Bit of an overstatement, but it has some truth. I still think a lot of bickering went on between the organbuilder whose purpose was sound and the cathedral architect whose purpose was impressing the masses with imposing structures.
It’s still somewhat true today - renovating or replacing an organ is a serious architectural undertaking, and frequently it will only be done when the rest of the building is being renovated or rebuilt. And any building with a pipe organ generally has to be designed with the organ incorporated from the outset.
@@เรียนภาษาอังกฤษวันนี้ You and him are both kind of wrong. Because the organ isn´t just the pipes and keyboard. The whole building is the organ. The "room" it is in being it´s resonance body. Which is why organs in cathedrals have a sound to them that cannot be matched by organs situated in buildings not build for sound.
@@เรียนภาษาอังกฤษวันนี้The other users are right man, while most churches didn't have an organ, the ones that did took that into the design very seriously, so much so that chambers where sound went had special features and resonance chambers. Look up Helmholtz Resonator they used ceramic pots placed in the roof and rooms where the sound bounced.
What I love about organs: * You sit inside a building, and the building houses, and becomes the instrument. * You are surrounded by, and shaken physically by, pipes several times taller than you are. * You are listening to a space, filled with sound, not just sound.
Makes my thoughts wonder in really odd directions... Like having a JoJo stand, which is literally pipe organ and can manipulate the building it become part of, while stand user is playing the thing.
As a listener rather than a musician, the unique thing about pipe organs is that they are not just an instrument the size of a building. In a certain sense the building IS the instrument, and you are sitting inside the soundbox. No other instrument in the world can envelop you in it's sound quite like a pipe organ.
My dad is an organist. At home he has a two manual reed organ. I'm not sure what kind of organ he plays at church now. But he's frequently played pipe organs and when I was a kid he had a pipe organ in pieces in our large garage. While true that pipe organs are integrated into the building, smaller pipe organs exist which are able to be taken apart and moved from one location to another, but not on a regular basis because they're still big and you wouldn't want to do it more than once. I live in Christchurch, New Zealand, and of the 78 or so pipe organs in the greater Christchurch area, only something like 16 or 18 were playable, and only 4 were fully intact following the Feb 22 2011 earthquake. Many were destroyed. It was heartbreaking for organ lovers in the area.
Condoléances. One of the best music channels for beginners is Music Matters. Gareth is an organist. The only harsh criticism is that they hardly ever have a view of his hands on the keyboard.
@berkeleyfuller-lewis3442agreed, I have the equipment you describe, and it's good, but not quite there. Something special about being there in the live hall or church
@@hermodnitter3902 even If IT Sounds odd, you can feel the organ. You sit in the church or Philharmonie and it raise it voice, you can feel it. The gentle notes like a soft warm spring wind or the heavye notes like a storm rising. Thats what IT makes so Special that IT touches all of your sences.
Use to work for an Organ builder. The saddest part about some builders is, is when they under scale the 16' bourdon and Open Diapason for an instrument. If it isn't a 9x8" at C its no good!
You can say that again, Nahre! - Greetings from a retired concert organist, but still active as a pipe organ technician in sunny Florida :) For anybody interested I recommend checking out Anna Lapwood and Thomas Mellan; both are contemporary organists who succeed attracting younger audiences to the King of Instruments.
To be sure about Anna Lapwood, but Ben Maton (The Salisbury Organist) helped me understand--with the use of much smaller and older organs--the interplay between stops and multiple keyboards. It's all wonderful how Nahre is growing as a musician!
What is Anna Lapwood up to these days? She hasnt posted in a couple of months. Anyone heard Cameron Carpenter? Check out his covers of Carmen Variations and Chopin op 10 no 12. He plays Chopin's arpeggios on the pedals! Its insane
@@shackamaxon512 She is more active on Instagram and Facebook; just on her first USA tour.- I didn't mention Cameron Carpenter because I am not sure if he is still active as concert organist... I haven't heard from him in quite a while.
Professional organist here - so glad for this video! That you for bringing this wonderful instrument to a new audience! So fun to get your fresh perspective on things too.
The thing where organists use special shoes with soft soles and special heels so that they can feel the pedals and play them alternating between heel and toe IS AMAZING. I'm always impressed by a great organist's ability to switch between all of the manuals, sometimes playing two at a time with ONE hand, and play chords on the pedals, and pull stops IN THE MIDDLE OF A SONG without stopping. Just amazing. A great organist is truly a musician's musician. One aspect of playing the organ to which Nahre barely alluded, is that depending on the stop and the types of pipes being played, the organist will change their playing style to better emulate the instrument being emulated by the pipes. For instance, playing the forward facing trumpet pipes like trumpets rather than strings.
More impressive is those who do it without shows at all.. Special shoes are not necessary and are really for show. Paul Fey plaz amazingly well with socks.
@@organbuilder272How are the shoes for show when you usually don't even see the organist's feet? The most important aspect is simply having shoes that aren't tracking dirt and mud onto the pedalboard. Second, the shoes are patterned off of traditional formal styles, such as an Oxford shoe. They have suede leather soles to better slide on the pedals as well as allow you to better feel the pedals. The heel allows you to play thirds with one foot.
@@organbuilder272I use socks now myself. I had a pair of good shoes that I was fond of, until I made a discovery: Clorox bleach and leather do not work out well. On the way home from the laundromat, a bottle of said bleach topped, and the leather melted! It was too late to hmget shoes in time for the Sunday, so I slipped off my street shoes and played the Service music!
What i love about the organ is that every organ is a unique instrument. How its build, how it sounds, how it fits the room. No organ is the same. I've been an intern at Johannus Orgelbouw in the Netherlands and its amazing how (even though digital) those organs are build. They even have hybrid organs, digital and real pipe sounds.
Seated cross-legged on a bench in an airport many years ago, with the small 3-octave keyboard nestled in your lap and headphones on, you transported us to a realm of 'nie erhörte Klänge'-unheard-of sounds, as Schoenberg would say. It wasn't a traditional concert setting, but the intimacy and creativity of the moment made it all the more special. Your exploration of new perspectives in music, from the grand halls of the Hamburg Philharmonie to the more intimate setting of your own space, is truly inspiring.
"There is nothing to it. You simply strike the right notes at the right time, and the instrument plays itself." -- Johann Sebastian Bach, in response to being praised for his masterful organ playing.
@@ninjaaron True, but although Bach was joking in underplaying his skills, he also had a point. Most other instruments also are sensitive to how hard you blow, with how much speed and pressure you rub the string, etc. etc., the organ sound only depends on the timings of depression and release of the keys.
10:27 @pokerandphilosophy8328 I was a violinist and muscle memory helps but is limited. I can't imagine how to 'memorize' the movments of 2 hands and feet over that many key boards and ranks of stops! And then there's a delay between pressing a key and sound production, so the performer is always a slight beat ahead of the sound! Difficult to nigh impossible for most humans!
I've been an organist for nearly 50 years, and recently I have spent a lot of time learning difficult piano literature. This has improved my organ technique immensely, so apparently cross-training works both ways! I'm also a pipe organ builder, so I really appreciate this video!
Growing up as the son of an organist and often sitting with him on the organ bench as a child, listening to the sound, feeling the vibrations and watching the fingers and feet dance in synchronization was wonderful. He died when I was ten, but after a few years of piano lessons I also had organ lessons and had my own key to the church so I could practice at any time. Being alone in the church late in the evening, up on the organ loft, with only the manuals in the dim light, this deeply emotional, almost meditative atmosphere is a memory that I still look back on fondly 40 years later.
I may be both a metalhead and an electronic music fan, but the full pipe organ is my favorite instrument of all time. I'm not a spiritual or religious person but the sound of the pipe organ is so powerful that calling it the "voice of the divine" is honestly a very accurate statement. When played in a major key, no instrument is more triumphant. When played in a minor key, no instrument is more menacing.
As a listener in the 21st century, an organ not only has sound like no other instrument, but a sense of occasion. No sound system can perfectly reproduce an orchestra, so of course not an organ, but still, an orchestra can travel, a Stradivarius can change continents to resonate in all concert halls. On the other hand, if you want to hear an organ, you have to visit it, be there, experience it first hand. All organs are unique, and have their own personality. And while you are there, it's going to be rattling your bones, overpowering you so much. Unsurprisingly, that's why I am such a fan of the Interstellar soundtrack. It's amazing when you hear Hans Zimmer talking about discovering the possibilities of an organ, and learning how to harness them. And still today, even though many try (including Zimmer himself in his concerts), no orchestra or organ can reproduce the exact sound of THAT specific organ. So unique, so organ.
The organ and the piano are completely different instruments that happen to have the same input method. From the point of view of a pianist, the organ is a striking change which lays bare your finger-legato and articulation without that sustain pedal. But the organ also sustains a simple SATB harmony better than a piano could, and has the ability to play a solo melody with a bugle or flute stop. Expression is different because you can’t make pinky-notes loud or thumb-notes soft, but you also have the ability to make the whole individual keyboard softer or louder. It’s a completely unique instrument that happens to use a keyboard.
Only part of the finger motion is similar input. The stops and footwork along with HOW you play the keys are different. The organ and piano do NOT have the same input method.
@@paulmartin2348 This is true, but it’s something a pianist doesn’t instinctively realize, and it’s something Nahre doesn’t realize in this video. Pianists tend to see the organ as a broken piano. They need to realize how different it is going in. The organ is similar to the piano in the way that playing volleyball is similar to ping pong.
The organ was designed to be the instrument to rule them all. Brass, strings, woodwinds, chorus, an ENTIRE ORCHESTRA all at the hands of one person. It’s truly a grand wonder of engineering, and I think it plays its role pretty damn well.
@@Gg-jq7ht "Devolve" is the correct term! The attempts to emulate symphonic instruments are gruesome. The USA is the last country to have woken up to that fact. Ron Sharpe, who designed and built the Sydney Opera House Organ, once said "Most organists don't how to play, and most organs sound terrible". He was inspired by the German Classical Organs by Schnitger and Silbermann. Unlike most organs, they have penetrating reeds among other glorious sounds. With the Opera House organ you can hear every pipe in a mixture. Most organs are muddied or blurred with mixtures.
