If you have never heard a pipe organ, you haven't experienced true hi fi. The organ is built using the room as a resonater and the low frequencies can be so low that they are felt rather than heard. The upper harmonics are so high only your dog will hear them. In no way can any mechanical speaker system reproduce them no matter what Dr. Amar Bose may tell you. If you have a church near you that has an actual pipe organ (as opposed to an electronic one), find the minister of music and get him to play Tocotta and fugue in D for you. He will know it and your perception of music will be forever changed.

JoeBagadonutz: If you have a church near you that has an actual pipe organ

When I got married I drove for about 45 minutes to find a church that had an actual pipe organ. I didn't give a good god damn about anything else except that. Wife gets to pick everything else, I want a pipe organ. Also, pigs in a blanket at the reception.

Sounds like a pipe dream to me.

I thought that I was cool when I carved a flute out of a stick of wood.

A flute without holes, is not a flute. A donut without a hole, is a Danish

FTA: "His lifelong attraction to the instruments began "at my First Communion. I turned and saw the organ, and it hit me hard."

Ok, I know organists are strange people, but that is just a little iffy-sounding...

FTA: "at my First Communion. I turned and saw the organ, and it hit me hard."


30 years later the church settled the matter out of court for an undisclosed sum and the priest was disciplined accordingly.
=Smidge=

I know two pipe organ builders (and they don't work together), and both of them have built organs in their own homes from odds and ends. They've said that summertime weather is the worst for the organs, because of the high humidity and they can't open their organ rooms to the elements without having to worry about returning.

This article doesn't surprise me at all.

It's funny because it sounds like a penis joke!

Impressed.

JoeBagadonutz:

Absolutely correct!! To 'hear' a pipe organ being played at such quality you have to be in the same room as it.
I'd been following the tale of a rare three manual Compton which had been through some serious stuff (the organ was supposed to raise up and down through the floor of the theatre until the night it broke and they decided to fix it in one location - now, it goes up and down again - not bad for a 75 year old Compton!!) and at one point, serious neglect on a scale never seen before... The Lancashire Organ Trust brought it back up to spec and it sounds just so good.
It's a full dedicated pipe organ and the theatres accoustics do it justice (although lacking slightly in resonance, but thats neither here nor there!)
Our town also is host to the largest Wurlitzer in the UK too... I havent got up close and personal with it, but I believe it's somewhat bigger than the Wulitzer in Blackpool Tower on the Fylde coastline.
Anyway.. Organs like that to build/renovate/rebuild are always worth the money spent on them. This one just so happens to be in an area where a musician friend of ours lives so I might persuade him to pay a visit :-D

Daddy's got a pipe organ...Momma never sleeps at night.

jbecknell: Sounds like a pipe dream to me.

Dammit, I wasn't fast enough!

JoeBagadonutz
If you have never heard a pipe organ, you haven't experienced true hi fi. The organ is built using the room as a resonater and the low frequencies can be so low that they are felt rather than heard.

Which is why they're so farking popular in churches. theyre a tool for conversion.

If you've ever wanted to make your own brown-note generator, all you need is a shop vac and a pipe.

Oh, and skill and stuff.

"Some kids like fast cars. I liked powerful organs. That's pretty much it. It got the hormones going. The organ was my high."

"This is a beautiful pipe," Patterson said, producing a satisfying toot..."

Patterson has an apprentice working with him, a 22-year-old St. Paul resident and fellow organ fanatic named Andrew Jirele. When the two are in the workshop, they typically have organ music blasting away on a bank of speakers.


I bet it is The Village People.

VTSquire: JoeBagadonutz If you have never heard a pipe organ, you haven't experienced true hi fi. The organ is built using the room as a resonater and the low frequencies can be so low that they are felt rather than heard. Which is why they're so farking popular in churches. theyre a tool for conversion.

Interesting theory you got there.

JoeBagadonutz: Tocotta and fugue in D

I'm tempted to learn to play the organ just to play that piece. Spectacular.

Also, I was in a church once while they were tuning the organ. That was agony.

'"You're looking at about $5,000 worth of action," he said.'

Heh...

I get it. Organ. Like another word for penis.

aCiD99: '"You're looking at about $5,000 worth of action," he said.'

Heh...

I lol'd as well.

EatHam: JoeBagadonutz: If you have a church near you that has an actual pipe organ

When I got married I drove for about 45 minutes to find a church that had an actual pipe organ. I didn't give a good god damn about anything else except that. Wife gets to pick everything else, I want a pipe organ. Also, pigs in a blanket at the reception.


You were married in a church, yet you use language like that, ironic huh?

VTSquire:
Which is why they're so farking popular in churches. theyre a tool for conversion.

Because when you want to bring someone around to your way of thinking, you break out the high-quality audio? What?

Great story -- sounds like a real labor of love. I had to laugh at a couple of quotes though:

"I liked powerful organs."

