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Organ (music)
Encyclopedia
The organ is a keyboard instrument
of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands
or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument
in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with the invention of the hydraulis. By around the 8th century it had overcome early associations with gladiator
ial combat and gradually assumed a prominent place in the liturgy
of the Catholic Church; subsequently it has re-emerged as a secular and recital
instrument.
s use wind moving through pipes
to produce sounds. Since the 16th century, pipe organs have used various materials of pipes, which can vary widely in timbre and volume. The pipes are divided into ranks and controlled by the use of hand stops
and/or combination pistons
. Although the keyboard is not expressive
as on a piano and does not affect dynamics
(pressing a key only turns the sound on or off), some divisions may be enclosed in a swell box, allowing the dynamics to be controlled by shutters. Some special registers with free reed pipes are expressive. These instruments vary greatly in size, ranging from a cubic yard to a height reaching five floors, and are built
in churches, synagogues, concert halls, and homes. Small organs are called positive
(easily placed in different locations) or portative
(small enough to carry while playing). Increasingly hybrid organs are appearing in which pipes are augmented with electronic additions. Great economies of space as well as cost are possible especially when the lowest (and largest) of the pipes can be replaced.
Non-piped organs include the reed organ
or harmonium
, which like the accordion
, harmonica
or mouth organ use air to excite free reeds
.
Electronic organ
s or digital organs generate electronically produced sound through one or more loudspeaker
s.
Mechanical organ
s include the barrel organ
, water organ
, and Orchestrion
. These are controlled by mechanical means such as pinned barrels
or book music
. Little Barrel organs dispense with the hands of an organist
and bigger organs are powered in most cases by an organ grinder or today by other means such as an electric motor
.
is the grandest musical instrument
in size and scope, and has existed in its current form since the 14th century (though other designs, such as the hydraulic organ, were already used in Antiquity
). Along with the clock
, it was considered one of the most complex human-made creations before the Industrial Revolution
. Pipe organs range in size from a single short keyboard to huge instruments with over 10,000 pipe
s. A large modern organ typically has three or four keyboards (manuals
) with five octaves (61 notes) each, and a two-and-a-half octave (32-note) pedal board.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
called the organ the "King of instruments". Some of the biggest instruments have 64-foot pipes (a foot here means "sonic-foot", a measure quite close to the English measurement unit), and it sounds to an 8 Hz
frequency fundamental tone. Perhaps the most distinctive feature is the ability to range from the slightest sound to the most powerful, plein-jeu
impressive sonic discharge, which can be sustained in time indefinitely by the organist. For instance, the Wanamaker organ
, located in Philadelphia, USA, has sonic resources comparable with three simultaneous symphony orchestras. Another interesting feature lies in its intrinsic "polyphony
" approach: each set of pipes can be played simultaneously with others, and the sounds mixed and interspersed in the environment, not in the instrument itself. (Contrast this with digital organs, where the electronically produced sound comes from loudspeakers.)
in the 7th century. Due to its ability to simultaneously provide a musical foundation below the vocal register, support in the vocal register, and increased brightness above the vocal register, the organ is ideally suited to accompany human voice
s, whether a congregation, a choir
or a cantor or soloist. Most services also include solo organ repertoire
for independent performance rather than by way of accompaniment, often as a prelude at the beginning the service and a postlude at the conclusion of the service.
Today this organ may be a pipe organ
(see above), a digital or electronic organ
that generates the sound with Digital Signal Processing
(DSP) chips or a combination of pipes and electronics. It may be called a church organ or classical organ to differentiate it from the theater organ
, which is a different style of instrument. However, as classical organ repertoire
was developed for the pipe organ and in turn influenced its development, the line between a church and a concert organ is hard to draw.
Organs are also used to give recital concerts, called organ recital
s. In the early 20th century, symphonic organ
s flourished in secular venues in the United States and UK, designed to replace symphony orchestras by playing transcriptions of orchestral pieces. Symphonic and orchestral organs largely fell out of favor as the Orgelbewegung (Organ Reform Movement)
took hold in the middle of the 20th century and organ builders began to look to historical models for inspiration in constructing new instruments. Today, modern builders construct organs in a variety of styles and for both secular and sacred applications.
The theatre organ
or cinema organ was designed to accompany silent movie
s. Like a symphonic organ, it is made to replace an orchestra. However, it includes many more gadgets, such as percussion and special effects, to provide a more complete array of options to the theatre organist. Theatre organs tend not to take nearly as much space as standard organs, relying on extension and higher wind pressures to produce a greater variety of tone and larger volume of sound from fewer pipes.
