The Organ Forum

Well try playing one that's badly out of tune most of the time and see how you like it, when the 'little nuances' are like howling tomcats and wolves at full moon!  Thta really enhances your playing and makes people think you're good...especially when the wind supply leaks that much that it fails to maintain pressure/delivery at full organ and guess what happens the?  Yes, you know what happens!  Oh, and some tuners can't tune mixtures, or the trebles, or the basses.  Ah well...

when the 'little nuances' are like howling tomcats and wolves at full moon!

Like playing a "tiento de falsas" on a perfectly maintained and tuned mean-tone organ? Beautiful.....

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Expert in non-working solutions

I've been tuning pipe organs, year in, year out for 24 years and there is no torture on earth so bad as the one wherein an organ is subject to the demands of an organist who thinks it's possible to have every pipe of their 3m, 45 stop organ in perfect tune--not even all the time but some of the time. Unless the organ's in a laboratory situation perfection in tuning is unattainable. Organists who ask for this kind of tuning every time I visit really should be playing at a church with an e organ--or--perhaps they need to find a new tuner because I cannot stand it-especially when there's a violent shift in temperature inside the church during an extensive tuning. 

Grumpy old tuner. 

My ears are scandalised by off-tune instruments.  No problem if they have drifted a few cents off but there are limits to what I can take.  I used to obsess quite alot before - these days, ah well - C'est La Guerre!!!

Cheerio,

Kphone 

Too many organists who play for church are accustomed to the "in tuneness" of their practice organs....usually an electronic at home.  Same can be said for their voicing expectations, where they leave a note for the tuner...."C#4 is a little soft...please make it louder". 

A small pipe organ in a home setting is about as good as you're going to get.  Set the thermostat to 70 degrees and leave it alone, summer and winter.  I do have churches that maintain a 70 degree setting year around, and these organs are only "tuned" once every five or six years.  The organists in these churches understand that the relative out of tuneness they experience for a few weeks in the spring and fall are related to the air conditioner or the furnace being turned off, and as soon as that short period passes, that the organ will return to good tuning conditions.

The best organ tuning comes from instruments that are built on one level, instead of being double or triple stacked.  The stratification of the air in the organ chambers is taking place reliably, and the walls of the organ chambers and space around it is being "gently" heated or cooled by the same means as the sanctuary.  There are no drafts from the ventilation system blowing directly onto the pipes....etc.  etc.  There simply MUST be as much thought given to the heating and cooling of the organ, as there is in building the organ.

With an electronic organ, electricity is everything.  With a pipe organ, temperature is everything.

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....."next" is a four letter word. Jay999

At my old gig the organ was tuned every two weeks, year round.  I was quite spoiled.

don't hit me but I actually prefer a organ to be a bit out of tune....it gives the organ the sound of "life" rather than being sterile pure sounds.......that occasional unintentional celeste makes a pipe organ interesting to listen to....and with temperature changes the tuning is always changing so it is indeed a very "lifelike" instrument, because of the tuning issues.

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www.nycfarmboy.com
www.reuter822.com

Get the organ in tune as best you can. Wait. The out-of-tune feature will slowly return. The stops most likely to celeste with the rest of the organ are the short resonator reeds. Sometimes stoppers slip in wooden stopped pipes. Generally slider tuned metal pipes hold their tuning pretty well as long as the temperature does not cycle excessively.

A pipe organ will never have the "dead" in tune sound of an electronic organ as the frequency control is more accurate using crystal control. The mechanical resonators of a pipe organ are good, but not to that degree of perfection.

In summary, don't woory, tune the organ as best you can, let it sit and the out of tune nature will slowly appear. Keep the temperature stable. My organ is in a single chamber with its own electric heater to stabilize the temperature. The tuning is pretty stable, but a few pipes somewhere always seem to drift off by themselves.

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Style D Wurlitzer Pipe Organ
http://www.bluemoonwalkinghorses.com/Style_D_Description5_rev2.html

May I ask an unrelated/related question?  Why would you want an out-of-tune instrument?  While I realize that's what gives orchestral strings their "warm" sound in an orchestra, what makes it so desirable in an organ?  Isn't that what celestes are for?  Could it have become acceptable because in centuries gone past the organs couldn't be kept in tune due to older heating techniques, so the tuners convinced churches that it was more desirable to have an out-of-tune organ?  Kinda like how people centuries ago settled on the equal-temperament tuning scheme because they were convinced it was a better sound.

I remember at a former church that for 1-2 Sundays after the piano was tuned, it was like the instrument played itself.  There was such a comfortable feeling while playing I didn't want to leave.  I know it sounds dumb, but I was convinced I could feel the newly-tuned strings responding equally to the hammers, and my playing sounded like it never had before.

For me, a newly-tuned organ has the same effect--for the first Sunday or two I play it.  Then it's back to the painful screech, airplane propeller whomp-whomp in the bass, and octopus maneuvers to work around the obvious flaws in tonality. 

I like an in-tune organ.  I realize most churches cannot afford proper pipe organ maintenance, but it would be nice if they could!  I, for one, cannot be convinced an out-of-tune organ is desirable.

Michael

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Allen Organs (505-B & ADC-6000), Frazee Pipe Organ (2/13 w/chimes),
Pump Organs (Estey, Sears & Roebuck, Mason & Hamlin, Chicago Cottage, Williams & Sons, Angelius, Cornish)
Pianos (Ivers sq. grand ca.1865, Ivers & Pond Upright-1929, Technics SX-PR600)

NYCFarmboy:

don't hit me ...

But that's the only way to tune an organist! 

myorgan:

Why would you want an out-of-tune instrument?  While I realize that's what gives orchestral strings their "warm" sound in an orchestra, what makes it so desirable in an organ?