@foxjcket - Exactly (for better, or worse ...). I would much rather hear a modest organ in a good acoustic than an exceptional organ in a poor acoustic.
You are correct, Nahre, it is *not* a keyboard instrument (7:02). It is a wind instrument that happens to be controlled by a keyboard. Having to think about the length of each note is one of the things that takes me the most time when I switch from piano to organ. And the piano is a percussion instrument that happens to be controlled by a keyboard.
You’ve captured the essence of playing a pipe organ and explained it perfectly. Even as an organ player the difference between playing an electric organ and moving to pipe has the exact same effect and feeling. I found this out 40 years ago when I played a pipe Wurlitzer. Such a learning curve. Unfortunately after a spinal injury lost the ability to play pedals ten years ago so moved to keyboards. Recently two months ago a abscess in my left hand caused necrosis and lost my little finger tendons. I’m devastated tbh but had to comment how perfectly you captured the essence of playing pipe and bought back so many great and fond memories. Thank you excellent work.
Wonderful... the only way I as a pianist can ever truly understand the mighty organ is to have a truly adept pianist explain it - and this you are doing so well. Thank you immensely! Oh, and by the way, kudos to you for your residency here - truly impressive! 👏🏻👏🏻
I play at 3 different churches with pipe organs, 2 of which are listed in the international guild of pipe organs in the Boston area. At one church, the only thing that will tame the reverb and “ Muddy “ sound,…. Is playing my right hand, an octave higher, and using a really high end Neumann microphone, to let my voice, and the words be heard. I love how you show that just because you are a pianist, you can’t just..” step in and improvise “ … and make magic on a pipe organ
Pipe organs actually go down to 16hz (instruments with 32’ stops) but technically there are a handful of rare organs that even have 64’ pedal stops which go down to 8hz.
that's only a fundamental frequency and remember that when you combine higher harmonics you get effectively their fundamental (residual) frequency. When you combine 16' and 10 2/3' you get a resultant tone of acoustical length 32'. Known method of doing that in organbuilding.
@@seth094978 There isn't. There are only two organs with true full-length 64ft pipes - Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall and Sydney Town Hall. Atlantic City does have a quint stop within the same rank of pipes that allows it to give a resultant 128ft, but I doubt if it is effective.
The most humbling experience I had as a pianist was being forced to play organ at my local church (the actual organist who played there before passed away) and at first it was terrible. There was approximately a half a second delay between any tone I played and hearing the tone back. It forced me to think differently about the music. But it became even more complicated with playing alongside other instruments. The acoustics just work differently for each one of them and the organ threatens to overrule them all if not used carefully. Thankfully my brother took up organ at school and was able to take over my job, but still... to most people organ and piano seem similar, but they are so much different. Here's to all the organists, keep up the good work.
I listen to the pipe organ at the local church sometimes when they practice during the daytime, also not far from me is the church which houses the organ Handel composed the Chandos anthems on when he stayed at canons.
Thank you for the insight on pipe organ, Nahre. Also to all wonderful people featured in this video. Wish you all the best on your activities and residency in Elbphilharmonie.
Around 8 years ago I had the privilege of frequently playing a fantastic historical organ. Playing Interstellar was a true experience. It also profoundely shifted how I approached the piano, just like Nahre described!
I have a love/hate relationship with organ music because it is so loud and strident but when it's love it's LOVE. Thank you for teaching us so much about it!
I think the same can be said for any music -- organ, piano, orchestral, choral, etc. I've heard pieces in each of those which I love, and other pieces which I greatly dislike.
It’s a lot like additive synthesis, with all the different overtones getting added together. Though what you described with the compressors is electromechanical, not electronic. I’ve always found organs fascinating. Some early bass synthesisers had feet controls because of how synthesisers co-evolved with smaller electric (tonewheel), then electronic (divide-down) organs. Adding reverb to my instruments changes how I play too, you integrate the space of the reverb into the playing more in a way you just don’t get when you hear a dry sound.
Organs have become more and more electronic over recent decades - the linkages from the keyboard to the pipes went from mechanical to electromechanical to electronic - and now entirely digital "pipe" organs are a thing, using sampling, physical modeling, and other techniques to emulate pipe organ sounds, while still enabling the free-flow combination of organ stops. Adoption of digital organs is a bitter subject of debate - I think places like the Elbphilharmonie would rightfully go nowhere near them - but the economics are hard to ignore in a lot of places.
When she said that when she played the organ it made her play the piano differently, I felt the same way when I started switching from acoustic to using distortion pedals and a amplifier for my electric guitar. That was about a little over a decade ago and I was playing for over 3 years at that time. Hearing certain sounds makes you play from a different angle. At that time, it made me notice how choppy I was playing before using an electric guitar. I tried imitating a value that was on the electric guitar and got something new.
“The hydraulis was used at outdoor public entertainments; its sound was loud and penetrating. Its use declined in the West by the 5th century AD, although Arab writers of the 9th century refer to it. *Later medieval writers thought the hydraulis was a steam-whistle organ such as the calliope*.” We seem to have bad memories eh? Musical instruments were peak tech back in the day ❤.
Instruments always push the limits of the technology of the day they’re invented :) keyed wind instruments reflect steam engine interlocks, brass valve instruments later steam valves, electric guitars using then-new solid state components and filters and amplifiers… and so on. Pipe organs used wooden reed expertise, then moved to the expertise of whistle makers and so on; as well as integrating steam-powered air compressors, then diesel etc, before finally universally moving to electric motors… I love how musical instruments reflect the tech of their time.
Of course you release this as I’m writing an organ passacaglia for my end of year juries! Unfortunately our school organ isn’t THIS cool, but it’s got pretty much all the bells and whistles.
bach was an organist basically his whole life. after hearing you talk about your experience it just makes sense that bach became the most influential musician of all time. wonderful video
Very interesting. I enjoyed the pianist playing an organ for the first time experiences and takeaways. And OMG, what an organ to play as a first instrument! And yes, I think it translated back to your piano work well. Those pieces you were playing of yours were superb. Maybe you should consider making a concert video of some of your favorite self composed works. I would listen. You could talk about what you were thinking, as well, your normal mode, but just the music after that 'what it is' in full length would be wonderful.
Great video! In just two hours at the organ you managed to describe the last three years of me as a pianist learning the organ. And everything you said was also true for me! Learning the organ has made me a much better musician in every way (much less reliant on muscle memory, playing more consequently and consciously, playing into the space, listening to the sound I’m making, much more conscious of dynamics, less reliant on the sustain pedal, better sight reader, better at improvising, better at reharmonizing, better at playing by ear. It has been a wonderful experience and I would recommend it to everyone!
Loved that piano piece you were practicing. Amazing recording quality of that. You nailed the summary of challenges playing organ. 1) No sustain pedal to simplify transitions between notes. 2) The hall is part of the instrument. 3) Multiple ranks of keys AND foot pedals to play. 4) Most important, the time lag between your hand and hearing the sound would be VERY difficult to adjust to. And that delay is different for every organ based upon its mechanism and its environment. QUESTION: What kind of cable is used to allow the console to sit in the middle of the stage? How do those inputs get mapped back to the physical core of the machine? That looks like one massive MIDI cable. (smile). For another example of someone who has amazing playing ability with her feet on organ, look up Barbara Dennerlein and watch anything she plays on a Hammond B3.
Answering to your question, nowadays the cable is often simply an optical fiber. It used to be bunch of individual electrical wires in common shield. I'm speaking only about the movable organ console. The fixed console may be connected also via a mechanical tracker or tubular pneumatic action.
The cable could be as small as a MIDI cable or even a USB cable, which are not technically optical but use optoisolators on each end of transmission. All the note information is sent serially in such a system, but so fast that you cannot discern it. The electrical impulses are converted to higher current signals which trigger electrical solenoids that activate the pipe valves. There are a myriad of different systems for doing this, referred to as organ actions. This is not as a direct a connection as what is called tracker action where there is a mechanical linkage between each key and the valves that admit air to the pipes, but then again with that system you cannot move the console around like you can as shown here. I have a three manual 24 rank organ in my home that has only a USB cable coming from it. The same system could control either a pipe or virtual organ. Mine happens to be a theater organ.
Brava for this video. Thank you for making it, as a lifelong organist and also a pipe organ builder professionally I think this is a marvelous (and accurate!) documentary. Very well done.
I am a simple church organist. I'm good, far from great. But... having said that, the organ has taught me to listen. I've been told may choral conductors began as organists because we need to hear everything. I think of the difference between playing organ vs piano as the organ is about fingers, whereas the piano is about the entire body. When I watch great organists the body is far more still than I see in pianists. Maybe that's just me. Enjoy your time on the organ!
One of the difficulties in playing the pedal board is that you need to twist the body without pushing off with your feet in order to play the extremes of the pedal board. This is also true of the pedal clavichord which is particularly sensitive to pressure on the feet. This means that you must be very aware of body mechanics at all times as it can affect the timing and even the sound in some instances. One organist of my acquaintance said that the best lesson he ever had was from a chiropractor who was watching his body mechanics and posture as he was playing.
One of the really interesting accompanying anecdotes I remember hearing was how not only was the organ part of the room as it was built into the building, but that often the building and the room were built as part of the organ, meaning the reverberation and shape of the room was to compliment and push the sound around to make the best experience for the audience.
Welcome to my world! (organ and piano) . Now you can understand why I love playing both the piano and organ -- two very different and very gratifying worlds -- hard to play a 32' bombarde on a piano, hard to play Debussy and Rachmaninoff on an organ. And yes -- in a piano performance, the acoustic ceratinly makes a difference, in a piano performance it's about 90% piano and 10% room; with an organ it's more like 50% instrument and 50% room. With the organ, you learn to play the room as well as the instrument. I'm so glad to see you're enjoying this expansive experience! I hope you will be able to try multiple high-quality instruments of varying sizes and in different acoustics to gain an understanding and experience of how unique each instrument can be in terms of intent, design, and implementation -- not unlike discovering the nuances of many fine wines. It's a big world out there. Enjoy!
