The Organ Forum

OK.  Let's not make personal attacks upon individual organ builder firms or riddle the forum owners with a mound of litigation, but what are the worst organs you have had to play?  What made them bad?  Did playing them depress you, anger you or just make you laugh at the crapness?

 

The absolutest worst organ I had to play was a Yamaha ME something in a tiny little chapel built in the 1200's.  I only took the appointment because it was offering lots of weddings in the summer.  But I wish I hadn't.  I think it gave me M.E.

Playing hymns or proper liturgical/voluntary music was a nightmare because the organ has NOTHING there that resembles anything remotely useful as a church organ.   I can understand why the church had it.  It was about the only thing that could fit into the available tiny space.  In the end (I stayed there three years btw) I got totally naffed off and started to play around with the 'revolving menus' in the hope the church might take the hint on hearing their beloved DGM Mass accompanied by sounds akin to the 60's Star Trek series.

 

Ok what are your worst organs? 

Apologies to electronic organ lovers - but my worst experiences have been on those.

I recall many times being trapped in a technological twilight zone - stops that didn't do what I expected, menus that were endless and unhelpful, organs that were frustratingly mute with only minutes before a concert, etc.

A few of them were dreadfully flimsy - expression pedals that would not stay put, clacking keys, thumping stops, burnt-out drawknobs (and lit drawknobs that seemed as if they were roasting me alive).  One organ seems to have keys narrower than average - when I had to play some complex chords in a remote key, I was horrified to find that my fingers actually got stuck between the black keys! 

I've played (and maintained) some horribly flimsy pipe organs too, so they are not exempt.  One 'home-made' organ comes to mind, with unracked leaning pipes, and poorly-insulated wiring hanging from every corner of the organ loft.  Electrocution always seemed imminent.

One pipe organ I've performed on has had a major breakdown of some sort or another, every single time I've played on it!  (maybe 10 recitals)...

I've played at least three concerts which would not have been possible without the intervention of a soldering iron. 

As you wisely suggest, I mention no names...

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Soubasse32

My first paying church job was on a Wurlitzer electronic reed organ, that was the same age as myself (installed in 1951) and on its last legs. A member of the congregation worked for the local telephone company, and knew a lot about electronics. One sunday morning, the organ gave so much trouble during the first part of the service (Lutheran) that we worked on it during the sermon to get it to finish out the service.

The other one I remember was a wedding in a small country Pentecostal church. The church only had a piano, and the bride wanted organ music for her wedding, so she asked me to play her organ for the wedding. It was a Sears Silvertone chord organ! One manual, no pedals, push-button chords. I did the best I could. Several weeks later, I received a letter from her, thanking me for the beautiful (!) music, and enclosing the most generous payment that I had received up to that date for playing for a wedding. (I didn't have a standard fee then, and still don't, unless the church hosting the wedding has set a standard fee.)

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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.

My worst experiences was on a digital organ in a church near mine. It is a 3 manual Makin organ installed in 1990. The church is not that big with very little acoustic. Someone thought it was necessary for this organ to have a Tuba, which I think is absolutely pointless in such a small building. I'm not even sure that there is need for a 32' stop either. Nevertheless, digital Tubas are so pathetic anyway so it doens't really matter...

The swell mixture is FIVE ranks  and thus it is effectively the loudest stop on the organ, drowning out most of the Great. There is no reed on the Great, but there is a trumpet as well as the 'tuba' on the choir. Lets just say, they are identical......The swell strings sound just like flutes, the pedal trombone sounds like a trombone on a synthesiser, but the pedal flues are actually quite lovely. There doesn't seem to be any way of controlling the general volume or reverberation, and the sound that comes from the instrument is soooooo echoey that it sounds awful. Hasn't somebody since 1990 realised this and done something about it?!?!?!?!

However, I played a pipe organ this morning that really needs a thorough tuning. What doesn't seem to help is that the church is never really warm enough to me, and the organist always seems to close the swell box when he turns the organ off! Some notes are much louder than others, there is the occasional cipher, the couplers don't depress the keys fully enough (it's tracker action) and most of the pedal diapason doens't work.

Jezza

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"If you can't get the orchestra any louder, add the organ"

For me it had to be a digital three manual Viscount Grand Opera (I think it was a early or mid 90s instrument). Where do I start...?

It was a nasty, nasty instrument. The keyboards felt extremely plasticiky and offered little "feedback", the joints in the bench had detirorated so much that there was a huge amount of "sideways play", the sound from it was extremely synthetic - so much so that it made my TC-3S sound like a M&O in comparison, and then there were the speakers. The lighted drawknobs were made of a flimsy plastic that creaked when you grabbed them and had a lot of "play" to them - just didn't feel solid. The expression pedals had next to no resistance so trying to get anything other than 0 or 100% was nigh on impossible. The veneer was starting to peel off at the edges of the case...

Thank God what Viscount have improved so much more, hopefully our Prestige won't go the way of that Grand Opera.