This extension is called "unification", meaning that instead of one pipe for each key at all pitches, the higher octaves of pitch (and in some cases, lower octaves) are achieved by merely adding 12 pipes (one octave) to the top and/or bottom of a given division. Assuming there are sixty-one keys on an organ manual (a common number in concert organs and in North America), a classical organ will have, for diapason stops at 8', 4' and 2' pitch, a total of 183 pipes (61 plus 61 plus 61). The same chorus of diapasons on a theatre organ will have only 85 pipes (61 plus 12 plus 12). Some ranks, such as the Tibia Clausa
, with up to 97 pipes, allow the organist to draw stops at 16', 8', 4', 2', and mutations from a single rank of pipes.
Unification gives a smaller instrument the capability of a much larger one, and works well for monophonic styles of playing (chordal, or chords with solo voice). The sound is, however, thicker and more homogeneous than a classically designed organ, and is very often reliant on the use of tremulant, which has a depth greater than that usually found on a classical organ. Unification also allows pipe ranks to be played from more than one manual and the pedals.
designed by Hans van Koolwijk. The instrument has 100 flutes made of bamboo.
and harmonium
was the other main type of organ before the development of electronic organs. It generated its sounds using reeds similar to those of a piano accordion
. Smaller, cheaper and more portable than the corresponding pipe instrument, these were widely used in smaller churches and in private homes, but their volume and tonal range was extremely limited, and they were generally limited to one or two manuals, pedalboards being extremely rare.
was invented by Laurens Hammond in 1950. It provided chord buttons for the left hand, similar to an accordion. Other reed organ manufacturers have also produced chord organs.
The Hammond organ was the first successful electric organ, released in the 1930s. It used mechanical, rotating tonewheel
s to produce the sound waveforms. Its system of drawbars allowed for setting volumes for specific sounds, and it provided vibrato-like effects. The drawbars allow the player to choose volume levels of 0-8 for each of the members of the harmonic series starting from 16'. By emphasizing certain harmonics from the overtone series, desired sounds (such as 'brass' or 'string') can be imitated. Generally, the older Hammond drawbar organs had only preamplifiers and were connected to an external, amplified speaker. The Leslie speaker
became the most popular, which is a rotating type speaker. The three most popular models of Hammond organs were the consoles: the B-3, C-3, and A-100. Inside all three models, the tone generators, drawbars, and keyboards were identical. The B-3 cabinet stood on 4 legs, the C-3 was an enclosed "church" model, and the A100 series had built in amplifiers and speakers.
In addition to these console models, Hammond also produced spinet models, which differed from the consoles in the size of keyboard (44 keys per keyboard versus 61 for the consoles, and 12 or 13 pedals instead of 25) and the absence of foldback and scaling in the keyboards making them cheaper to manufacture. Other features of the console organs such as vibrato or percussion were included in the spinets; all the spinet models featured a built in amplifier and speaker; when used with the external amplified speaker (e.g.: Leslie) they sound similar to the console models. These smaller all-in-one organs were intended primarily for use in homes or very small churches.
Though originally produced to replace organs in the church, the Hammond organ, especially the model B-3, became popular in jazz
, particularly soul jazz
, and in gospel music
. Since these were the roots of rock and roll
, the Hammond organ became a part of the rock and roll sound. It was widely used in rock and popular music during the 1960s and 1970s by bands like The Doors
, Pink Floyd
, Procol Harum
, Santana
and Deep Purple
. Its popularity resurged in pop music around 2000, in part due to the availability of clonewheel organ
s that were light enough for one person to carry.
In the 1940s until the 1970s, small organs were sold that simplified traditional organ stop
s. These instruments can be considered the predecessor to modern portable keyboards
, as they included one-touch chords, rhythm and accompaniment devices, and other electronically assisted gadgets. Lowrey
was the leading manufacturer of this type of organs in the smaller (spinet) instruments.
In the '60s and '70s, a type of simple, portable electronic organ called the combo organ
was popular, especially with pop and rock bands, and was a signature sound in the pop music of the period, such as The Doors
, Led Zeppelin
, and Iron Butterfly
. The most popular combo organs were manufactured by Farfisa
and Vox
.
Conn-Selmer
and Rodgers
, dominant in more larger instrument market, also made electronic organs that used separate oscillators for each note, giving them a richer sound, closer to a pipe organ, due to the slight imperfections in tuning, by not using precise division.
Also available are hybrids, starting from early 20th century, which incorporating a few ranks of pipes to produce some sounds, and using electronic circuits or digital samples for other sounds and to resolve borrowing collisions. Major manufacturers include Allen
, Walker, Compton
, Wicks, Marshall & Ogletree, Phoenix, Makin Organs, Wyvern Organs and Rodgers
.
enabled another revolution in electronic keyboard instruments.