I have always loved the organ. When I was a child, we went to church every weekend. The organs were by far my favourite part about it. The organist would always play for a couple minutes after the priest had left and the sermon was ended. I loved to listen to it.
That was a brilliant perspective of a pianist starting on the organ! I realised the same change in listening further than my instrument, when I started playing organ after years of piano. I forget who, but someone said something like, "the most important stop on the organ is the building", and I think this is true for all instruments.
Fun fact: the pipe organ is where the term "pull out all the stops" comes from. Instead of buttons or switches, on older pipe organs, the stops were actuated by knobs that were pull out (or pushed back in to turn them off).
The pipe organ and the piano are completely different instruments. The piano is a percussion instrument. By that, I mean pianists talk about "sustain"-- how long a note stains its sound after it is played. Non-percussion instruments never talk about "sustain." No violinist says his violin has "good sustain." He can hold the note as long as he wants, unlike the piano. The organ builder in this video did not quite went so far to say that the building is part of the instrument. It's like the cathedral is the wooden shell of the violin, and the pipes are the four strings. When you listen to the pipe organ, you are inside the instrument listening to it. The performer is also sitting inside the instrument. That is precisely the reason the pipe organ is the biggest instrument. The pipe organ is much more and bigger than the pipes and the keyboard. I am not Christian, but I used to go to a college church just to listen to the pipe organ. It's like the pipe organ is the elephant, and the rest of the instruments are just bugs. Long live the pipe organ!
The piano is not a percussion, it's a string instrument, most closely related to the zither. It makes its sound with strings, and the keyboard merely slaps the strings, just the same as how Davie504 slaps his bass. The organ is a woodwind.
Again, I’m here commenting in spite of not being a musician! That’s because the things you bring up are sort of imaginable because of how you do it - it’s great. Here, I loved the points about how a big sound in a huge room mitigates against fast and highly detailed passages, and I really loved the realization that hitting the keys harder on an organ does nothing. It must make a huge change to how dynamics are expressed. Forgive me if you said but I also wondered if there’s a noticeable delay between when your finger presses a key and when the sound arrives at your ear? That seems like it would make things very, very challenging. I’ll stop now but thank you and I will be looking up other products of your current position. Thank you again.
The delay depends on the instrument and the room, but yes, there can definitely be a delay of more than half a second between the time the key is pressed and the time the sound is heard. It makes for quite a challenge when practicing on an instrument that is different from the one on which is to be performed. The organ practice rooms at my college were very small and the pipes were only a few feet in front of you, and the response was instantaneous, whereas the recital instrument was in a large auditorium with the pipes over 100 feet away from the console, and the response almost 1 second. Organists get used to this -- it is challenging -- but absolutely necessary -- to learn how to press the keys far enough in advance, and with enough spacing and detachment to send the sound you want into the room at the right time in order to get what you want from the room. What an odd way to play an instrument -- right?
From Fraser Gartshore's UA-cam channel I gather that it isn't quite true anymore that you need to go to the real organ to practice: there is a "virtual organ" software, Hauptwerk, with sample sets from many real organs (often even with samples recorded from different locations in the church). People do end up with complete (Midi) organ consoles at home though...
@jhbnijhof You are correct -- virtual organ software provides excellent access to hundreds of world-class instruments and their acoustics right in your living room (den, etc. . . . )
I was a choral scholar at Trinity College Cambridge when the magnificent mechanical-action Metzler was being built in our lovely Tudor chapel. It was a fascinating process, with every pipe being tuned to the resonance of the building resulting in a mellow and balanced instrument. The new organ incorporates elements of the original 17thC instrument blending old and new. But my goodness the organ is a challenging instrument to play. I was in awe of the skills of the organ scholar, who was just a young student like the rest of us. He would be sightreading a new piece on two keyboards and the foot pedals when the conductor would ask him to transpose down a tone - which he would achieve without a hitch. He went on to become a celebrated conductor and marry a film-star!
You are in error - The limits are from 16 hz to over 45 kHz if you include harmonics. Maximum Sound pressure is around 95 -100 db at Audience level, more than that inside of course. But not 140 db. That would deafen you. I make pipe organ recordings.
194db is max in Earth atmosphere. Sound pressure doesn't just spontaneously kill you, guys. Unless we're talking shockwaves or something. But 140db is the price of entry in the Car Audio world. 160db+ is becoming less uncommon, even.
😊Thanks for this appreciation of the organ Nahre. I play both regularly (at church) but not to professional standards. The pianoforte is touch sensitive and my piano style makes of the expression you can produce using the keyboard, foot pedals etc. it’s percussive roots are great for modern hymns and songs with interesting rhythms (syncopation). However the organ has multiple keyboards and different ranges for different stops. It suits a legato (smooth) style of playing and the fingering to keep that legato style can be interesting - substituting one finger for another without releasing the note is an art most organists soon master. You can also do this on the piano but I don’t use that technique nearly so often. I stick with the organ for traditional church music but I think improvising around a tune can be far freer on a piano - but that might be just me and being brought up on piano jazz!!
The pipe organ is one of my favorite instruments because of how much of a statement it is. It's so huge it has to be built as part of the structure of the building it sits in and just makes that structure so metal. The municipal theater of my city of course has one built into the main chamber and its mesmerizing.
Organs are amazing. There's so much to explore and learn with each instrument. The differences with the piano are certainly challenges for a pianist, but a great way to expand your horizons.
Not only does the distance separation between the manual and the pipes allow the performer to hear the resonance better, but because of the distance there is a slight lag between pressing an organ key and hearing the pipe sound. This is shorter when the manual is closer to the pipes, but in those shots of the manual being on the stage in the middle of the performance hall and the pipes being in the outer wall of the performance hall, there is a noticeable delay between pressing a key and hearing the pipe. That delay alone will force the performer to slow down and play more deliberately.
@@Marunius I only fully understood a sec ago that her role is that of a chief influencer for the venue. Try lollygagging at the Elphi, or she has to tell here, if she is going to be scheduled. I think, she can play ...
6:30 this made me realize that there are different ways to be a musician. I mainly play and focus on what I'm playing instead of just playing the notes from memory. I think it's cause I spend a lot of time on synthesizer and don't have much piano background at all.
As an organist, this really resonated with me! Of course, I studied piano for many years before switching to organ, and you really nail the differences between the two instruments. The piano is, after all, a percussive instrument, whereas the organ is a sustained one. This forces us organists to be much more concerned not only on the attack but also on the release of each note. On the other hand, the force with which we press on the keys is totally irrelevant on the organ. Anyway, thanks for a great video!
As an organist myself, I LOVE seeing your views on this! Especially as a double organjst/pianist, I appreciate your perspective on percussion and acoustics. Thanks!
I’m a piano tuner and restorer and I remember being in a church once and they were telling me just how much they need to get in funding to restore their organ. It was around £100,000 and this wasn’t a huge church or anything so I can imagine the cost of building this particular one! The reverend of the church asked if I’d like to see the rest of the organ which was hidden behind one of the panels within the church which was quite cool. And just behind this you could see all circuitry, bellows and hundreds if not thousands of pipes ranging from tiny ones maybe a few inches to large ones which extended many meters up. The instrument is that big you can physically walk around inside it… that totally blew my mind! Huge respect to those organ builders past and present because what they’re able to achieve is incredible!
I'm only 3 minutes into the video and I've already heard so many false facts I know by personal experience, being a musician myself to be somewhere between very misleading to totally wrong. It's a 👎 from me...
Thank you! The title itself is a lie. Upper end synthesizers easily surpass any organ (except in terms of the number of manuals, but just substitute a synth for each manual and another for the bass pedals). And even synthesizers have limits!
One VERY important ESSENTIAL distinction between the piano and the pipe organ is the fact that the piano is fundamentally a percussive instrument operated mostly with your hands while the organ is not. Rather it's a wind instrument operated with your hands and feet. That statement alone should help reframe your whole perspective, hopefully. Delightful video, Nahre, thank you very much! 😊
I can appreciate the artistry of an organ but I've never really enjoyed the sound of it. :( it just always sounds so slow and doomy, and usually corny sounds. My usual experience with it is a lot of boring church music. But even the bach our local player plays sounds just so slow and corny with the organ sound. I do enjoy the classic rich organ sound but it's rarely played.
I can assure you that there is plenty of boring, unenjoyable organ music around -- including plenty that I (an organist) would rather not hear. But there is also a lot of really great and very enjoyable organ music as well if you look for it. I would suggest you check out Fraser Gartshore, Richard McVeigh (beauty in Sound), Rob Stefanussen, and Cameron Carpenter -- to name a few. Also look for J.S. Bach's Jig (or Gigue) Fugue for a really happy piece! Happy listening!
@@slower__8437 A lot depends on not only the pieces being played, but how good the instrument (and the room acoustic) is, how good the performer is, and -- for recordings -- the quality of the recording. As I said earlier, there's plenty I've heard that just doesn't cut it for me. Check out Cameron Carpenter's "Stars and Stripes Forever" played at Trinity Church Wall Street (he's dressed in white, playing two different things in the pedals at the same time - including the piccolo part with his feet... ) The best experience is to hear a really good performance on a really good instrument in a really great room -- it really gets to you inside and out. I hope you can hear one of those someday.
