Pipe Organ - Theatre Organ, Water Organ, Fairground Organ, Claviorganum, Barrel Organ, Meantone Organs in North America, German Organ Schools (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 38. Chapters: Theatre organ, Water organ, Fairground organ, Claviorganum, Barrel organ, Meantone organs in North America, German organ schools, Orchestrion, Pipe organ tuning, Electro-pneumatic action, Finchcocks, St Albans International Organ Festival, List of organ symphonies, Manual, Tubular-pneumatic action, Johnson Organs, Oundle International Festival, Registration, Organ reform movement, Eight foot pitch, Organetto, Symphonic organ, Mechanical organ, Manchester International Organ Competition, Prague International Organ Festival, Organ symphony, Gravissima, Organ crawl. Excerpt: The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called wind) through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass. Most organs have multiple ranks of pipes of differing timbre, pitch and loudness that the player can employ singly or in combination through the use of controls called stops. A pipe organ has one or more keyboards (called manuals) played by the hands, and a pedalboard played by the feet, each of which has its own group of stops. The organ's continuous supply of wind allows it to sustain notes for as long as the corresponding keys are depressed, unlike the piano and harpsichord, the sounds of which begin to decay the longer the keys are held. The smallest portable pipe organs may have only one or two dozen pipes and one manual; the largest may have over 20,000 pipes and seven manuals. The origins of the pipe organ can be traced back to the hydraulis in Ancient Greece in the 3rd century BC, in which the wind supply was created with water pressure. By the sixth or 7th century AD, bellows were used to supply organs with wind. Beginning in the 12th...