Digital organs sold since the 1970s utilize additive synthesis
, then sampling technology
(1980s) and physical modelling synthesis
(1990s) are also utilized to produce the sound.
Virtual Pipe Organs, played via MIDI, access samples of real pipe organs stored on a computer, as opposed to digital organs that use DSP and processor hardware inside a console to produce sounds or deliver sound samples. They have high polyphony (up to about 40,000 pipes/1PC), which is necessary as there is a sample for every single pipe on the organ, plus samples and modeling effects such as mechanical action noise and pipe wind fluctuations. Addition of touch screen monitors or custom midi controllers allows the user to control the virtual organ console (drawing stops, operating couplers etc.) In its basic form, without a traditional wooden console, a Virtual Organ can be obtained at a much lower cost than other digital classical organs. With Stereo
or mulitple channel audio systems, virtual organs can approach the acoustic realism of a real pipe organ. For example, for most Virtual Organs with a pedal division containing 16 ft or 32 ft pipes, a subwoofer arrangement is required to reproduce the powerful movement of air at frequencies around 32 Hz or lower. For personal purpose, typically small studio quality near-field monitors with subwoofer are used.
The Japanese instrument builders Kawai (e.g. CP209) and Yamaha (e.g. CGP1000) started a new trend for the 21st century by building electronic keyboard organs into grant piano cabinets combining sampled organ sounds with other instrument voices like their own grand pianos allowing organists to register many new voices to create endless sounds, which is the original strength of the organ instrument. While trumpet, horn, fagot, flutes and other wind instruments have been in organs for a long time, electronic organs make it possible to integrate string instruments like harps, violins and guitars into the organ with thousands of possible registrations. A real soundboard combined with high tech speaker systems and along with state-of-the-art vibro-acoustic technology (using transducers created by Acouve Laboratory, Inc. in Japan) and the sophisticated iAFC (Instrumental Active Field Control, Yamaha : http://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical-instruments/keyboards/digitalpianos/clavinova_grands/cgp-1000/?mode=model#tab=product_lineup) or Progressive Harmonic Imaging (PHI, Kawai; http://www.kawaius.com/main_links/digital/CP_2010/cp209-spec.html) effects create realistic pipe organ sounds as well as realistic grand piano sounds.
, was invented in the United States in 19th century. Calliopes usually have very loud and clean sound. Calliopes are used as outdoors instruments, and many have been built on wheeled platforms.
, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
, and Girolamo Frescobaldi
were three of the most important composers and teachers before 1650. Influenced by these composers, the North German school then rose to prominence with notable composers including Dieterich Buxtehude
and especially Johann Sebastian Bach
, considered by many to have achieved the height of organ composition. During this time, the French Classical school
also flourished.
After Bach, the organ's prominence gradually lost ground to the piano
. Felix Mendelssohn
, A.P.F. Boëly
, and César Franck
led a resurgence in the mid-19th century, leading a Romantic movement
that would be carried further by Max Reger
, Charles-Marie Widor
, Louis Vierne
, and others. In the 20th century, composers such as Marcel Dupré
, Kaikhosru Sorabji
and Olivier Messiaen
added significant contributions to the organ repertoire.
Because the organ has both manuals and pedals, organ music has come to be notated on three staves. The music played on the manuals is laid out like music for other keyboard instruments on the top two staves, and the music for the pedals is notated on the third stave or sometimes, to save space, added to the bottom of the second stave as was the early practice. To aid the eye in reading three staves at once, the bar lines
are broken between the lowest two staves; the brace surrounds only the upper two staves. Because music racks are often built quite low to preserve sightlines over the console, organ music is usually published in oblong or landscape format.
, John Gart, and Paul Barranco. In the early 1970s, the organ was phased out in favor of more dramatic, full-blown orchestras, which in turn were replaced with more modern pop
-style compositions.
