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Mander Organs

Claviorgue

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Posts posted by Claviorgue

  3. Posted · Report reply

    I heard a recording of JSW playing the Widor Toccata on Classic FM recently. I thought the organ sounded terrible on the recording, the mixture work being particularly unmusical somehow and rather high pitched (I thought that JSW's playing and tempo was spot on nevertheless). The organ certainly sounded quite different from some of the old iconic recordings of Francis Jackson. It's not an organ I'm familiar with and have never heard it live. Is the JSW recording representative of how the organ sounds now or is this just not a great recording?

     

    Comments from those in the know would be welcomed!

     

    Happy new year to all.

     

    I was interested by your comments. The instrument does sound quite different from those first exciting recordings of the sixties and seventies. We now have the new and very interesting DVD’s issued on the Priory label. These recordings are so clear and so revealing. In the interim period we have had forty years to absorb the sound of some of the finest instruments, either live or in recordings and in doing so have probably formulated a balanced view of the English cathedral organ as part of a larger picture?

    I am loath to mention anything about such an iconic instrument and I would be reluctant to criticize the output of our favourite recording company. The fact is that recording dates are presumably booked years in advance and there is an element of risk as to how the instrument is going to behave at any one time. Certainly the tuning is not good and sound of the organ running out of wind in the last piece is a disappointment. All of this could be to unforeseen problems and I perfectly accept the recording as very interesting picture of the York instrument in 2008.

  5. Posted · Report reply

    Get ready folks, here comes the stupid question of the year!

    By what reasoning does increasing temperature cause pipes to 'sharpen' in pitch? Logic says that increased temperature causes the pipe to expand, and, in my primitive brain, bigger pipes equal lower notes - flattening.

    And people talk of the organ going flat when it's cold when my poor assaulted reasoning says the pipes are getting smaller and sharper.....

     

    Or, is it more to do with the way sound waves behave in changing temperatures, rather than any consideration of the pipes themselves?

    My churches allow me two tunings a year, and I call for these mid-autumn and around Easter time, which in the buildings' unheated state, means that both tunings are carried out at more or less the mean temperature of the year. Seems to work OK but is probably nonsense. My tuner agrees, though that may be to do with having a couple of churches outside of the Christmas rush.

     

    I'm already wishing I hadn't got into this

    Chris Baker

     

    It is not a stupid question. It is to do with the latter of your assumptions. Air density changes with temperature. Cold air has a higher density and therefore sound/frequencies travel slower. We could bring in the factor of humidity here, but perhaps we have enough to fill our collective heads for the moment? It is amusing that we are responding to a four year old post. I hope that the original writer is not offended by our tardiness? In conclusion, I am hoping that someone better versed in the laws of physics is going to give us some hard facts. In the meanwhile I will continue with my rather crude rule of thumb technique.

  6. Posted · Report reply

    My idea would be to tune the instrument when the room is at 25c. My rough calculations are that flue pipes sharpen by approx 0.6 Hz per degree Celsius. Therefore if the temperature at the beginning of the concert is say, 22c, your reed rank is going to be sharp by almost 2 Hz. Hopefully, by the end of the concert and the temperature perhaps as high as 27c, the reeds will be still no more than 2 Hz different from the flues. The overall pitch of the instrument has no consequence unless other instruments are involved.

    This is a very rough guide and does not take into consideration the temperature at different levels in the room.

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