This past Sunday our organ builder, Dan Garland, came to visit and give St. Peter’s insight into how a pipe organ is made. In his talk, he described what the pipes are made of, how they are voiced, and even the parts of the pipe. We learned pipes have body parts – a toe, a foot, and a mouth. Our organ will be the 53rd new instrument that Garland has designed and installed. It will have 26 ranks, that is 7 more than our current organ. Every rank has 61 pipes which correspond to the 61 keys on the console. That means our new organ will have 427 more pipes than our current one. Wow!
Dan also explained how the organ will be fully built in the company’s Fort Worth workshop, taken completely apart, meticulously labeled, and then reassembled up in our loft. We learned organ building is a combination of design, construction, and art. There will be scaffolding and pulleys used to set the pieces in place, but then once assembled the instrument will be voiced (things tweaked and adjusted) so that it sounds it’s absolute best in our space.
Comments are closed.