. In some cases, groups have sought out the sound of the pipe organ, such as Tangerine Dream
, and Arrogant Worms, which combined the distinctive sounds of electronic synthesizer
s and pipe organs when it recorded both music album
s and video
s in several cathedral
s in Europe. Rick Wakeman
of British progressive rock
group Yes
also used pipe organ to excellent effect in a number of the group's albums (including Close to the Edge and Going for the One
). Wakeman has also used pipe organ in his solo pieces such as "Jane Seymour" from The Six Wives Of Henry VIII
and "Judas Iscariot" from Criminal Record. Even more recently, he has recorded an entire album of organ pieces – Rick Wakeman at Lincoln Cathedral
. Likewise, Keith Emerson
used a pipe organ with The Nice
and progressive rock
group Emerson, Lake and Palmer on their earlier albums on the songs "The Three Fates," "The Only Way" and "Promenade." George Duke
employed the pipe organ in a flamboyant manner in the piece "50/50" on the Frank Zappa
album Over-Nite Sensation
. Dennis DeYoung
of American rock
group Styx
used the pipe organ at Chicago
's St. James Cathedral
on the song "I'm O.K." on the group's 1978 album Pieces of Eight. In 2000 Radiohead
frontman Thom Yorke
played the organ on the Kid A
album to great effect, most notably in "Motion Picture Soundtrack". More recently, Arcade Fire have used a church organ on the songs "Intervention
" and "My Body Is a Cage" on their second album Neon Bible
. Muse
have also used a church organ on their album Origin of Symmetry
in the form of "Megalomania", played by their frontman Matt Bellamy. It has been performed live only once on a pipe organ, at the Royal Albert Hall
. Roger Hodgson
(formerly of Supertramp
) used a pipe organ for the songs Say Goodbye, Open the Door and Danielle in 2000 for the album Open the Door.
On the other hand, electronic organ
s and electromechanical organs such as the Hammond organ
have an established role in a number of non-"Classical" genres, such as blues, jazz, gospel, and 1960s and 1970s rock music. Electronic and electromechanical organs were originally designed as lower-cost substitutes for pipe organs. Despite this intended role as a sacred music instrument, electronic and electromechanical organs' distinctive tone-often modified with electronic effects such as vibrato, rotating Leslie speakers, and overdrive-became an important part of the sound of popular music. Billy Preston
and Iron Butterfly
's Doug Ingle
have featured organ on popular recordings such as "Let it Be
" and "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", respectively. Well-known rock artists using the Hammond organ include Bob Dylan
, Counting Crows
, Pink Floyd
, Hootie & the Blowfish
, Sheryl Crow
, and Deep Purple
.
Recent performers of Popular organ music include William Rowland
of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
who is noted for his compositions of "Piano Rags," which he plays on a Wurlitzer theatre organ in Miami, Oklahoma
; George Wright
(1920–1998) whose "Jealousie" and "Puttin on the Ritz" are some of the finest performances of this genre and Virgil Fox
(1912–1980), who bridged both the classical and religious areas of music with pop and so-called Heavy Organ concerts that he played on an electronic organ accompanied by a light show similar to those created in the 1960s for rock concerts. Jimmy Smith
was a famous jazz organist of the 20th century.
The American Theatre Organ Society ATOS
has been instrumental in programs to preserve the instruments originally installed in theatres for accompaniment of silent movies. In addition to local chapter events they hold an annual convention each year, highlighting performers and instruments in a specific locale. These instruments feature the Tibia pipe family as their foundation stops and regular use of tremulants. They were usually equipped with mechanical percussion accessories, pianos, and other imitative sounds useful in creating movie sound accompaniments such as auto horns, doorbells, and bird whistles.
and ice hockey
.
The baseball organ has been referred to as "an accessory to the overall auditory experience of the ballpark." The first team to introduce an organ during breaks of play (before and after games, in between innings, and during longer stoppages) was the Chicago Cubs
, who put an organ in Wrigley Field
as an experiment in 1941 for two games. Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, hired baseball's first full-time organist, Gladys Goodding, the following year. Over the years, many ballparks caught on to the trend, and many organists became well-known and associated with their parks or signature tunes: Eddie Layton
playing at Yankee Stadium
for over 50 years, Jane Jarvis
greeting the New York Mets
at Shea Stadium
with their club song "Meet the Mets
", Ernie Hays serenading a Busch Memorial Stadium
crowd with "Here Comes the King
", Nancy Bea
as the organist for the Dodgers
, Chicago favorite Nancy Faust
urging Chicago White Sox
fans to tell an opposing pitcher or a Pale Hose home run to "Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)" or Rick DePiro
playing for Cleveland Indians
games and known for his youth and controversy with songs like "If I Only Had A Brain
" played often for the Umpires. During the 1990s, several teams fired their organists and replaced them entirely with recorded music and sound effects. However, many fans support organs at ballparks, believing it to be a traditional aspect of the game. As a result, several teams (notably the St. Louis Cardinals
and Pittsburgh Pirates
) have begun to feature organ music more prominently, and in 2009 the Atlanta Braves
re-introduced an organist at Turner Field
, even going so far as to promote his Twitter
feed to take requests from fans.
ever since Jimmy Smith
made it popular in the 1950s. It can function as a replacement for both piano and bass in the standard jazz combo.
