I normally hang around the piano forums, but I realized there was an organ forum. Since I started the organ recently I decided to check it out. In the Piano forum they have a post to show pics of your piano, and decided to try it here sice organs, especially pipe organs are so much more beautiful than pianos. Pianos are all the same but organs can be so much more elaborate. So if you can post some pictures of the organ you have or play on.

Here is the organ I play on:
[IMG]http://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/DSCN0390.JPG" width="500"[/IMG]

Nice instrument. Is that a mechanical organ? about 15 ranks?

There is a member in here (whippen boy) that is also an organist.

Well, to be honest with you I really don't know all that much about, considering I have only be playing for a few weeks. All I know is that it is a Marcussen & Sons tracker organ.

Tracker organs are mechanical organs. When you enable a stop, it moves a "tracker" which opens the air passage into the air box which the pipes are mounted on. All that is fine, but there is one small disadvantage that the keyboard console has to be together with the organ (pipes, blower, air boxes, etc.).

I studied to play organ for a short while a long time ago. But I was also a mechanical engineering student, so that's how I know a bit about the guts of the instrument.

Wow, I just discovered the Organ section of Piano World!

And what do I find, but a post mentioning my name! Thanks LisztAddict, for thinking of me.

Sorry I'm so late coming to this thread, but if anyone is out there reading this, maybe it will be of interest.

The Danish builder Marcussen only builds tracker organs.

I've had the chance to play a variety of organs. I'm learning on a Moeller:

http://www.chapelhilluumc.org/templates/cusuumc/details.asp?id=25311&PID=105945&mast=

I have access to a Kleuker and a brand new Dobson (yes, Lynn Dobson was working on this one just as the new Dobson at Philly's Verizon Hall was being completed). You may see these organs here:

Kleuker: http://www.thechapelofthecross.org/music/churchorgan.htm
Dobson: http://www.thechapelofthecross.org/music/chapelorgan.htm

I also have access to a recently relocated organ:

http://www.stpauls-lutheran.com/music.shtml
(Wolff organ, scroll down to see this)

Thanks for posting all those cool links!

I just returned from playing an organ recital in North Carolina (but at the opposite end of the state from you ).

You are lucky to play so many fine organs! Two years ago I got to play a very interesting organ by Detlev Kleuker, located in the Chant d'Oiseau church in Brussels.

And last summer I played the Kleuker/Steinmeyer organ in the Tonhalle in Zurich. That instrument is pretty huge, and there are a lot of recordings of it.

I have yet to play a Dobson, but might try my hand at the new one in L.A. - if I get a chance to get down there!

Wow, that Belgian Kleuker is nice[/b]! As much as I love the Kleuker I have access to (very well voiced for the space it's in), I'm not enamoured of its action. The trackers are made of steel, and are rather long as well, so the action gets to be pretty muddy, especially when all the manuals are coupled to each other.

The Swiss Kleuker/Steinmeyer also looks to be a beauty as well. The picture is difficult to see - is that a 3-manual instrument?

Where in NC did you play your recital? There was a recital in Greenville that I had wanted to go to, but my day job kind of got in the way of that. (When I'm not on the organ bench, I'm toiling away at a biology bench, sometimes for hours on end.) Which reminds me - St. Paul's Epis. in Greenville just had recently installed a Fisk ... try this link:

Perkins and Wells Memorial Organ, Fisk Op. 126

Those ECU students are so lucky to have access to such an instrument!

The Kleuker in Belgium is sort of hard to see in the photo. The church is called the "bird-song" church, and the organ case looks like two birds. Maybe if you could lighten the picture up, you would see the outline of the birds, It is very interesting.

The Tonhalle organ has four manuals, and like the Chant d'Oiseau, also has a very unusual specification (both organs were the result of collaborations with Jean Guillou, if I'm not mistaken).

Here is a website (in French) which has the specification listed (and some additional wonderful photos): web page

If you click on the 2nd photo, you will be amazed at the scale of the instrument.

The recital I played in NC was in a small town, close to Hickory.