Something I wish you had addressed is latency; the organ is not an immediate instrument; you press a key, and a moves B moves C moves D until finally an air column BEGINS vibrating. And some of those air columns are very big. So it can take some time for the sound to begin after the key is pressed - I guess this depends on the instrument. Electronic probably faster than all-mechanical. Might depend on air temp also. And of course like all wind instruments, temp affects the pitch also. Also, the sound can be produced at some distance from the organist, so the sounds waves take time to reach his ears. All of this has to be accommodated to by the player. I can only play keyboards, because most other instruments behave illogically to me. On a keyboard, each key is a semitone above the last (counting both black and white keys). So as a child, I could pick out tunes by ear easily enough, guessing notes and adjusting if needed. But learning the recorder was a nightmare, because to get a few notes right, you had to "play two keys at once" - that is, to cover more than one hole at a time. Strings - you have as many instruments as you have strings, each tuned differently. On brass, you have valves, and so on. But keyboards are intuitive. My family could only afford a cheap secondhand upright piano, and I was only noodling anyway, but I soon developed a love of Bach Organ music, and because of the lack of pedals on a piano, I couldnt possibly play the bass pedal line. Also, its funny you mention sustain, because thats what the piano cannot do, and the organ can. As long as the key is pressed, the sound will continue. Indefinitely. This is important particularly for pedal points, where the note in the pedal bass continues loudly as you play other notes against it above, often creating wonderful dissonances until the upper notes finally come into line. Also, sustained arpeggiated chords are fabulous on the organ, like that wonderful stacking of minor thirds at the beginning of that most famous organ piece, the Toccata and Fuge in d. I played it on a piano, with the sustain pedal on, but there's only so far it can take you. The final problem, which you touch on, but dont give the implications of, is that most people cannot practice the organ. Churches and Concert Halls dont let kids in to noodle around, and people cant generally afford to have them in their homes. I was offered the use of a small electric instrument at a local bar (my parents knew the bar owner), but the idea of noodling around with strangers listening freaked me out. If you are a serious student, fine; but its not an instrument to fool around on to see if you like it or can use it. I am in awe of anyone who can operate an organ. You need full dexterity in both hands, but also the feet, AND control all sorts of bells and whistles (literally) at the same time. But I would LOVE to be in control of all of that - particularly in creating the sounds that use the audience body cavities as resonating bodies. The sounds that vibrate their entire torsos. Generally pedal points in the bass. These instruments dont only use the acoustics of the space they are in, but can also use the acoustics of the listener.
Thank you for your post, @riverstun. I play, or used to play, piano and organ. I always wanted to learn guitar, or banjo, or ukele but never got the hang of it. I didn't think about it much but your posting explains my difficulty to me perfectly: they are a conglomeration of differently tuned instruments and my logical brain will have none of it! In college I was lucky enough to have access to a beautiful 4 manual Kilgen pipe organ housed in a huge gothic church. I could practise as much as I wanted at night with no one around. The console was in the choir loft at the bcak along with most of the pipes. But at the far end (front) of the church was a separate pipe room (Chancel ORgan) that was only playable from the main console. Trying to play those pipes by themselves was quite n experience. Not only was there the typical pipe organ valve/pipe delay, yoou had to wait for the sound to travel the lenth og the church to hear what you were playing. Unless I wanted everything to sound like a dirge my solution was to play the keyboard and hum the tune as I played while ignoring the pipe sounds! Weird!
The latency is a problem and it also depends on the technology used for the path from the key to the pipe: there are purely mechanical organs, pneumatic ones and electromechanical ones. And especially the pneumatics are really slow. From my perspective mechanical is the best because you feel the valve opening and the mechanism doesn't have that much play in it to add to latency. But with bigger organs that gets unpractical very fast because even two mechanically coupled manuals are noticeably harder to play, with more it borders on impossible even if they exist. And in terms of air column - it is difficult to get access to the bigger organs with the 32' stops. The one I could get to had a stopped 32' and that thing (from Klais) wasn't really practical - really too slow. Open 32' are much better, but have double the length (and cost). It might be a matter of taste, but most churches / cathedrals with so much stone have simply too much reverb for any organ to sound good. One of the most popular sample sets for Hauptwerk is the organ from Rotterdam. What makes this church distinct is that it has not a stone vaulted ceiling, but a wooden one - which dampens the sound enough to make the organ sound much better.
I love the piano and organ together - I think they complement each other in an amazing way. The piano with its dynamic, sensitive touch and arpeggios together with the orchestra like pipe organ are perfect fit!
Very cool video, thank you! Especially on the difference between playing a physical piano and a keyboard that's far from a giant sound engine that fills the room from the edges.
My Grandad, Charles Dunston (but written Dunston on adverts in newspapers I have seen) played the Pipe Organ at Rotherham Cinema. He also got to play many of the famous organs around the UK. He’s dead now but my Dad remembered and told the story of when they both stripped down the organ after it was sold and sent near Stoke somewhere. Impressive organs. I should add, at the time he only had one leg, taken below the knee so was in a prosthetic on.
"When you listen to classical pieces, it's astounding to consider what those masters of music had to achieve without the modern conveniences we rely on today. They had to understand every instrument they composed for, often transitioning seamlessly between them. It puts into perspective why figures like Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven remain so impressive to this day. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is perhaps the most famous composer for the organ. His Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, is one of the most iconic organ pieces ever written. A virtuoso on the instrument, Bach composed extensively for it, particularly in his sacred music and chorale preludes. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) also wrote organ music, though not as extensively as Bach. He composed several works for the organ, especially during his time at Salzburg Cathedral. Notable examples include his Fantasy in F minor, K. 608, and Epistle Sonatas for organ and orchestra. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), while primarily known for his symphonies and piano compositions, did compose a few organ works. His contributions to organ music were relatively minor, reflecting his focus on other instruments, though early in his career, he wrote some fugues and variations for the organ. No modern composer can compare while John Williams, Philip Glass, Hans Zimmer, and Igor Stravinsky all come close when you consider everything they had access to it almost pales in comparison. Absolutely no disrespect all are wonderful Craftsmen in their own right!
So nice to see you explore the organ! I just want to add that you experienced one particular organ in one particular room. Organs can be quite different - your experience could be very different with another organ. An historic, maybe smaller one. This adds to the charm and is also challenging: every organ is different and the difference can be huge!
At age 7 my family moved a block away from Saint John’s Cathedral in Spokane, Washington. Once in a while the dean would let me dink around on the huge pipe organ there during the day for about 10 minutes at a time. I got to do this for a couple of years. I never knew what a privilege that was until I read the local news where an elderly mans last wish was to play the pipe organ in that cathedral, and it was something he wanted to do most of his life. It was a magnificent organ! Over the years the church replaced the beautiful organ and huge pipes and put them in storage.
I thought the loudest instrument was the coughing between movements...
Coughing in piano and pianissimo parts is an art😇😲. That's why there are so many «artists» performing in so many recordings.😤🤬
I thought Donald Trump was the loudest tool 😂😂
@@nicodesmidt4034do you mean by Donald trumpet
@@B.E.E.F..B.O.S.S yeah, sorry 😃👍
Yeah, that true, and since the typical classical audience is about 5000 years old, going to 6000 soon, it won't get quieter any time soon.
If you were an organ builder in Bach's day you didnt just build an organ in the room, you built a room around the organ
Bit of an overstatement, but it has some truth. I still think a lot of bickering went on between the organbuilder whose purpose was sound and the cathedral architect whose purpose was impressing the masses with imposing structures.
It’s still somewhat true today - renovating or replacing an organ is a serious architectural undertaking, and frequently it will only be done when the rest of the building is being renovated or rebuilt. And any building with a pipe organ generally has to be designed with the organ incorporated from the outset.
@@เรียนภาษาอังกฤษวันนี้ You and him are both kind of wrong. Because the organ isn´t just the pipes and keyboard. The whole building is the organ. The "room" it is in being it´s resonance body. Which is why organs in cathedrals have a sound to them that cannot be matched by organs situated in buildings not build for sound.
You mean Bach in the day?
@@เรียนภาษาอังกฤษวันนี้The other users are right man, while most churches didn't have an organ, the ones that did took that into the design very seriously, so much so that chambers where sound went had special features and resonance chambers. Look up Helmholtz Resonator they used ceramic pots placed in the roof and rooms where the sound bounced.
What I love about organs:
* You sit inside a building, and the building houses, and becomes the instrument.
* You are surrounded by, and shaken physically by, pipes several times taller than you are.
* You are listening to a space, filled with sound, not just sound.
I love all that, too, as an organist!
This is why my metal band uses 200 watt amps in a little tiny basement. It's not to flex, it's fun to make the building dance a little too!
Yes it feels amazing!
@@TheTurtleneck64 gotta love some tinnitus for flavor
@@TheTurtleneck64so you can become deaf by your 30s
With a pipe organ, the instrument IS the building.
That is such an outrageous idea, and I love it so much!!! 🥹
very well said ... i also like the fact that i happened to be the two hundred twenty second (222) person to like this comment! ^_^
Makes my thoughts wonder in really odd directions... Like having a JoJo stand, which is literally pipe organ and can manipulate the building it become part of, while stand user is playing the thing.
I like the fact that I happened to be the 400th person to like this comment! :D
@@dadautube 444th here 😉
I give you an up. BUT the building is not the instrument rather the resonant chamber that amplified the organ sound.
As a listener rather than a musician, the unique thing about pipe organs is that they are not just an instrument the size of a building. In a certain sense the building IS the instrument, and you are sitting inside the soundbox. No other instrument in the world can envelop you in it's sound quite like a pipe organ.
Sad, lonely carillon tries hard.
My dad is an organist. At home he has a two manual reed organ. I'm not sure what kind of organ he plays at church now. But he's frequently played pipe organs and when I was a kid he had a pipe organ in pieces in our large garage. While true that pipe organs are integrated into the building, smaller pipe organs exist which are able to be taken apart and moved from one location to another, but not on a regular basis because they're still big and you wouldn't want to do it more than once.
I live in Christchurch, New Zealand, and of the 78 or so pipe organs in the greater Christchurch area, only something like 16 or 18 were playable, and only 4 were fully intact following the Feb 22 2011 earthquake. Many were destroyed. It was heartbreaking for organ lovers in the area.
Condoléances.
One of the best music channels for beginners is Music Matters. Gareth is an organist. The only harsh criticism is that they hardly ever have a view of his hands on the keyboard.
man that was a crazy mass shooting a few years back, huh?
@@shgdshectic
@@shgds This has absolutely nothing to do with organs.
@@gab_gallard a lot of organs were damaged there for sure
No microphone or speaker can reproduce the feeling of listening to an organ live. It is a unique experience.