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands
Manual (music)
A manual is a keyboard designed to be played with the hands on a pipe organ, harpsichord, clavichord, electronic organ, or synthesizer. The term "manual" is used with regard to any hand keyboard on these instruments to distinguish it from the pedalboard, which is a keyboard that the organist plays...
or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with the invention of the hydraulis. By around the 8th century it had overcome early associations with gladiator
Gladiator
A gladiator was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their legal and social standing and their lives by appearing in the...
ial combat and gradually assumed a prominent place in the liturgy
Christian liturgy
A liturgy is a set form of ceremony or pattern of worship. Christian liturgy is a pattern for worship used by a Christian congregation or denomination on a regular basis....
of the Catholic Church; subsequently it has re-emerged as a secular and recital
Organ recital
An organ recital is a concert at which music specially written for the organ is played.The music played at such recitals was typically written for pipe organ, which includes church organs, and symphonic organs...
instrument.
Overview
Pipe organPipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
s use wind moving through pipes
Organ pipe
An organ pipe is a sound-producing element of the pipe organ that resonates at a specific pitch when pressurized air is driven through it. Each pipe is tuned to a specific note of the musical scale...
to produce sounds. Since the 16th century, pipe organs have used various materials of pipes, which can vary widely in timbre and volume. The pipes are divided into ranks and controlled by the use of hand stops
Organ stop
An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist; some can be "on" , while others can be "off" .The term can also refer...
and/or combination pistons
Combination action
A combination action is a system designed to capture specific organ registrations to be recalled instantaneously by the player while he is playing. Because of this, it is also referred to as a capture system. It usually consists of several numbered pistons situated in the space between the manuals...
. Although the keyboard is not expressive
Keyboard expression
Keyboard expression often shortened to expression is the ability of a keyboard instrument to respond to the dynamics of the music or change the tone of the sound in response to the way that the performer depresses the keys of the musical keyboard...
as on a piano and does not affect dynamics
Dynamics (music)
In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional . The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics...
(pressing a key only turns the sound on or off), some divisions may be enclosed in a swell box, allowing the dynamics to be controlled by shutters. Some special registers with free reed pipes are expressive. These instruments vary greatly in size, ranging from a cubic yard to a height reaching five floors, and are built
Organ builder
-Australia:* William Anderson * Australian Pipe Organs Pty Ltd* Robert Cecil Clifton * William Davidson* J.E. Dodd & Sons Gunstar Organ Works* Fincham & Hobday* Geo. Fincham & Son* Alfred Fuller * Peter D.G. Jewkes Pty Ltd...
in churches, synagogues, concert halls, and homes. Small organs are called positive
Positive organ
A positive organ is a small, usually one-manual, pipe organ that is built to be more or less mobile. It was common in sacred and secular music between the 10th and the 18th centuries, in chapels and small churches, as a chamber organ and for the basso continuo in ensemble works...
(easily placed in different locations) or portative
Portative organ
A portative organ is a small pipe organ that consists of one rank of flue pipes, sometimes arranged in two rows, to be played while strapped to the performer at a right angle...
(small enough to carry while playing). Increasingly hybrid organs are appearing in which pipes are augmented with electronic additions. Great economies of space as well as cost are possible especially when the lowest (and largest) of the pipes can be replaced.
Non-piped organs include the reed organ
Reed organ
A reed organ, also called a parlor organ, pump organ, cabinet organ, cottage organ, is an organ that generates its sounds using free metal reeds...
or harmonium
Harmonium
A harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ. Sound is produced by air being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion...
, which like the accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
, harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
or mouth organ use air to excite free reeds
Free reed aerophone
A free reed aerophone is a musical instrument where sound is produced as air flows past a vibrating reed in a frame. Air pressure is typically generated by breath or with a bellows.- Operation :...
.
Electronic organ
Electronic organ
An electronic organ is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally, it was designed to imitate the sound of pipe organs, theatre organs, band sounds, or orchestral sounds....
s or digital organs generate electronically produced sound through one or more loudspeaker
Loudspeaker
A loudspeaker is an electroacoustic transducer that produces sound in response to an electrical audio signal input. Non-electrical loudspeakers were developed as accessories to telephone systems, but electronic amplification by vacuum tube made loudspeakers more generally useful...
s.