There is a new organ being built here in Berkeley. When I'm not lurking about here on the Forum, I'm lurking about there (in person).

Wow, that is an amazing instrument! Thanks for sharing.

You truly were on the other side of the state from me. Well, sort of. A friend of mine, who has since left the church music biz in favour of real estate, spent the past week (or was it the week before?) in Montreat, as he stated, "playing church musician." If memory serves me right, this is the second year he's done this that I know of.

If you ever come out to this part of the country again, give a holler, would be fun to meet ...

While having lunch near Montreat I was amazed to see Mrs. Billy Graham! This was during the last visit.

I have relatives at both ends of the state but will let you know next time I visit.

Whippen and ChemicalGrl,

Have you ever played the Flentrop organ in the chapel at Duke? I'm not an organist, but once when I was a graduate student I wandered into the chapel while the organist was playing. I found that the door to the stairway that leads to the organ was open so I wandered up. The organist was actually pleased to show off the instrument. He had me sit down in the seat of power. I remember playing a Bach invention just to see how it would sound. Then I hit the full chords of Debussy's La Cathedrale Engloutie. The building rocked, and I wasn't even using any of the pedals. What a sensation!

I've been to Duke Chapel, but have unfortunately not heard the organs in person. I do have several recordings however.

So nice you got to play - isn't it an awesome feeling of power to play in such a space, on such an organ?!

The Flentrop is impressive (the casework is similar to that at St. Bavo Church in Haarlem, Holland - which is even better)! But I must confess I am much more impressed with the enormous[/b] old Aeolian organ at the front of the chapel. Aeolians are quite rare, especially one of that size (they specialized in smaller home organs for the very wealthy). This is said to be the last Aeolian built before the company was absorbed by Skinner, resulting in the fabled Aeolian-Skinner company.

It once had an echo organ, which was unceremoniously dumped when the new Flentrop was installed.

It's nice to have a huge, historical organ from a foreign country, but I do hate to see something of value from our 'golden age' get pushed aside. Hopefully, the 'powers that be' at Duke realize what treasures they have in both instruments.

Actually, there are three organs in the chapel! There is a historical model of an Italian organ by Brombaugh.

For the whole Duke organ story, look here!

I have seen the Aeolian in the front, of course, but I don't think I recall hearing it. I was at Duke around the time the Flentrop arrived, so that was the big story at the time.

I get to play an organ next week for something or other...
i'll tell you how i do
Its for some prelude recital or something... :rolleyes:

(zombie voice) ALL HAIL THE ORGAN!!

Once when i was a young chap about 8, I played a church organ and the director said to me not to use teh 38ft pipe... so large it had to be run though the roof. Being a kid and noing the first line of Beethoven's 5th symphony and while the director was out for a minute, I decided what the heck and try the 38fter. BIG MISTAKE! The hole room shook and the director came running in and yelling at me to stop before I collaps the church. Now wether he was telling the truth I don't know but it sure scared me!

38 ft pipes???

yeah\ it was a huge organ

Probably a 32' pipe - those are typically the longest pipes on a large pipe organ. A 32' pipe (plus a foot or two more for the conical pipe 'foot') plays the low "C" (CCCC) at 16 cycles per second.

When the 32' reed stop was first played on the Aeolian at Duke, it is said that the ceiling cracked!

I'll bet the elephants heard it at the nearest zoo ...a hundred miles away.

your right whippen and I was wrong, it was a 32fter

whippen boy - 64' pipes are usually 32' pipes with a top cap to double the effective length, right?

No, the 64' aren't 32' with a top cap... in fact, in most organs, the 64' are only acoustic fakes, wich means it's a 32' with a 21 1/3', the two first harmonics of a 64'. I never heard about a true 32' topped... and there's only two real 64' stops in the world, one at Atlantic City (http://www.acchos.org/) and the other is in the Sydney Town Hall organ in Australia (http://www.die-orgelseite.de/kurioses_e.htm#register)

Some have 3 or 4 pipes of a 64' stop...
but they do not go to the down C.