Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Home organ builder (Website and YouTube).

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Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 10-21-2008, 04:54 PM:

Man builds organ at home. I think this is incredible. He has a website here . Have a look at the 'About Me' section to see what his professional job used to be.

He also has some videos on YouTube here There are three videos on making a pipe, two showing the workings of the organ, and a slideshow of the construction. The website also shows some of the other things he's made. Quite a woodworker.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-21-2008, 06:29 PM:

..a potiental "Aristide Cavaillé-Coll "

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 10-21-2008, 09:36 PM:

A simple slider chest would be a lot easier and without all the unnecessary hoses.

Posted by Kenneth Wuepper (Member # 1174) on 10-21-2008, 10:08 PM:

Bill,

The hoses you refer to are there because a true slider chest does not accommodate "offset" chests. The hoses bring air from the key channels that are controlled by trackers. All of the case pipes are played from the main chest through those extension hoses. This is a very traditional method of remote locating pipes with mechanical note control. I think his use of "bleeder channels" in the top of the chest shows a great understanding of the construction of a good tracker chest.

I wonder about the sound of the organ as all of the pipes are made of wood. Most pipe organs derive varied harmonics by having pipes of different shapes and made of different types of metal as well as of wood, open or stoppered. I was especially intrigued by his experiment with the vibrating brass reeds. I would like to hear what one of his reed ranks sounds like.

The pallet valves of the Wurlitzer theatre organs are patterned after note valves in the old tracker organs. The tone of a full tracker organ is far more cohesive than a similar specification using any other type of chest because all of the pipes on the channel share the same valve.

KEN

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 10-22-2008, 12:07 PM:

Ken, my first look was at only a few pics, when I went back and went further I saw the rest. This may be the first organ he's taking full credit for but from the look, it isn't his first
experience in organ building.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-22-2008, 01:32 PM:

Is a pipe organ the largest musical instrument? I think they're fascinating and would love to see the 'guts' of one up close.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 10-22-2008, 01:51 PM:

He describes himself somewhere as a mechanical engineer, but is clearly a highly skilled woodworker. He previously worked for TI on DLP technology, which Wouldn't seem to be something which would involve woodworking. His father makes wooden mutes for musical instruments, which is how he comes to have the woodworking facilities available. He says he is not a musician, and can hardly play, yet he seems to play the Bach on one of the videos ok, until he suddenly gets to the point where he says it's too difficult after that. If he doesn't have a musical background how did he select which stops to include in the instrument, and how did he know how to design the pipes for those stops, and the action to operate them? It looks rather like a baroque organ, but I don't think they normally have a pedal board.

Leaving aside the musical aspects, I admire his woodworking skills, and the fact that he built the whole thing, 250 pipes, action, case etc. in three years, while building various other things as well. It's rather like watching the Frenchman making triode valves by hand, which I posted a link to some time ago.

quote: Mike Blakesley
Is a pipe organ the largest musical instrument? I think they're fascinating and would love to see the 'guts' of one up close.

This one is about as small as they get, but it's easier to see the action on this than it is on a larger organ. It also involves a great deal of work to build even one this size.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-22-2008, 02:02 PM:

When I was a freshman in college studying music (after a Music ED degree), we went up into our music hall's organ pipework cavity (Organ was a three manual Wicks with close to 50 stops, thus the cavity was a forest of over 4k pipes) to see the workings of a pipe organ.

Why we went up there is that the console, being movable, is connected to the pipework by a large 4inch flex cable conduit and someone yanked the console around by the conduit causing a rank of pipes to not speak when the drawknob was pulled to have that rank produce its voice when the key was pressed.

Thus. this gave us the experience in helping out the technician to find this problem.

It was quite unique to see the various flute (flue stop pipes) and reed combinations of pipe design.

Also, some of the pipes (the smaller ones) just sits on the wind chests where you can simply take one out and blow into it to produce its assigned voice.

But, when the 8' reeds take off, better cover the ears if you're up there, for that was plenty loud since they had close to 20 inches of wind underneath them.

If you want to see some pipework, should check out the Atlantic City Convention Center and about the Midmer-Losh organ with over 32k pipes in 8 chambers.

Also, the Wanamaker Organ in Philly with over 28k pipes in John Wanamaker's Department Store

-Monte

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 10-22-2008, 02:58 PM:

Pipe organs are as much machines as they are musical instruments. This guy must have some money stashed away to maintain his standard of living, coming from some pretty high paying fields and going to work for an organ builder. Don't know about Pasi, but generally speaking organ builders are small, cheapskates or more nicely put, frugal, undercapitalized and don't pay very well for they skills they require, it can be very rewarding though.

Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 10-24-2008, 10:24 AM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
Is a pipe organ the largest musical instrument?

If you ever visit Philadelphia, stop by the Macy's in center city and you can hear the world's largest functional pipe organ: The Wanamaker Organ (The largest is the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ, however it's barely functional). They have concerts twice a day, more often around the winter holidays (usually softer stuff to serve as background music for the department store) and they usually permit visitors to get a closeup look at the console (only the court organist and others specifically approved by the same are permitted to play).

I actually trained as assistant organist for First Presbyterian Church of Miami. The real trick is playing the pedals without looking.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-25-2008, 08:25 PM:

quote: John Lasher
The real trick is playing the pedals without looking.

...which you have to when beginning, like you do with learning the keyboards.

But, eventually, like with reading braille and learning how to type on a typewriter (*gasp!* anyone of the newbies here remember what those are??), it will come naturally where the feet and fingers are supposed to go when playing the notes off the music piece and you don't have to look at either when playing.

But, pedal playing is like doing that old grade school hand/knee slap game:"kneesy, eyesy and nosey" (remember that skit in "Fra Diavolo-<The Devil's Brother>" with Laurel and Hardy when Laurel was doing this rhyme to show off Ollie?)...getting the coordination down with the fingers.

-Monte

Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 10-26-2008, 09:08 PM:

The way I was taught, you can find C E F and B by lightly "kicking" the sharp or flat closest to it, and from there you can normally feel your way down or up in half-steps.

Gosh... thinking about it I hope he didn't have designs on training me as his replacement.

One Sunday I got to help repair the blower with copious amounts of duct tape (it was replaced the following week, but this patch job held through the service)