Mechanical organ
Mechanical organ
A mechanical organ is an organ that is self playing, rather than played by a musician.Usually, mechanical organs are pipe organs although some instruments were built using reeds similar to those found in a harmonium. Since the 1950s, some instruments have been built using electronics to generate...
s include the barrel organ
Barrel organ
A barrel organ is a mechanical musical instrument consisting of bellows and one or more ranks of pipes housed in a case, usually of wood, and often highly decorated...
, water organ
Water organ
The water organ or hydraulic organ is a type of pipe organ blown by air, where the power source pushing the air is derived by water from a natural source or by a manual pump...
, and Orchestrion
Orchestrion
An orchestrion is a generic name for a machine that plays music and is designed to sound like an orchestra or band. Orchestrions may be operated by means of a large pinned cylinder or by a music roll and less commonly book music. The sound is usually produced by pipes, though they will be voiced...
. These are controlled by mechanical means such as pinned barrels
Barrel organ
A barrel organ is a mechanical musical instrument consisting of bellows and one or more ranks of pipes housed in a case, usually of wood, and often highly decorated...
or book music
Book music
Book Music is a medium for storing the music played on mechanical organs, mainly of European manufacture. Book music is made from thick cardboard, containing perforated holes representing the musical notes to be played, with the book folded zig-zag style...
. Little Barrel organs dispense with the hands of an organist
Organist
An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...
and bigger organs are powered in most cases by an organ grinder or today by other means such as an electric motor
Electric motor
An electric motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy.Most electric motors operate through the interaction of magnetic fields and current-carrying conductors to generate force...
.
Pipe organs
The pipe organPipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
is the grandest musical instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
in size and scope, and has existed in its current form since the 14th century (though other designs, such as the hydraulic organ, were already used in Antiquity
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
). Along with the clock
Clock
A clock is an instrument used to indicate, keep, and co-ordinate time. The word clock is derived ultimately from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning "bell". A silent instrument missing such a mechanism has traditionally been known as a timepiece...
, it was considered one of the most complex human-made creations before the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
. Pipe organs range in size from a single short keyboard to huge instruments with over 10,000 pipe
Organ pipe
An organ pipe is a sound-producing element of the pipe organ that resonates at a specific pitch when pressurized air is driven through it. Each pipe is tuned to a specific note of the musical scale...
s. A large modern organ typically has three or four keyboards (manuals
Manual (music)
A manual is a keyboard designed to be played with the hands on a pipe organ, harpsichord, clavichord, electronic organ, or synthesizer. The term "manual" is used with regard to any hand keyboard on these instruments to distinguish it from the pedalboard, which is a keyboard that the organist plays...
) with five octaves (61 notes) each, and a two-and-a-half octave (32-note) pedal board.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
called the organ the "King of instruments". Some of the biggest instruments have 64-foot pipes (a foot here means "sonic-foot", a measure quite close to the English measurement unit), and it sounds to an 8 Hz
Hertz
The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....
frequency fundamental tone. Perhaps the most distinctive feature is the ability to range from the slightest sound to the most powerful, plein-jeu
Plein-jeu
Plein-jeu is a compound organ stop of principal tone, involving four ranks of pipes, but some examples are found with three ranks, and some rare, two ranks.It is also sometimes known as Mixture, Cymbale, Fourniture or Scharf....
impressive sonic discharge, which can be sustained in time indefinitely by the organist. For instance, the Wanamaker organ
Wanamaker Organ
The Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the largest operational pipe organ in the world, located within a spacious 7-story court at Macy's Center City . The largest organ by some measures is the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ...
, located in Philadelphia, USA, has sonic resources comparable with three simultaneous symphony orchestras. Another interesting feature lies in its intrinsic "polyphony
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
" approach: each set of pipes can be played simultaneously with others, and the sounds mixed and interspersed in the environment, not in the instrument itself. (Contrast this with digital organs, where the electronically produced sound comes from loudspeakers.)
Church organs
Most organs in Europe, the Americas and Australasia can be found in Christian churches or Jewish synagogues. The introduction of church organs is traditionally attributed to Pope VitalianPope Vitalian
Pope Saint Vitalianus was Pope of the Catholic Church from July 30, 657, until January 27, 672.He was born in Segni, Lazio, the son of Anastasius.-Reign:...
in the 7th century. Due to its ability to simultaneously provide a musical foundation below the vocal register, support in the vocal register, and increased brightness above the vocal register, the organ is ideally suited to accompany human voice
Human voice
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal folds for talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, etc. Its frequency ranges from about 60 to 7000 Hz. The human voice is specifically that part of human sound production in which the vocal folds are the primary...
s, whether a congregation, a choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
or a cantor or soloist. Most services also include solo organ repertoire
Organ repertoire
The organ repertoire consists of music written for the organ. Because it is one of the oldest musical instruments in existence, written organ repertoire spans a time period almost as long as that of written music itself. The organ's solo repertoire is among the largest for any musical instrument...
for independent performance rather than by way of accompaniment, often as a prelude at the beginning the service and a postlude at the conclusion of the service.