"You're looking at about $5,000 worth of action," he said.

well, its better to have lobsters on your piano than crabs on your organ.....

I'm confused. If this guy has such a big organ why does he have a corvette?

tuxedobob Because when you want to bring someone around to your way of thinking, you break out the high-quality audio? What?

Same effect that you got back in high school with that Air Supply cassette, when you were after some action from Mary Jane Rottencrotch.

Music has complex psychological effects. That's what it's for. Churches know this as well as you did.

1. bring people into church.
2. They feel something that can't be heard. (omg I feel teh spirit!)
3. Profit.

EatHam: Also, pigs in a blanket at the reception.

Classy and delicious! Win-win.

After hearing a pipe organ at a Basilique in Paris, no other music will ever sound so pure. I was raised by a classical musician, and even the pure silver flute my mother plays cannot compare.

Karl Richter playing Toccata and Fugue in D- Minor on the organ that Back himself composed it on.

St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 53rd and 5th, Manhattan, has a grand 1910 organ with pipes all the way through the building, also has a 17th-century replica organ. Glorious.

And here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FXoyr_FyFw

MidnightSkulker:

Thank you for that link.

On a recent Pipedreams broadcast, a guest on the show mentioned, somewhat offhandedly, that since so few young people attend any church at all, they are thunderstruck by the experience of a genuine pipe organ's sound when they first hear it.

It has nothing to do with mind control as VTSquire suggests. The pipe organ is simply and unarguably the coolest of the pre-modern musical instruments.

stayclassy:
You were married in a church, yet you use language like that, ironic huh?

Man, you're just trying too hard.

this thread has restored my faith in Fark. there ARE still people who listen to great classical music. thank you for that link, Midnight Skulker. Our church's pipe organ is in serious need of restoration work, and the congregation seems to not care at all. i think they'd rather toss it out and play pop/rock on the piano. We serious musicians are swimming upstream against a strong current.

KerwoodDerby: On a recent Pipedreams broadcast, a guest on the show mentioned, somewhat offhandedly, that since so few young people attend any church at all, they are thunderstruck by the experience of a genuine pipe organ's sound when they first hear it.

It has nothing to do with mind control as VTSquire suggests. The pipe organ is simply and unarguably the coolest of the pre-modern musical instruments.

I don't see how you can say that it's an experience that leaves children thunderstruck, and yet it has nothing to do with the church using psychology on people.

Think about it: if you'd never heard amplified music, and these people telling you things they say God wrote had a pipe organ, don't you think that you'd tend to believe them more than some asshole with a banjo?

I bet it can play a sweet In-a-gadda-da-vida

Another slightly different type of organ is used in classic silent movie houses, they had lotsa different end-effectors to do special effects sounds. They are kinda cool, too.

In-a-gadda-da-vida? "That sounds like rock and or roll"-Reverend Timothy Lovejoy.

Not impressed.

*The Great Organ may not be impressed, but I am kinda impressed.*

JoeBagadonutz: If you have a church near you that has an actual pipe organ (as opposed to an electronic one), find the minister of music and get him to play Tocotta and fugue in D for you. He will know it and your perception of music will be forever changed.

In college, I went to a noontime pipe organ performance at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston. There couldn't have been more than four people in the entire place. I remember at the end of one of the pieces, as the last notes rang out, the guy behind me let out a gasp. I didn't turn to look, but I'm sure there were tears standing in his eyes. My reaction wasn't quite as emotional, but it was still an impressive experience.

FTA: "The whole point is there's nobody around who can do the whole project like this."

Wrong. Lynn Dobson of Dobson Organ> built his first dozen organs all on his own. And a 3,000 lb, 18-ft high organ is just another job for him and his team - they've done higher than 100-ft, needing cranes to install the biggest pipes.

I visited his shop for a couple of days and we passed the freshly assembled keyboard for the latest project. It looked great - the phenolic resin keys looked EXACTLY like real ebony and ivory. I commented on the quality of the reproduction. Lynn said, "Thanks. But it's not plastic. You're looking at $40,000 worth of ivory."

I can't believe I screwed up the html. Sorry, folks.

I feel dumb...but you get the point...

Bass you can feel. A most holy experience. First copyright was a pipe organ piece. Keep that bass in the low registers or you might as well be playing with Acid and a DX7....

The Heights Theater in Columbia Heights, MN features a Wurlitzer organ that used to be the star of WCCO radio. Link It is played live before Friday and Saturday shows. It can help even an Adam Sandler movie seem bearable.

St. James Episcopal here in Richmond was burned about 13 years ago. When restored, a new organ was built...a CB Fisk opus 112. 3 manual, tewnty ton, 61 stop with 3700 pipes. It's an amazing instrument that sends sound to the core.

I agree with JoeBagadonutz.....you've never heard music unless you've heard a pipe organ.