@berkeleyfuller-lewis3442agreed, I have the equipment you describe, and it's good, but not quite there. Something special about being there in the live hall or church
@@hermodnitter3902 even If IT Sounds odd, you can feel the organ. You sit in the church or Philharmonie and it raise it voice, you can feel it. The gentle notes like a soft warm spring wind or the heavye notes like a storm rising. Thats what IT makes so Special that IT touches all of your sences.
yeah but still sounds shit. buy a synth 😂😂😂
Use to work for an Organ builder. The saddest part about some builders is, is when they under scale the 16' bourdon and Open Diapason for an instrument. If it isn't a 9x8" at C its no good!
@@VitoMcWaedlerwdym it sounds bad? and why a synth?
If the piano is a typewriter for harmony, the organ is a conductor for an army of mischievous elves with whistles
that is some incredible imagery
And a DAW?
@@saricubra2867Daw would be a office
You can say that again, Nahre! - Greetings from a retired concert organist, but still active as a pipe organ technician in sunny Florida :) For anybody interested I recommend checking out Anna Lapwood and Thomas Mellan; both are contemporary organists who succeed attracting younger audiences to the King of Instruments.
Hey, thanks for your suggestion! Will check them out ❤
To be sure about Anna Lapwood, but Ben Maton (The Salisbury Organist) helped me understand--with the use of much smaller and older organs--the interplay between stops and multiple keyboards. It's all wonderful how Nahre is growing as a musician!
I think that Anna Lapwood in particular is someone you would get on well with.
What is Anna Lapwood up to these days? She hasnt posted in a couple of months. Anyone heard Cameron Carpenter? Check out his covers of Carmen Variations and Chopin op 10 no 12. He plays Chopin's arpeggios on the pedals! Its insane
@@shackamaxon512 She is more active on Instagram and Facebook; just on her first USA tour.- I didn't mention Cameron Carpenter because I am not sure if he is still active as concert organist... I haven't heard from him in quite a while.
Professional organist here - so glad for this video! That you for bringing this wonderful instrument to a new audience! So fun to get your fresh perspective on things too.
Awesome videos on your channel! The Interstellar suite was incredible
The thing where organists use special shoes with soft soles and special heels so that they can feel the pedals and play them alternating between heel and toe IS AMAZING. I'm always impressed by a great organist's ability to switch between all of the manuals, sometimes playing two at a time with ONE hand, and play chords on the pedals, and pull stops IN THE MIDDLE OF A SONG without stopping. Just amazing. A great organist is truly a musician's musician. One aspect of playing the organ to which Nahre barely alluded, is that depending on the stop and the types of pipes being played, the organist will change their playing style to better emulate the instrument being emulated by the pipes. For instance, playing the forward facing trumpet pipes like trumpets rather than strings.
Call me ayrton senna cos I’m rev matching the organ
More impressive is those who do it without shows at all.. Special shoes are not necessary and are really for show. Paul Fey plaz amazingly well with socks.
@@organbuilder272How are the shoes for show when you usually don't even see the organist's feet? The most important aspect is simply having shoes that aren't tracking dirt and mud onto the pedalboard. Second, the shoes are patterned off of traditional formal styles, such as an Oxford shoe. They have suede leather soles to better slide on the pedals as well as allow you to better feel the pedals. The heel allows you to play thirds with one foot.
Honestly when I played the organ I just played barefoot it was more comfortable.
@@organbuilder272I use socks now myself. I had a pair of good shoes that I was fond of, until I made a discovery: Clorox bleach and leather do not work out well. On the way home from the laundromat, a bottle of said bleach topped, and the leather melted! It was too late to hmget shoes in time for the Sunday, so I slipped off my street shoes and played the Service music!
I love that as good as she is, she still gets excited about learning new things.
The pipe organ is an amazing sound.
What i love about the organ is that every organ is a unique instrument. How its build, how it sounds, how it fits the room. No organ is the same. I've been an intern at Johannus Orgelbouw in the Netherlands and its amazing how (even though digital) those organs are build. They even have hybrid organs, digital and real pipe sounds.
Seated cross-legged on a bench in an airport many years ago, with the small 3-octave keyboard nestled in your lap and headphones on, you transported us to a realm of 'nie erhörte Klänge'-unheard-of sounds, as Schoenberg would say. It wasn't a traditional concert setting, but the intimacy and creativity of the moment made it all the more special. Your exploration of new perspectives in music, from the grand halls of the Hamburg Philharmonie to the more intimate setting of your own space, is truly inspiring.
"There is nothing to it. You simply strike the right notes at the right time, and the instrument plays itself." -- Johann Sebastian Bach, in response to being praised for his masterful organ playing.
Shockingly, the approach of playing the right note at the right time seems to work on other instruments as well.
@@ninjaaron True, but although Bach was joking in underplaying his skills, he also had a point. Most other instruments also are sensitive to how hard you blow, with how much speed and pressure you rub the string, etc. etc., the organ sound only depends on the timings of depression and release of the keys.
Tongue firmly planted in cheek!
10:27 @pokerandphilosophy8328 I was a violinist and muscle memory helps but is limited. I can't imagine how to 'memorize' the movments of 2 hands and feet over that many key boards and ranks of stops! And then there's a delay between pressing a key and sound production, so the performer is always a slight beat ahead of the sound! Difficult to nigh impossible for most humans!
I've been an organist for nearly 50 years, and recently I have spent a lot of time learning difficult piano literature. This has improved my organ technique immensely, so apparently cross-training works both ways! I'm also a pipe organ builder, so I really appreciate this video!
Same kinda, i have played the piano for many years now and then i found an electric organ in my church, I’m not terrible at it either.
How can I become a certified pipe organist? I've always wanted to be one...
@@artaxerxes360 if you are religious then ask you local church that has an organ if they need an organist. Second join an orchestra.
I love the way Nahre looked up as if she could see the waves of sound bouncing around the hall.
Love that animation @ 9:22 to describe the difference of feeling with the sound emitting elsewhere. It would be like playing through a massive PA.
That is a very well-done and representative graphic. An organist must truly learn to play the room as well as the instrument
A very idiosyncratic PA whose acoustics you control through one or more pedals, yes. 😁
I think of it more like the player and audience are inside the speaker cabinet
@@stevecarter8810I imagined a big stack of speakers and subs behind the pipes
Often far enough for there to be a small time delay in the sound reaching the player.
Growing up as the son of an organist and often sitting with him on the organ bench as a child, listening to the sound, feeling the vibrations and watching the fingers and feet dance in synchronization was wonderful. He died when I was ten, but after a few years of piano lessons I also had organ lessons and had my own key to the church so I could practice at any time. Being alone in the church late in the evening, up on the organ loft, with only the manuals in the dim light, this deeply emotional, almost meditative atmosphere is a memory that I still look back on fondly 40 years later.
pretty loud, but still quieter than a dad sneezing.
yeah, and still less melodic than gradma's fart
It's all about acoustics and harmonics.
I may be both a metalhead and an electronic music fan, but the full pipe organ is my favorite instrument of all time. I'm not a spiritual or religious person but the sound of the pipe organ is so powerful that calling it the "voice of the divine" is honestly a very accurate statement. When played in a major key, no instrument is more triumphant. When played in a minor key, no instrument is more menacing.
Well put!
Can you imagine playing the Undertaker's theme on one of these? It would be TERRIFYING!
As a listener in the 21st century, an organ not only has sound like no other instrument, but a sense of occasion. No sound system can perfectly reproduce an orchestra, so of course not an organ, but still, an orchestra can travel, a Stradivarius can change continents to resonate in all concert halls. On the other hand, if you want to hear an organ, you have to visit it, be there, experience it first hand. All organs are unique, and have their own personality. And while you are there, it's going to be rattling your bones, overpowering you so much.
Unsurprisingly, that's why I am such a fan of the Interstellar soundtrack. It's amazing when you hear Hans Zimmer talking about discovering the possibilities of an organ, and learning how to harness them. And still today, even though many try (including Zimmer himself in his concerts), no orchestra or organ can reproduce the exact sound of THAT specific organ. So unique, so organ.
The organ and the piano are completely different instruments that happen to have the same input method. From the point of view of a pianist, the organ is a striking change which lays bare your finger-legato and articulation without that sustain pedal. But the organ also sustains a simple SATB harmony better than a piano could, and has the ability to play a solo melody with a bugle or flute stop. Expression is different because you can’t make pinky-notes loud or thumb-notes soft, but you also have the ability to make the whole individual keyboard softer or louder. It’s a completely unique instrument that happens to use a keyboard.
Where have you seen a bugle stop??
@@organist1982 I just mean the trompette chamade. One of my teachers called it a bugle. Am I the only one that thinks of it as a bugle now?
@@JohnNathanShopper Hmm, ok! 😅
Only part of the finger motion is similar input. The stops and footwork along with HOW you play the keys are different. The organ and piano do NOT have the same input method.
@@paulmartin2348 This is true, but it’s something a pianist doesn’t instinctively realize, and it’s something Nahre doesn’t realize in this video. Pianists tend to see the organ as a broken piano. They need to realize how different it is going in. The organ is similar to the piano in the way that playing volleyball is similar to ping pong.
“What do you play?”
“The building
“What?”
The organ was designed to be the instrument to rule them all. Brass, strings, woodwinds, chorus, an ENTIRE ORCHESTRA all at the hands of one person. It’s truly a grand wonder of engineering, and I think it plays its role pretty damn well.
No. It was not conceived that way at all. It did devolve to that in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
@@Gg-jq7ht "Devolve" is the correct term! The attempts to emulate symphonic instruments are gruesome. The USA is the last country to have woken up to that fact.
Ron Sharpe, who designed and built the Sydney Opera House Organ, once said "Most organists don't how to play, and most organs sound terrible". He was inspired by the German Classical Organs by Schnitger and Silbermann.
Unlike most organs, they have penetrating reeds among other glorious sounds. With the Opera House organ you can hear every pipe in a mixture. Most organs are muddied or blurred with mixtures.
