 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: diz
Date: 2006-03-30 01:23
This is not clarinet related but the noise produced by this stop is to be heard to be believed, enjoy (in my home town)
http://www.sydneyorgan.com/STH64.mp3
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: bill28099
Date: 2006-03-30 02:28
How cool, the biggest pipe I have experienced was 32 feet. Is this the organ?
http://theatreorgans.com/sydney/
A great teacher gives you answers to questions
you don't even know you should ask.
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Author: ned
Date: 2006-03-30 03:47
I think the Atlantic City Convention Hall has an organ with a 64 ft pipe. My father had a recording of it - I'll go and look for it tonight.
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Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2006-03-30 11:41
Sounds like Burrito night at the Allyoucanneat Cantina...
Most of the local wheezers have 32 foot limits.
You need a VERY large hall to let a 64 foot stop breathe. What's the fundamental on that one, 8 Hz? 72 feet for one wave to propagate?
That's a few rows back...
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-03-30 15:20
The Sydney 64' stop is an open reed. http://www.theatreorgans.com/sydney/. Its low C beats at 8.18 Hz, at least an octave below the bottom of the human hearing range. http://www.contrabass.com/pages/frequency.html. Whales and elephants can probably hear it, though.
As an experiment, a clarinetist built a subsubsubsubcontra out of 64' of PVC pipe, curled into the shape of a radiator. In the ordinary clarinet closed-pipe way, sounded at 128' pitch at 4.09 Hz. http://www.contrabass.com/2002/2002-06-08.html. Unfortunately, there's no photo at that address, and I can't find one, although I remember seeing it.
The world's tallest smokestack is 419.7 meters, or 1,377' high http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimney_of_GRES-2_Power_Station, which would be effectively doubled to 2,754' by being closed at the bottom. The wind blowing across the top could sound it (like a coke bottle) at about 0.3 Hz.
The Earth itself resonates at a number of pitches ranging from 2 to 7 mHz (i.e., 0.002 to 0.007 Hz), 16 octaves below middle C. http://www.contrabass.com/1999/1999-09-28.html
There was a story a couple of years ago that the galazy vibrates at 1 Hz every few million years, but I can't find that, either.
How low can you go?
Ken Shaw
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Author: javier garcia m
Date: 2006-03-30 15:35
I guess the lowest note for standard instrument is A in the piano and some contrabassoons models. I do not know for tubas. Is it correct or there are lower notes on standards instruments?
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Author: diz
Date: 2006-03-31 02:38
Ken - the picture you link shows is obviously just the front rank of pipes, indeed, being the 32' diapason stop (from memory). The actual contratrombone is housed inside the organ itself itself and has its own blower. The link does not actually give any indication of the power of this rank of pipes which is thunderous. I've been inside the organ, years ago, when Robert Ampt took over as city organist and I was playing with the ABC Sinfonia ... I remember the concert well (1984) because I was then playing principal viola and we played the Poulenc Organ Concerto ... fabulous work. He took some of us on a tour of the guts of the beast. We were all gobsmacked.
Also - to clarify one question asked - yes It's a true 64 foot stop, not a stopped 32'.
And here's a much better link to the organ
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/Business/VenuesForHire/SydneyTownHall/GrandOrgan.asp
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
Post Edited (2006-03-31 02:59)
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2006-03-31 12:11
I think there are only two pipe organs in the world with true speaking ranks of 64 ft. pitch: the one in Atlantic City and the one in Sydney. However, a 64' resultant stop, often called the Vox Gravissima, can be heard (or rather felt; very few adults can hear a fundamental below about 12 Hz) in quite a few large cathedrals. It's a 32 ft. rank facing a 21-1/3 ft. quint rank, to produce a differential bass an octave below the 32-footers. The tone is quiet, though, a background rumble, while that Atlantic City thing is a diaphone. A lot of those 64' acoustic basses have been disabled in churches that have them, however, because they can cause structural damage in buildings that aren't earthquake proof.
That Atlantic City organ is a fascinating monstrosity, btw, designed by a senator who was a semi-professional organist and a bit of an organ crank, of whom there are many. Despite a massive reconstruction effort going on there for years, at no time has the entire instrument ever worked all at once. That's fairly common on big pipe organs, though--organists (my favorite uncle was one) routinely leave little notes on the console to tell visiting musicians which stops don't work right now.
I remember going with my uncle to an unfamiliar venue where he found Post-Its that said, "NO!" on about ten stop knobs. He tried out the stops that did work and growled, "I should just shut this thing off and hire a guy with about fifteen donkeys trained to bray on cue." Well, the Atlantic City beastie sounds better than *that*, anyhow. Oddly enough, clarinet stops generally don't sound anything like clarinets, btw.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2006-03-31 19:00
The 64 ft. rank on the Midmer-Losch in Atlantic City is an actual speaking rank. The 64-foot rank on the Wannamaker organ is a resultant. If you count the ranks that *work*, the Wanamaker certainly is larger, but I believe the Atlantic City...thing is the largest pipe organ in the world if you judge by the number of pipes. The Wanamaker does have more ranks. However, the Midmer-Losch has more pipes per rank, particularly on the pedal.
According to a public relations pamplet quoted in Orpha Ochse's book, "The History of the Organ in the United States" (Indiana U. Press, 1975), the Atlantic City organ has a seven-manual console and 33,112 pipes on 455 ranks. Designed by Senator Emerson Richards, the organ was built (finished in1932) by Midmer-Losch, a company with a reputation for willingness to make improbably huge instruments. The Wanamaker organ has six manuals, with a mere 30,067 pipes, but they're on 469 ranks, hence Philadelphia's claim to have the world's "largest" organ.
The problem with organs that huge is the same one you get with a marching band spread out over a whole football field: the sound from the musicians or the pipes farthest away from a given seat in the stands takes noticibly longer to travel to that seat than the music coming from nearer to the seat. It would be most unwise for a director to ask the clarinets near the home team's end zone to play in unison with flutes down near the away team's end zone--and, similarly, the organist who draws the stops for pipes that stand close to a city block apart (a *long* city block, in the case of the Atlantic City organ) gives the audience a muddled-up mess of noise.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: jim S.
Date: 2006-04-01 16:41
I loved the "random whistling" bit during the initiating Sydney City Hall concert.
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2006-04-02 11:07
Liverpool Anglican lists a 64' pedal stop...
Organ spec
The cathedral is certainly built to monumental proportions, and is well worth seeing. The local coarse pink sandstone almost glows...
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Author: diz
Date: 2006-04-02 23:02
Bassie - Liverpool is a wonderful organ (the main one). I have an electronic two manual + pedal board organ that is sampled from Liverpool, it's 16 foot bassoon stop is the thing of nightmares.
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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