Klarinet Archive - Posting 000214.txt from 2000/03

From: "Dee D. Hays" <deehays@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Falling in love
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 01:24:44 -0500

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dodgshun family" <dodgshun@-----.nz>
Subject: Re: [kl] Falling in love

>
> <snip>
>
> > There's another group of wind players that's got us all beat, though:
the
> > pipe organists. On the Pipeorg-L and Pipe Chat lists, almost every time
> > someone writes about a gig or even a church service, the report includes
a
> > run-down of what parts of the organ didn't work this time. Those guys
> tinker
> > or die.
>
> My dad's a pipe organist. I'm regularly called in to help him fix bits
and
> pieces of his church organ, not to mention tuning....it's seeing this that
> makes me realise that I'm really rather lucky in the lack of problems I
> have....
>
> > Organists have their wish lists the same as clarinetists, except an
> organist
> > can forget about setting up the instrument just as he or she likes it or
> or
> > even setting up the best possible maintenance schedule, because the
> condition
> > of the organ is totally at the mercy of a budget committee. A whole new
> > organ of any impressive size costs anywhere from US$250,000 to well over
> US$1 > million. We gripe about the cost of new pads and corks.
Restoration
> of a
> > deteriorated old organ can easily run into tens or even hundreds of
> thousands
> > of dollars. If the budget committe fails to come through, of course,
> > there's always "Midnight Organ Supply." Conventional wisdom among organ
> > builders is that a third of all organ pipes have been stolen at some
> point.
>
> Dad is actually in the process of building an organ here at home, which
> means I stand and hold pieces of wood while he drills lots of holes in
> them. The organ easily wins as the most complex instrument of all. Just
as
> an aside to this thread, can anybody enlighten me as to why church organs
> are so rarely at concert pitch? My orchestra played a concert using the
> organ in St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, and I've NEVER had to pull my
> clarinet out that far before. Organs in concert halls are at concert
pitch,
> so why not church organs?
>
> Anna
>

This is just speculation of course but perhaps because so many church organs
are quite old. They were built at a time when there was *NO* standard
concert pitch. Every city, village, and builder had their own pitch
standards.

On one of the newsgroups a posting pops up from time to time referencing a
book that documents the pitches of some of the old organs in existence
around the world. In some cases they vary as much as two full steps above
and below what we today consider to be standard concert pitch.

Dee Hays
Canton, SD

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