Today this organ may be a pipe organ
Pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
(see above), a digital or electronic organ
Electronic organ
An electronic organ is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally, it was designed to imitate the sound of pipe organs, theatre organs, band sounds, or orchestral sounds....
that generates the sound with Digital Signal Processing
Digital signal processing
Digital signal processing is concerned with the representation of discrete time signals by a sequence of numbers or symbols and the processing of these signals. Digital signal processing and analog signal processing are subfields of signal processing...
(DSP) chips or a combination of pipes and electronics. It may be called a church organ or classical organ to differentiate it from the theater organ
Theatre organ
A theatre organ is a pipe organ originally designed specifically for imitation of an orchestra. New designs have tended to be around some of the sounds and blends unique to the instrument itself....
, which is a different style of instrument. However, as classical organ repertoire
Organ repertoire
The organ repertoire consists of music written for the organ. Because it is one of the oldest musical instruments in existence, written organ repertoire spans a time period almost as long as that of written music itself. The organ's solo repertoire is among the largest for any musical instrument...
was developed for the pipe organ and in turn influenced its development, the line between a church and a concert organ is hard to draw.
Organs are also used to give recital concerts, called organ recital
Organ recital
An organ recital is a concert at which music specially written for the organ is played.The music played at such recitals was typically written for pipe organ, which includes church organs, and symphonic organs...
s. In the early 20th century, symphonic organ
Symphonic organ
The symphonic organ is a style of pipe organ which flourished during the first third of the twentieth century in town halls and other secular public venues . It is a variation of the classical pipe organ intended for the performance of orchestral transcriptions, which are serious orchestral...
s flourished in secular venues in the United States and UK, designed to replace symphony orchestras by playing transcriptions of orchestral pieces. Symphonic and orchestral organs largely fell out of favor as the Orgelbewegung (Organ Reform Movement)
Organ reform movement
The Organ Reform Movement or Orgelbewegung was an early 20th century trend in pipe organ building, originating in Germany and already influential in the United States in the 1940s, waning only in the 1980s...
took hold in the middle of the 20th century and organ builders began to look to historical models for inspiration in constructing new instruments. Today, modern builders construct organs in a variety of styles and for both secular and sacred applications.
Chamber organs
A chamber organ is a small pipe organ, often with only one manual, and sometimes without separate pedal pipes that is placed in a small room, that this diminutive organ can fill with sound. It is often confined to chamber organ repertoire, as often the organs have too little voice capabilities to rival the grand pipe organs in the performance of the classics. The sound and touch are unique to the instrument, sounding nothing like a large organ with few stops drawn out, but rather much more intimate. They are usually tracker instruments, although the modern builders are often building electropneumatic chamber organs.Theatre organs
Theatre organ
A theatre organ is a pipe organ originally designed specifically for imitation of an orchestra. New designs have tended to be around some of the sounds and blends unique to the instrument itself....
or cinema organ was designed to accompany silent movie
Silent Movie
Silent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976...
s. Like a symphonic organ, it is made to replace an orchestra. However, it includes many more gadgets, such as percussion and special effects, to provide a more complete array of options to the theatre organist. Theatre organs tend not to take nearly as much space as standard organs, relying on extension and higher wind pressures to produce a greater variety of tone and larger volume of sound from fewer pipes.
This extension is called "unification", meaning that instead of one pipe for each key at all pitches, the higher octaves of pitch (and in some cases, lower octaves) are achieved by merely adding 12 pipes (one octave) to the top and/or bottom of a given division. Assuming there are sixty-one keys on an organ manual (a common number in concert organs and in North America), a classical organ will have, for diapason stops at 8', 4' and 2' pitch, a total of 183 pipes (61 plus 61 plus 61). The same chorus of diapasons on a theatre organ will have only 85 pipes (61 plus 12 plus 12). Some ranks, such as the Tibia Clausa
Tibia Clausa
A Tibia Clausa is a large-scale, stopped wood flute pipe, usually with a leathered lip. Tibia Clausas provides the basic foundation tone of the organ with few overtones or harmonics. The Tibia Clausa is arguably the most important rank of pipes in a theatre pipe organ, with some organs having as...
, with up to 97 pipes, allow the organist to draw stops at 16', 8', 4', 2', and mutations from a single rank of pipes.
