The Organ Forum

Please specify number of manuals and if you wish the names of the divisions if there are more than the standard 2 -great swell and also the pedal.

I always find that 2 is enough for a simple church service, unless of course the building size requires a larger organ. Also, I'd want to make sure that there are plenty of orchestral colours that can be used.

Jezza

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

I'm not a church organist, but a little logic would suggest that 1 manual would be enough, and that pedals are not actually required.  It is certainly possible to produce a single keyboard instrument that could accompany hymns successfully and play all the liturgy, too.  It might be limited for the extraneous parts of the service (no grandiose Postludes, perhaps) but for Service Music it would be satisfactory.  How many small churches get by with just a piano?  How many other churches make do with (or prefer) an electronic keyboard?  Those might not be your choices, but they are what a lot of churches are using.  By that reasoning, one manual with or without pedals would be enough.

Would that be my choice?  No.

David

I would consider 2 manuals to be a minimum for a mainstream church service. Of course you could work with less if you had to...I could dine on rice and beans every day if I had to! I play a very complete 2 manual every Sunday but would love to have another enclosed manual division to facilitate all the accompaning required in the service. I am able to work around this though the use of pistons.

In my opinion, for a bare bones kind of organ, I would recommend 2 manuals with approximately 5-10 ranks, with some planning made for expansion when funds and other things of that nature become available and or necessary.  This is not taking into account acoustics, how many people can be seated in the church in question, space requirements, location of the organ itself, weight requirements, and so on and so on.

However, I must admit for the style in which I enjoy playing whether it be worship or in concert, this would be very, very, inadequate. I do enjoy a good challenge (i.e. make more with less), but in the long term I must admit, I'd get bored. If we really wish to make worship awesome, then we need to have instruments that can do that. I'm not necessarily saying that we all need to go shopping for 4 manuals and 100+ ranks, but we need enough zip in that sucker!

I forgot to add:

Talking about making do with keyboards and all that, I visited a church this weekend for Saturday Mass. No organ whatsoever. Just someone singing to a synthesizer. YUCK!!! YUCK!!!! EWWWWW!!!!! Oh, they just spent $170,000 on new steps. Take about messed up priorities....unless they are avoiding litigation for someone tripping on something! And they aren't hurting for money either.

Aside from being an organbuilder, I used to do a fair bit of subbing for church organists. Minimum size is often not as important as having the right organ...be it electronic or pipe...to serve the needs of a given music program. I've played Germanic organs in Baptist churchs, Romantic-style instruments in Lutheran churches and small electronic organs in "high" Episcopal churches. Any one of these instruments might have been fine in a different setting where they could be utilized properly. I've also played small instruments that were very satisfying because they were well thought out and were in a friendly acoustic. Then there were the larger instruments that were poorly planned and executed and often included whole divisions that were absolutely useless.

Done properly, the smaller instruments tend to be more artisitic in their approach. The larger ones are more forgiving due to individual elements being less critical...but you gotta love having all those buttons and knobs!

I'm happiest with at least three manuals.  I've done plenty of services on a two-manual organ; that is OK but three is better for some repertoire.

I agree with David that one manual might be sufficient (but challenging!) if you only played hymns.  But 'church' is not just hymn playing.  Three manuals gives more flexibility for choral/vocal accompanying, and it allows the organist to play a larger variety of repertoire for Preludes, Postludes, etc.

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Soubasse32

soubasse32:

I agree with David that one manual might be sufficient (but challenging!) if you only played hymns.  But 'church' is not just hymn playing.  Three manuals gives more flexibility for choral/vocal accompanying, and it allows the organist to play a larger variety of repertoire for Preludes, Postludes, etc.

Obviously, what is necessary depends a lot on what one's definition of "church" is.  In a great many small (possibly rural) churches in this country, "church" is hymn playing:  all the other music we associate with a church service (Prelude, Offertory, Solos, Postlude) also consists only of hymns, variations on hymns, or medleys of hymns.  For that type of church, one manual (or a piano) is enough.

My large (6000 members) UMC church has a 4-manual organ (well, right now the Solo manual only plays the 8' Tuba stop) with more than 4000 pipes, and I absolutely love it!  We have fabulous organ music at all 3 of our traditional services, which are kind of "intermediate" church in format.  Would we be happy with a one-manual instrument with no pedals?  Of course not, but we'd make do with it if that was all we had, and we'd have good worship.

David

Still, successful accompaniment of a classic Anglican service is very difficult without at least 2 manuals. Accompanying anthems, canticle settings, Anglican chants to psalms etc. on 1 manual involves a level of compromise beyond the acceptable (for me at least). Of course it can be *done*, but I don' t think the results are very inspiring, nor the experience for the organist in any way pleasurable. If you've a really good Swell you can work wonders with 2 manuals in most of this repertoire.

Personally, I feel comfortable with a minimum of two manuals - you can do pretty much all you need on two manuals with a few adjustments to complicated repertoire if needs be.

Ideally though, I'd prefer three manuals, but for me two is a minimum.

 

 

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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

I'd be comfortable with at least two.  There are certain things like psalms and types of vocal accompaniment that would be difficult on a single manual.

quantum:

I'd be comfortable with at least two.  There are certain things like psalms and types of vocal accompaniment that would be difficult on a single manual.

Having played on all types of organs, from Sears chord organs and reed organs (one with an electric pump) on up to a four manual pipe organ, I am happiest with either a fair sized two manual organ (with plenty of pistons!) or a decent three manual organ. Even if it has a divided keyboard, so that solos against accompaniments are theoretically possible, a one manual organ or keyboard holds no thrill for me. In a larger church setting, I think that the three manual organ is just right. It allows a variety of registration, is great for doing solo and accompaniment with the upper and lower keyboards and then quickly switching to the middle (Great) for the larger sound, and is capable of playing virtually all of the organ literature, much of which requires three manuals, or is more playable with three. (Not that I can play all of the literature, but the capability is there.)

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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.

i use a 4m 8 division for practice

it is in a modest space and not excessive for that room

76 rks 1900/1937/1960/1996

the 4th m is handy for soloing out on the reeds or the use of the orch stops up there as well as transfering the gal sw to man 4 for contrast with the chanc sw

the 2 sws r different in character and location

a similar arrangement allows for the 2 gts to be used on separate manuals I and II

all in all it is a nice organ and is versatile in its ability to provise a sumptuous tonal palette for any ecclesiastical needs be it hymnody choral work or pre and post ludial as well as a large cross-section of the full rep

Hey, M&M's:  Ditto!