Or does each person have the sheet music and know exactly what to do at a certain time? Sorry for all the questions. I'm genuinely interested.

Actually, just because there are 3 or 4 or 7 keyboards doesn't mean you have to use them all at once!
For instance, the one I took lessons on in France has 4 keyboards. The 3rd keyboard has only Cornet and Trompette: its only purpose is to be used for solos, or to be combined to the main one.

The organist can do it all by him/herself. It's part of the "job" to choose which stops will sound better together depending on the music played and the building (which is not my case sadly. I'm just a beginner).
Although people were needed to put air in the bellows in the 18th century, it's not the case now that we have electricity to do that

Sometimes help can be useful to activate/deactivate the stops, just as a pianist can appreciate to have someone to turn the pages.

So when you're a student like me, the teacher chooses the registration (the stops), turns the pages, and changes the stops when needed

When I play Bach's BWV 605, I can set the stops at the beginning and I'm good. When I played Pachelbel's Ciacona in F minor (10 double pages), I was glad to have my teacher to turn the pages, change the stops, and even couple the keyboards between two notes!

But then, with 7 keyboards, maybe help is not needed because you can just go to another keyboard.