Your channel fetches the deepest heartfelt comments apparently you have a profound affect on your audience. This channel is something very special 😢
Organ: when the instrument is the room
It's like old-school computers
@foxjcket - Exactly (for better, or worse ...). I would much rather hear a modest organ in a good acoustic than an exceptional organ in a poor acoustic.
that's actually the reason it's called "pipe organ", rather than "pipe contraption"
You are correct, Nahre, it is *not* a keyboard instrument (7:02). It is a wind instrument that happens to be controlled by a keyboard. Having to think about the length of each note is one of the things that takes me the most time when I switch from piano to organ. And the piano is a percussion instrument that happens to be controlled by a keyboard.
7:37 I hear Keith Emerson there! So good.
I had the same thought.
I immediately had to listen to Parallels…
Listen to Yuja Wang playing Kasputin
So Keith Emerson like !
You’ve captured the essence of playing a pipe organ and explained it perfectly. Even as an organ player the difference between playing an electric organ and moving to pipe has the exact same effect and feeling. I found this out 40 years ago when I played a pipe Wurlitzer. Such a learning curve. Unfortunately after a spinal injury lost the ability to play pedals ten years ago so moved to keyboards. Recently two months ago a abscess in my left hand caused necrosis and lost my little finger tendons. I’m devastated tbh but had to comment how perfectly you captured the essence of playing pipe and bought back so many great and fond memories. Thank you excellent work.
Such a beautiful and thoughtful video…as always, Nahre
Several times I have been mesmerized by the sound of a pipe organ. I love it when you can feel the vibrations of the lower notes.
Wonderful... the only way I as a pianist can ever truly understand the mighty organ is to have a truly adept pianist explain it - and this you are doing so well. Thank you immensely! Oh, and by the way, kudos to you for your residency here - truly impressive! 👏🏻👏🏻
I play at 3 different churches with pipe organs, 2 of which are listed in the international guild of pipe organs in the Boston area. At one church, the only thing that will tame the reverb and “ Muddy “ sound,…. Is playing my right hand, an octave higher, and using a really high end Neumann microphone, to let my voice, and the words be heard. I love how you show that just because you are a pianist, you can’t just..” step in and improvise “ … and make magic on a pipe organ
Pipe organs actually go down to 16hz (instruments with 32’ stops) but technically there are a handful of rare organs that even have 64’ pedal stops which go down to 8hz.
that's only a fundamental frequency and remember that when you combine higher harmonics you get effectively their fundamental (residual) frequency. When you combine 16' and 10 2/3' you get a resultant tone of acoustical length 32'. Known method of doing that in organbuilding.
There is also one organ with a 128' stop, just over 4hz
@@seth094978 There isn't. There are only two organs with true full-length 64ft pipes - Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall and Sydney Town Hall. Atlantic City does have a quint stop within the same rank of pipes that allows it to give a resultant 128ft, but I doubt if it is effective.
wait till the younger generations discover the pipe organ has the most powerful bass xD
@@seth094978yeah and it's called the dangerous organ 😅😅😅😅
The most humbling experience I had as a pianist was being forced to play organ at my local church (the actual organist who played there before passed away) and at first it was terrible. There was approximately a half a second delay between any tone I played and hearing the tone back. It forced me to think differently about the music. But it became even more complicated with playing alongside other instruments. The acoustics just work differently for each one of them and the organ threatens to overrule them all if not used carefully. Thankfully my brother took up organ at school and was able to take over my job, but still... to most people organ and piano seem similar, but they are so much different. Here's to all the organists, keep up the good work.
I listen to the pipe organ at the local church sometimes when they practice during the daytime, also not far from me is the church which houses the organ Handel composed the Chandos anthems on when he stayed at canons.
Thank you for the insight on pipe organ, Nahre. Also to all wonderful people featured in this video. Wish you all the best on your activities and residency in Elbphilharmonie.
Around 8 years ago I had the privilege of frequently playing a fantastic historical organ. Playing Interstellar was a true experience.
It also profoundely shifted how I approached the piano, just like Nahre described!
I have a love/hate relationship with organ music because it is so loud and strident but when it's love it's LOVE. Thank you for teaching us so much about it!
I think the same can be said for any music -- organ, piano, orchestral, choral, etc. I've heard pieces in each of those which I love, and other pieces which I greatly dislike.
Not all organ pieces are loud. There are stops on some organs that are so quiet they can barely be heard over the blowers.
It’s a lot like additive synthesis, with all the different overtones getting added together.
Though what you described with the compressors is electromechanical, not electronic.
I’ve always found organs fascinating. Some early bass synthesisers had feet controls because of how synthesisers co-evolved with smaller electric (tonewheel), then electronic (divide-down) organs.
Adding reverb to my instruments changes how I play too, you integrate the space of the reverb into the playing more in a way you just don’t get when you hear a dry sound.
The organ is literally an acoustic synthesizer!
Organs have become more and more electronic over recent decades - the linkages from the keyboard to the pipes went from mechanical to electromechanical to electronic - and now entirely digital "pipe" organs are a thing, using sampling, physical modeling, and other techniques to emulate pipe organ sounds, while still enabling the free-flow combination of organ stops. Adoption of digital organs is a bitter subject of debate - I think places like the Elbphilharmonie would rightfully go nowhere near them - but the economics are hard to ignore in a lot of places.
@@crisoliveira2644 That's one way to emulate a pipe organ, yes, but not the only way, and not an especially efficient way.
@@ods94065It can be if you use an additive synth
@@ods94065 They don't know what they are missing. You could put Walker digital stops in those chambers and never know the difference.
When she said that when she played the organ it made her play the piano differently, I felt the same way when I started switching from acoustic to using distortion pedals and a amplifier for my electric guitar. That was about a little over a decade ago and I was playing for over 3 years at that time. Hearing certain sounds makes you play from a different angle. At that time, it made me notice how choppy I was playing before using an electric guitar. I tried imitating a value that was on the electric guitar and got something new.
“The hydraulis was used at outdoor public entertainments; its sound was loud and penetrating. Its use declined in the West by the 5th century AD, although Arab writers of the 9th century refer to it. *Later medieval writers thought the hydraulis was a steam-whistle organ such as the calliope*.”
We seem to have bad memories eh? Musical instruments were peak tech back in the day ❤.
Instruments always push the limits of the technology of the day they’re invented :) keyed wind instruments reflect steam engine interlocks, brass valve instruments later steam valves, electric guitars using then-new solid state components and filters and amplifiers… and so on.
Pipe organs used wooden reed expertise, then moved to the expertise of whistle makers and so on; as well as integrating steam-powered air compressors, then diesel etc, before finally universally moving to electric motors… I love how musical instruments reflect the tech of their time.
How could a medieval instrument be thought of as a steam whistle organ? There wasn't steam powered ANYTHING until the industrial revolution.
Of course you release this as I’m writing an organ passacaglia for my end of year juries! Unfortunately our school organ isn’t THIS cool, but it’s got pretty much all the bells and whistles.
One very odd thing about this video is that 1675 kg is not the weight of an elephant, and neither is 19m the length of a basketball court.
It’s the weight of a growing elephant well older than a baby, and is just longer than a volleyball court.
Since we want to nitpick..
bach was an organist basically his whole life. after hearing you talk about your experience it just makes sense that bach became the most influential musician of all time. wonderful video
Very interesting. I enjoyed the pianist playing an organ for the first time experiences and takeaways. And OMG, what an organ to play as a first instrument! And yes, I think it translated back to your piano work well. Those pieces you were playing of yours were superb. Maybe you should consider making a concert video of some of your favorite self composed works. I would listen. You could talk about what you were thinking, as well, your normal mode, but just the music after that 'what it is' in full length would be wonderful.
Great video! In just two hours at the organ you managed to describe the last three years of me as a pianist learning the organ. And everything you said was also true for me! Learning the organ has made me a much better musician in every way (much less reliant on muscle memory, playing more consequently and consciously, playing into the space, listening to the sound I’m making, much more conscious of dynamics, less reliant on the sustain pedal, better sight reader, better at improvising, better at reharmonizing, better at playing by ear. It has been a wonderful experience and I would recommend it to everyone!
Loved that piano piece you were practicing. Amazing recording quality of that. You nailed the summary of challenges playing organ. 1) No sustain pedal to simplify transitions between notes. 2) The hall is part of the instrument. 3) Multiple ranks of keys AND foot pedals to play. 4) Most important, the time lag between your hand and hearing the sound would be VERY difficult to adjust to. And that delay is different for every organ based upon its mechanism and its environment. QUESTION: What kind of cable is used to allow the console to sit in the middle of the stage? How do those inputs get mapped back to the physical core of the machine? That looks like one massive MIDI cable. (smile). For another example of someone who has amazing playing ability with her feet on organ, look up Barbara Dennerlein and watch anything she plays on a Hammond B3.
Barbara Denerlein is amazing, one of the outstanding B3 players of the last 30 years, and underrated at that.
Answering to your question, nowadays the cable is often simply an optical fiber. It used to be bunch of individual electrical wires in common shield. I'm speaking only about the movable organ console. The fixed console may be connected also via a mechanical tracker or tubular pneumatic action.
The cable could be as small as a MIDI cable or even a USB cable, which are not technically optical but use optoisolators on each end of transmission. All the note information is sent serially in such a system, but so fast that you cannot discern it. The electrical impulses are converted to higher current signals which trigger electrical solenoids that activate the pipe valves. There are a myriad of different systems for doing this, referred to as organ actions. This is not as a direct a connection as what is called tracker action where there is a mechanical linkage between each key and the valves that admit air to the pipes, but then again with that system you cannot move the console around like you can as shown here. I have a three manual 24 rank organ in my home that has only a USB cable coming from it. The same system could control either a pipe or virtual organ. Mine happens to be a theater organ.
Brava for this video. Thank you for making it, as a lifelong organist and also a pipe organ builder professionally I think this is a marvelous (and accurate!) documentary. Very well done.
I am a simple church organist. I'm good, far from great. But... having said that, the organ has taught me to listen. I've been told may choral conductors began as organists because we need to hear everything. I think of the difference between playing organ vs piano as the organ is about fingers, whereas the piano is about the entire body. When I watch great organists the body is far more still than I see in pianists. Maybe that's just me. Enjoy your time on the organ!