It is basically the same thing; a slight mistuning of foundational tones causes a sort of heterodyning of the tone, which generally warms up the sound in orchestra or organ.  If every pipe in the organ was absolutely spot-on, it would sound rather artificial.  The main thing is that slight tuning anomolies will tend to warm up the sound; gross ones will be...gross!    This is most true for foundational tones, less true for higher pitches.

myorgan:

Isn't that what celestes are for?

No, celestes have a different purpose.  They are typically soft string stops which make an ethereal quality.  When louder or more foundational stops go too far out of tune it is much less pleasant.

myorgan:

Could it have become acceptable because in centuries gone past the organs couldn't be kept in tune due to older heating techniques, so the tuners convinced churches that it was more desirable to have an out-of-tune organ?

Not exactly.  Looking at Europe, you see that the larger stone churches tend to be rather cool year-round; those old cone-tuned organs tended to stay in tune pretty well with only periodic touch-ups of the reeds.  This situation prevailed for many centuries.  The relatively recent appearance of central heating brought more pronounced tuning problems.

myorgan:

Kinda like how people centuries ago settled on the equal-temperament tuning scheme because they were convinced it was a better sound.

Don't know if it was a better sound, but equal temperament at least allowed people to play in all keys.  If you are accustomed to unequal temperament you will find that some keys sound much better, and some keys sound much worse. 

The higher the pitch and the louder the sound, the less I tolerate 'out-of-tuneness'.  So I typically will tune all of the reeds very carefully, then I will go through the mixtures.  Mixtures are a real pain to tune, so I usually get them close but not absolutely perfect.  Most music played at speed will mask the effects of a mixture note being slightly out of tune.

This underscores the importance of having a notebook for the organ technician.  If you hear something that is really out, you should write it down so it will be fixed at the next tuning (if not sooner, if it is really an emergency). 

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Soubasse32

I'm just gonna order a  case of the new product...."Stay Tune Spray" and be done with the whole tuning thing!!  The instructions say tune the organ and then spray every pipe with "Stay Tune".  You'll never have to tune again.  Anyone want to share a case with me?

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"The Organ is in truth the grandest, the most daring,
the most magnificent of all instruments invented by human genius."

This    has the same effect. (...but you mustn't use it until after the service  )

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Soubasse32

myorgan:

May I ask an unrelated/related question?  Why would you want an out-of-tune instrument? 

For me it is not wanting a out of tune instrument..but wanting one that is not in perfect tune. Whenever I get my house organ tuned I notice that the organ becomes unpleasently loud. I've posted about that before but whenever the organ is "just tuned" it really hurts your ears to play it (the loud stops anyhow) from the console I have next to the pipes....after a few weeks it returns to normal and it just sounds better (to my ears anyhow).


I've never liked "sterile" or "pure" sound...which I think is why I prefer Leslies on my Hammonds so much as it "detunes" them, making them in affect slightly out of tune.......I think that is why Leslies were so popular with Hammonds (and are), because it takes a "pure" instrument that produces an absolute perfect tone and makes it "human" ....
Fortunately even a "just tuned" pipe organ is already going out of tune....it is just the nature of the beast...I guess unless it was in a 100% temperature/humidity stable environment in which case I guess a perfectly tuned instrument is possible in theory.

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www.nycfarmboy.com
www.reuter822.com

Unison Off:

I've been tuning pipe organs, year in, year out for 24 years and there is no torture on earth so bad as the one wherein an organ is subject to the demands of an organist who thinks it's possible to have every pipe of their 3m, 45 stop organ in perfect tune--not even all the time but some of the time. Unless the organ's in a laboratory situation perfection in tuning is unattainable. Organists who ask for this kind of tuning every time I visit really should be playing at a church with an e organ--or--perhaps they need to find a new tuner because I cannot stand it-especially when there's a violent shift in temperature inside the church during an extensive tuning. 

Grumpy old tuner. 

 

My personal favorite gripe is when the organ tuner came down to the church I practice to tune and RIGHT after he left they turned on the blasted heater.  I had some words with the staff, but they wouldn't listen and sure enough come Sunday...

 

Money wasted.  Idiots.

 

As to how well-tuned I like an organ, I'm fairly happy as long as their aren't any really noticeable beats.  Having followed an organ tuner around a few times (and I'm thinking about maybe going somewhere and learning how to build organs *crosses fingers*) I've seen just how hard it is to tune the bloody things.  I did finally lose my cool with the practice organ we have upstairs because it's sprung a leak of wind in the back and also the humidity is getting to the wooden pipes.  Not a good combination.

I spent more time tuning the sucker today than I did playing.  I wasn't a happy camper.

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'It isn't that difficult. All one has to do is press all the right keys at the right time and the organ plays itself.'
Yeah RIGHT.

NYCFarmboy:

don't hit me but I actually prefer a organ to be a bit out of tune....it gives the organ the sound of "life" rather than being sterile pure sounds.......that occasional unintentional celeste makes a pipe organ interesting to listen to....and with temperature changes the tuning is always changing so it is indeed a very "lifelike" instrument, because of the tuning issues.

 On another thread I told about applying for a job as organist several years ago. It was a church that I had never been in before, so I had never even seen the organ, much less played it. When I sat down and played, for a minute I thought I was playing a small Allen organ. It turned out to actually be a Schantz, and evidently had just been tuned, because there was no celesting of anything, except the celestes. it was the most in-tune pipe organ I have ever played. The sound had no warmth at all.

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Mike

owner of an Allen MDS317 and working
on a custom digital using a Rodgers 220
console. I play a forty rank pipe organ on Sunday mornings.