Anyone who is offered a Grand Opera...don't buy it!!!

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Currently own:
ALLEN TC-3S (#42904 - 3rd Feb 1971) with Sequential Capture System

Speakers:
x1 Model 100 Gyro Cabinet
x1 Model 105 Cabinet
x3 Model 108 Cabinet

The prize for the worst electronic organ I've ever played goes to a 2 manual Viscount I used to play in a church over here. Extremely tacky instrument with those dreadful "drawstops" that don't actually draw but light up in red instead. Didn't even sound remotely realistic, with those disgusting mutations which dominate the whole chorus. Dreadful.

The worst pipe organ. Well, that would be another instrument I used to play just a short walk away from the church with the diabolical electronic organ. It was a small two manual instrument by Tamburini, which was quite pleasant in terms of tone, and it was quite wondrous how an organ with about twelve stops filled this immense church quite as well as it did. The only problem was that most of the stops did not sound all the way throughout the compass - as the old pneumatic action was breaking down after about sixty years of use. Unfortunately, it fell into a complete state of disrepair, and I'm not sure of it's current state.

Short answer:

Mid-1950's vintage with a few ranks of decent pipework, but was a mechanical disaster area, including the cheaply-made pedalboard.  The pedal division was 4 16-foot electronic stops of staggeringly poor quality.  That's enough; I cannot stand to remember any more!

Hmmm - I have lost count of the worst instruments that I've played: Probably the most memorable one was where all the stops were just varying loudnesses of buzz - from the dulciana; a ppp buzz - the french trumpet; a fff buzz - the 32' Bombarde; a howling fff buzz - the violin celeste; a celesting and wavering ppp buzz - I could go on but shant bore everyone with the details.  Oh yeah, it had new speakers too - installed just the day before I played it by a *factory technician*.

< : - ? 

Either the Allen POS at school, or a R/R hybrid. They say hybrids are good for the environment, well, not these kind of hybrids. It was mostly digital but had four ranks of pipes. THe console was the worst part of all, it had those god awful lighted drawknobs, and lighted couplers, (shivers with disgust).

The worst pipe organ I've played, well that is difficult, there was the one of good quality craftsmanship that is just plain falling apart/breaking down after som 50-70 years of use, but then there was one that just wasn't very good, period but, that one was pretty inconsequential since it was so near to two very fine mechanical action instruments, which made up for the enormous factor of lousy this organ posessed, that and it really isn't used much anymore, since the church got its nice, new tracker about ten years ago.

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Once you can tie your arms into a pretzel and your legs into a knot, you've got it under control

I'd say it's a cross between the one-manual pipe organ at my wife's grandmother's church, which hadn't been tuned for years, and the organ with the Swell chamber against the uninsulated, outside wall in the middle of winter.  They asked me to play a mini-concert on the one-manual.  I don't think they had any idea how mini the concert really was!!!

The other organ had suffered from closed swell-shades from a substitute organist.  So much for the Oboe solo that morning!

For some reason, most of my organ horror stories have had to do with poorly maintained pipe organs--not electronics!

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)

The absolute worst organ I ever played was a big, fugly Allen organ In Benton Chapel, Vanderbilt University.  It's still there!  It was horrible when they first got it in the 1970's, and it is even worse now.   Why they insist on keeping that thing I'll never know.  It's a wealthy school and they can get any pipe organ they want.  The university has a music school with an organ instructor.  They also have a University Organist on retainer, but I guess he's only there for show.  All the organists they've had seem powerless, or unwilling to change things. 

I have had the misfortune to play two horrible Livingstone organ from the 1960's.  It really only had one stop with different volumes and pitches.  There were no soft stops on it at all.. All it did was make flipping awful noise.  You may think electronic organs are not that good today, it seems back then they were horribly terrible.

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2m Viscount Opera Organ

Thanks for the address listing, Greg.    I listened to The Lost Chord and Wesley and enjoyed your quiet meditative registrations very much.   You give excellent voice to the Viscount.   Keep up the good work.

myorgan:

I'd say it's a cross between the one-manual pipe organ at my wife's grandmother's church, which hadn't been tuned for years, and the organ with the Swell chamber against the uninsulated, outside wall in the middle of winter.  They asked me to play a mini-concert on the one-manual.  I don't think they had any idea how mini the concert really was!!!

Sorry, I try never to quote myself, but I just had to add this about the pipe organ.  It was a tracker organ on the 2nd floor of the church.  It was only playable in one season because the church shifted on its foundation Spring and Fall, so there were numerous ciphers during those seasons, and it's either Winter or Summer when the mechanism is so stuck, it cannot be played at all!

Too bad, though.  The organ could be a nice one-manual if it was paid some attention.

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)

Michael,

Isn't there a hymn related to this problem? You know, "The Church's Bad Foundation." Now, I shall go forth into the desert and atone for my poor attempt at humor.

 

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BOZ