One of the difficulties in playing the pedal board is that you need to twist the body without pushing off with your feet in order to play the extremes of the pedal board. This is also true of the pedal clavichord which is particularly sensitive to pressure on the feet. This means that you must be very aware of body mechanics at all times as it can affect the timing and even the sound in some instances. One organist of my acquaintance said that the best lesson he ever had was from a chiropractor who was watching his body mechanics and posture as he was playing.
David, you are hardly a simple church organist!
Love from San Diego, Geoff Graham
This is a joyous demonstration of a knowledgeable and skillful person suddenly facing being a rookie again. Thank you for sharing
Happy to learn you're in Hamburg! Welcome to Germany 🌺
One of the really interesting accompanying anecdotes I remember hearing was how not only was the organ part of the room as it was built into the building, but that often the building and the room were built as part of the organ, meaning the reverberation and shape of the room was to compliment and push the sound around to make the best experience for the audience.
Welcome to my world! (organ and piano) . Now you can understand why I love playing both the piano and organ -- two very different and very gratifying worlds -- hard to play a 32' bombarde on a piano, hard to play Debussy and Rachmaninoff on an organ.
And yes -- in a piano performance, the acoustic ceratinly makes a difference, in a piano performance it's about 90% piano and 10% room; with an organ it's more like 50% instrument and 50% room. With the organ, you learn to play the room as well as the instrument. I'm so glad to see you're enjoying this expansive experience! I hope you will be able to try multiple high-quality instruments of varying sizes and in different acoustics to gain an understanding and experience of how unique each instrument can be in terms of intent, design, and implementation -- not unlike discovering the nuances of many fine wines. It's a big world out there. Enjoy!
My grandmother was an organ player. This brings me more appreciation for her.
Organist. Not organ player.
Wow!. What a beautiful video. Thanks a LOT!!!
I have always loved the organ. When I was a child, we went to church every weekend. The organs were by far my favourite part about it. The organist would always play for a couple minutes after the priest had left and the sermon was ended. I loved to listen to it.
Wow! I entered a whole new world. Now I want to listen to great pipe organ music🙏
Search for Anna Lapwood, but there are many other fantastic organists out there.
That was a brilliant perspective of a pianist starting on the organ! I realised the same change in listening further than my instrument, when I started playing organ after years of piano. I forget who, but someone said something like, "the most important stop on the organ is the building", and I think this is true for all instruments.
I found this very interesting. As a singer I change the tempo in different rooms, slowing down in reverbersnt spaces.
For me, it's slowing down and also leaving bigger pauses between phrases/sections.
Fun fact: the pipe organ is where the term "pull out all the stops" comes from. Instead of buttons or switches, on older pipe organs, the stops were actuated by knobs that were pull out (or pushed back in to turn them off).
The pipe organ and the piano are completely different instruments. The piano is a percussion instrument. By that, I mean pianists talk about "sustain"-- how long a note stains its sound after it is played. Non-percussion instruments never talk about "sustain." No violinist says his violin has "good sustain." He can hold the note as long as he wants, unlike the piano. The organ builder in this video did not quite went so far to say that the building is part of the instrument. It's like the cathedral is the wooden shell of the violin, and the pipes are the four strings. When you listen to the pipe organ, you are inside the instrument listening to it. The performer is also sitting inside the instrument. That is precisely the reason the pipe organ is the biggest instrument. The pipe organ is much more and bigger than the pipes and the keyboard. I am not Christian, but I used to go to a college church just to listen to the pipe organ. It's like the pipe organ is the elephant, and the rest of the instruments are just bugs. Long live the pipe organ!
The piano is not a percussion, it's a string instrument, most closely related to the zither. It makes its sound with strings, and the keyboard merely slaps the strings, just the same as how Davie504 slaps his bass. The organ is a woodwind.
@@Decopunk1927 Like you said, the keyboard "slaps" the strings. The piano is a percussion instrument, because it "slaps" the strings. I rest my case.
@@GeeKim-j9i Listen to yourself. Like you said, the keyboard slaps the STRINGS. I rest mine.
Wow. A beautiful journey inside a whole instrument.
Thanks Nahre
I enjoy playing the pipe organ so much! 😌
Again, I’m here commenting in spite of not being a musician! That’s because the things you bring up are sort of imaginable because of how you do it - it’s great. Here, I loved the points about how a big sound in a huge room mitigates against fast and highly detailed passages, and I really loved the realization that hitting the keys harder on an organ does nothing. It must make a huge change to how dynamics are expressed. Forgive me if you said but I also wondered if there’s a noticeable delay between when your finger presses a key and when the sound arrives at your ear? That seems like it would make things very, very challenging. I’ll stop now but thank you and I will be looking up other products of your current position. Thank you again.
The delay depends on the instrument and the room, but yes, there can definitely be a delay of more than half a second between the time the key is pressed and the time the sound is heard. It makes for quite a challenge when practicing on an instrument that is different from the one on which is to be performed. The organ practice rooms at my college were very small and the pipes were only a few feet in front of you, and the response was instantaneous, whereas the recital instrument was in a large auditorium with the pipes over 100 feet away from the console, and the response almost 1 second. Organists get used to this -- it is challenging -- but absolutely necessary -- to learn how to press the keys far enough in advance, and with enough spacing and detachment to send the sound you want into the room at the right time in order to get what you want from the room. What an odd way to play an instrument -- right?
From Fraser Gartshore's UA-cam channel I gather that it isn't quite true anymore that you need to go to the real organ to practice: there is a "virtual organ" software, Hauptwerk, with sample sets from many real organs (often even with samples recorded from different locations in the church). People do end up with complete (Midi) organ consoles at home though...
@jhbnijhof You are correct -- virtual organ software provides excellent access to hundreds of world-class instruments and their acoustics right in your living room (den, etc. . . . )
I was a choral scholar at Trinity College Cambridge when the magnificent mechanical-action Metzler was being built in our lovely Tudor chapel. It was a fascinating process, with every pipe being tuned to the resonance of the building resulting in a mellow and balanced instrument. The new organ incorporates elements of the original 17thC instrument blending old and new.
But my goodness the organ is a challenging instrument to play. I was in awe of the skills of the organ scholar, who was just a young student like the rest of us. He would be sightreading a new piece on two keyboards and the foot pedals when the conductor would ask him to transpose down a tone - which he would achieve without a hitch. He went on to become a celebrated conductor and marry a film-star!
You are in error - The limits are from 16 hz to over 45 kHz if you include harmonics. Maximum Sound pressure is around 95 -100 db at Audience level, more than that inside of course. But not 140 db. That would deafen you. I make pipe organ recordings.
Not true that 140 db would kill you as a gun shots ar between 13 and 180 db and the max db before you die is like 240 db
194db is max in Earth atmosphere. Sound pressure doesn't just spontaneously kill you, guys. Unless we're talking shockwaves or something. But 140db is the price of entry in the Car Audio world. 160db+ is becoming less uncommon, even.
😊Thanks for this appreciation of the organ Nahre. I play both regularly (at church) but not to professional standards. The pianoforte is touch sensitive and my piano style makes of the expression you can produce using the keyboard, foot pedals etc. it’s percussive roots are great for modern hymns and songs with interesting rhythms (syncopation). However the organ has multiple keyboards and different ranges for different stops. It suits a legato (smooth) style of playing and the fingering to keep that legato style can be interesting - substituting one finger for another without releasing the note is an art most organists soon master. You can also do this on the piano but I don’t use that technique nearly so often.
I stick with the organ for traditional church music but I think improvising around a tune can be far freer on a piano - but that might be just me and being brought up on piano jazz!!
I wanna hear you on a Hammond B3 organ! Will force you to play differently as well compared to a Pipe organ
yeah, a Wurlitzer would also be a very interesting experiance.
Thanks for doing the extra work to document your journey here. It’s really fascinating.
7:22 Ronnie McNutt
"Hey guys i guess thats it" 🌺
😭…
The pipe organ is one of my favorite instruments because of how much of a statement it is. It's so huge it has to be built as part of the structure of the building it sits in and just makes that structure so metal. The municipal theater of my city of course has one built into the main chamber and its mesmerizing.
Organs are amazing. There's so much to explore and learn with each instrument. The differences with the piano are certainly challenges for a pianist, but a great way to expand your horizons.
The fact they're still building pipe organs makes me so happy.
Anna Lapwood played the hell out of that place
Shower thought: An organ is a buildings organ. You cannot play it somewhere else. Just like your liver won't do its job if you put it on your desk.
They have electronic organs, and even better there are synthesizers which are *much* more versatile than any organ.
Not only does the distance separation between the manual and the pipes allow the performer to hear the resonance better, but because of the distance there is a slight lag between pressing an organ key and hearing the pipe sound. This is shorter when the manual is closer to the pipes, but in those shots of the manual being on the stage in the middle of the performance hall and the pipes being in the outer wall of the performance hall, there is a noticeable delay between pressing a key and hearing the pipe. That delay alone will force the performer to slow down and play more deliberately.
Some people of the UA-cam crowd should consider a shorter or longer pilgrimage to Hamburg to actually see and hear her.
I moved to Hamburg last month, would love to know how a mere mortal like me could get to see her.
@@Marunius I only fully understood a sec ago that her role is that of a chief influencer for the venue. Try lollygagging at the Elphi, or she has to tell here, if she is going to be scheduled. I think, she can play ...
6:30 this made me realize that there are different ways to be a musician. I mainly play and focus on what I'm playing instead of just playing the notes from memory. I think it's cause I spend a lot of time on synthesizer and don't have much piano background at all.
um actually-
As an organist, this really resonated with me! Of course, I studied piano for many years before switching to organ, and you really nail the differences between the two instruments. The piano is, after all, a percussive instrument, whereas the organ is a sustained one. This forces us organists to be much more concerned not only on the attack but also on the release of each note. On the other hand, the force with which we press on the keys is totally irrelevant on the organ. Anyway, thanks for a great video!
Who the hell invented this instrument xd
Ktesibios, a greek inventor, about 2.500 years ago, in Alexandria
As an organist myself, I LOVE seeing your views on this! Especially as a double organjst/pianist, I appreciate your perspective on percussion and acoustics. Thanks!
I thought the loudest and largest instrument was my Ex Wife
I absolutely love it that you gave us the button and knot tips in the end
19 meters? Organs are measured in feet. Even in Europe.
For the benefit of those that operate in metrics.
I’m a piano tuner and restorer and I remember being in a church once and they were telling me just how much they need to get in funding to restore their organ. It was around £100,000 and this wasn’t a huge church or anything so I can imagine the cost of building this particular one! The reverend of the church asked if I’d like to see the rest of the organ which was hidden behind one of the panels within the church which was quite cool. And just behind this you could see all circuitry, bellows and hundreds if not thousands of pipes ranging from tiny ones maybe a few inches to large ones which extended many meters up. The instrument is that big you can physically walk around inside it… that totally blew my mind! Huge respect to those organ builders past and present because what they’re able to achieve is incredible!
I'm only 3 minutes into the video and I've already heard so many false facts I know by personal experience, being a musician myself to be somewhere between very misleading to totally wrong. It's a 👎 from me...
Thank you! The title itself is a lie. Upper end synthesizers easily surpass any organ (except in terms of the number of manuals, but just substitute a synth for each manual and another for the bass pedals).
And even synthesizers have limits!
One VERY important ESSENTIAL distinction between the piano and the pipe organ is the fact that the piano is fundamentally a percussive instrument operated mostly with your hands while the organ is not. Rather it's a wind instrument operated with your hands and feet. That statement alone should help reframe your whole perspective, hopefully. Delightful video, Nahre, thank you very much! 😊
I can appreciate the artistry of an organ but I've never really enjoyed the sound of it. :( it just always sounds so slow and doomy, and usually corny sounds.
My usual experience with it is a lot of boring church music. But even the bach our local player plays sounds just so slow and corny with the organ sound.
I do enjoy the classic rich organ sound but it's rarely played.
I can assure you that there is plenty of boring, unenjoyable organ music around -- including plenty that I (an organist) would rather not hear. But there is also a lot of really great and very enjoyable organ music as well if you look for it. I would suggest you check out Fraser Gartshore, Richard McVeigh (beauty in Sound), Rob Stefanussen, and Cameron Carpenter -- to name a few. Also look for J.S. Bach's Jig (or Gigue) Fugue for a really happy piece! Happy listening!
@@aBachwardsfellow thank you I really appreciate it... I WANT to like the organ. I'll get back here if I find the recs inspiring!
@@slower__8437 A lot depends on not only the pieces being played, but how good the instrument (and the room acoustic) is, how good the performer is, and -- for recordings -- the quality of the recording. As I said earlier, there's plenty I've heard that just doesn't cut it for me.
Check out Cameron Carpenter's "Stars and Stripes Forever" played at Trinity Church Wall Street (he's dressed in white, playing two different things in the pedals at the same time - including the piccolo part with his feet... )
The best experience is to hear a really good performance on a really good instrument in a really great room -- it really gets to you inside and out. I hope you can hear one of those someday.
Something I wish you had addressed is latency; the organ is not an immediate instrument; you press a key, and a moves B moves C moves D until finally an air column BEGINS vibrating. And some of those air columns are very big. So it can take some time for the sound to begin after the key is pressed - I guess this depends on the instrument. Electronic probably faster than all-mechanical. Might depend on air temp also. And of course like all wind instruments, temp affects the pitch also. Also, the sound can be produced at some distance from the organist, so the sounds waves take time to reach his ears. All of this has to be accommodated to by the player. I can only play keyboards, because most other instruments behave illogically to me. On a keyboard, each key is a semitone above the last (counting both black and white keys). So as a child, I could pick out tunes by ear easily enough, guessing notes and adjusting if needed. But learning the recorder was a nightmare, because to get a few notes right, you had to "play two keys at once" - that is, to cover more than one hole at a time. Strings - you have as many instruments as you have strings, each tuned differently. On brass, you have valves, and so on. But keyboards are intuitive. My family could only afford a cheap secondhand upright piano, and I was only noodling anyway, but I soon developed a love of Bach Organ music, and because of the lack of pedals on a piano, I couldnt possibly play the bass pedal line. Also, its funny you mention sustain, because thats what the piano cannot do, and the organ can. As long as the key is pressed, the sound will continue. Indefinitely. This is important particularly for pedal points, where the note in the pedal bass continues loudly as you play other notes against it above, often creating wonderful dissonances until the upper notes finally come into line. Also, sustained arpeggiated chords are fabulous on the organ, like that wonderful stacking of minor thirds at the beginning of that most famous organ piece, the Toccata and Fuge in d. I played it on a piano, with the sustain pedal on, but there's only so far it can take you.
The final problem, which you touch on, but dont give the implications of, is that most people cannot practice the organ. Churches and Concert Halls dont let kids in to noodle around, and people cant generally afford to have them in their homes. I was offered the use of a small electric instrument at a local bar (my parents knew the bar owner), but the idea of noodling around with strangers listening freaked me out. If you are a serious student, fine; but its not an instrument to fool around on to see if you like it or can use it.
I am in awe of anyone who can operate an organ. You need full dexterity in both hands, but also the feet, AND control all sorts of bells and whistles (literally) at the same time. But I would LOVE to be in control of all of that - particularly in creating the sounds that use the audience body cavities as resonating bodies. The sounds that vibrate their entire torsos. Generally pedal points in the bass. These instruments dont only use the acoustics of the space they are in, but can also use the acoustics of the listener.
Thank you for your post, @riverstun. I play, or used to play, piano and organ. I always wanted to learn guitar, or banjo, or ukele but never got the hang of it. I didn't think about it much but your posting explains my difficulty to me perfectly: they are a conglomeration of differently tuned instruments and my logical brain will have none of it! In college I was lucky enough to have access to a beautiful 4 manual Kilgen pipe organ housed in a huge gothic church. I could practise as much as I wanted at night with no one around. The console was in the choir loft at the bcak along with most of the pipes. But at the far end (front) of the church was a separate pipe room (Chancel ORgan) that was only playable from the main console. Trying to play those pipes by themselves was quite n experience. Not only was there the typical pipe organ valve/pipe delay, yoou had to wait for the sound to travel the lenth og the church to hear what you were playing. Unless I wanted everything to sound like a dirge my solution was to play the keyboard and hum the tune as I played while ignoring the pipe sounds! Weird!
The latency is a problem and it also depends on the technology used for the path from the key to the pipe: there are purely mechanical organs, pneumatic ones and electromechanical ones. And especially the pneumatics are really slow. From my perspective mechanical is the best because you feel the valve opening and the mechanism doesn't have that much play in it to add to latency. But with bigger organs that gets unpractical very fast because even two mechanically coupled manuals are noticeably harder to play, with more it borders on impossible even if they exist. And in terms of air column - it is difficult to get access to the bigger organs with the 32' stops. The one I could get to had a stopped 32' and that thing (from Klais) wasn't really practical - really too slow. Open 32' are much better, but have double the length (and cost).
It might be a matter of taste, but most churches / cathedrals with so much stone have simply too much reverb for any organ to sound good. One of the most popular sample sets for Hauptwerk is the organ from Rotterdam. What makes this church distinct is that it has not a stone vaulted ceiling, but a wooden one - which dampens the sound enough to make the organ sound much better.
I love the piano and organ together - I think they complement each other in an amazing way. The piano with its dynamic, sensitive touch and arpeggios together with the orchestra like pipe organ are perfect fit!
Very cool video, thank you! Especially on the difference between playing a physical piano and a keyboard that's far from a giant sound engine that fills the room from the edges.
My Grandad, Charles Dunston (but written Dunston on adverts in newspapers I have seen) played the Pipe Organ at Rotherham Cinema. He also got to play many of the famous organs around the UK.
He’s dead now but my Dad remembered and told the story of when they both stripped down the organ after it was sold and sent near Stoke somewhere.
Impressive organs.
I should add, at the time he only had one leg, taken below the knee so was in a prosthetic on.
"When you listen to classical pieces, it's astounding to consider what those masters of music had to achieve without the modern conveniences we rely on today. They had to understand every instrument they composed for, often transitioning seamlessly between them. It puts into perspective why figures like Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven remain so impressive to this day.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is perhaps the most famous composer for the organ. His Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, is one of the most iconic organ pieces ever written. A virtuoso on the instrument, Bach composed extensively for it, particularly in his sacred music and chorale preludes.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) also wrote organ music, though not as extensively as Bach. He composed several works for the organ, especially during his time at Salzburg Cathedral. Notable examples include his Fantasy in F minor, K. 608, and Epistle Sonatas for organ and orchestra.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), while primarily known for his symphonies and piano compositions, did compose a few organ works. His contributions to organ music were relatively minor, reflecting his focus on other instruments, though early in his career, he wrote some fugues and variations for the organ. No modern composer can compare while John Williams, Philip Glass, Hans Zimmer, and Igor Stravinsky all come close when you consider everything they had access to it almost pales in comparison. Absolutely no disrespect all are wonderful Craftsmen in their own right!
So nice to see you explore the organ! I just want to add that you experienced one particular organ in one particular room. Organs can be quite different - your experience could be very different with another organ. An historic, maybe smaller one. This adds to the charm and is also challenging: every organ is different and the difference can be huge!
At age 7 my family moved a block away from Saint John’s Cathedral in Spokane, Washington. Once in a while the dean would let me dink around on the huge pipe organ there during the day for about 10 minutes at a time. I got to do this for a couple of years. I never knew what a privilege that was until I read the local news where an elderly mans last wish was to play the pipe organ in that cathedral, and it was something he wanted to do most of his life. It was a magnificent organ! Over the years the church replaced the beautiful organ and huge pipes and put them in storage.
As an organist, I'm glad you are bringing more attention to this wonderful instrument!
I’ve had the honor of playing a Pipe organ. It’s a surreal experience. For Experienced and inexperienced pianist’s (or accordion in my case) alike