Unification gives a smaller instrument the capability of a much larger one, and works well for monophonic styles of playing (chordal, or chords with solo voice). The sound is, however, thicker and more homogeneous than a classically designed organ, and is very often reliant on the use of tremulant, which has a depth greater than that usually found on a classical organ. Unification also allows pipe ranks to be played from more than one manual and the pedals.
Other pipe organs
The bamboo organ called Bambuso sonoro is an experimental custom-made instrumentCustom-made instrument
An experimental musical instrument is a musical instrument that modifies or extends an existing instrument or class of instruments, or defines or creates a new class of instrument. Some are created through simple modifications, such as cracked drum cymbals or metal objects inserted between piano...
designed by Hans van Koolwijk. The instrument has 100 flutes made of bamboo.
Reed organs
The reed organReed organ
A reed organ, also called a parlor organ, pump organ, cabinet organ, cottage organ, is an organ that generates its sounds using free metal reeds...
and harmonium
Harmonium
A harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ. Sound is produced by air being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion...
was the other main type of organ before the development of electronic organs. It generated its sounds using reeds similar to those of a piano accordion
Piano accordion
A piano accordion is an accordion equipped with a right-hand keyboard similar to a piano or organ. Its acoustic mechanism is more similar to that of an organ than a piano, as they are both wind instruments, but the term "piano accordion"—coined by Guido Deiro in 1910—has remained the popular...
. Smaller, cheaper and more portable than the corresponding pipe instrument, these were widely used in smaller churches and in private homes, but their volume and tonal range was extremely limited, and they were generally limited to one or two manuals, pedalboards being extremely rare.
Chord organs
The chord organChord organ
The chord organ is a kind of home organ with a keyboard and a set of chord buttons, enabling the musician to play a melody or lead with one hand and accompanying chords with the other, like the accordion....
was invented by Laurens Hammond in 1950. It provided chord buttons for the left hand, similar to an accordion. Other reed organ manufacturers have also produced chord organs.
Electronic organs
Since the 1930s, pipeless electric instruments have been available to produce similar sounds and perform similar roles to pipe organs. Many of these have been bought both by houses of worship and other potential pipe organ customers, and also by many musicians both professional and amateur for whom a pipe organ would not be a possibility. Far smaller and cheaper to buy than a corresponding pipe instrument, and in many cases portable, they have taken organ music into private homes and into dance bands and other new environments, and have almost completely replaced the reed organ.Hammond organs
Tonewheel
A tonewheel is a simple electromechanical apparatus for generating electronic musical notes. The tonewheel assembly consists of a synchronous AC motor and an associated gearbox that drives a series of rotating disks...
s to produce the sound waveforms. Its system of drawbars allowed for setting volumes for specific sounds, and it provided vibrato-like effects. The drawbars allow the player to choose volume levels of 0-8 for each of the members of the harmonic series starting from 16'. By emphasizing certain harmonics from the overtone series, desired sounds (such as 'brass' or 'string') can be imitated. Generally, the older Hammond drawbar organs had only preamplifiers and were connected to an external, amplified speaker. The Leslie speaker
Leslie speaker
The Leslie speaker is a specially constructed amplifier/loudspeaker used to create special audio effects using the Doppler effect. Named after its inventor, Donald Leslie, it is particularly associated with the Hammond organ but is used with a variety of instruments as well as vocals. The...
became the most popular, which is a rotating type speaker. The three most popular models of Hammond organs were the consoles: the B-3, C-3, and A-100. Inside all three models, the tone generators, drawbars, and keyboards were identical. The B-3 cabinet stood on 4 legs, the C-3 was an enclosed "church" model, and the A100 series had built in amplifiers and speakers.
In addition to these console models, Hammond also produced spinet models, which differed from the consoles in the size of keyboard (44 keys per keyboard versus 61 for the consoles, and 12 or 13 pedals instead of 25) and the absence of foldback and scaling in the keyboards making them cheaper to manufacture. Other features of the console organs such as vibrato or percussion were included in the spinets; all the spinet models featured a built in amplifier and speaker; when used with the external amplified speaker (e.g.: Leslie) they sound similar to the console models. These smaller all-in-one organs were intended primarily for use in homes or very small churches.
Though originally produced to replace organs in the church, the Hammond organ, especially the model B-3, became popular in jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, particularly soul jazz
Soul jazz
Soul jazz is a development of jazz incorporating strong influences from blues, soul, gospel and rhythm and blues in music for small groups, often an organ trio featuring a Hammond organ.- Overview :Soul jazz is often associated with hard bop. Mark C...
, and in gospel music
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
. Since these were the roots of rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, the Hammond organ became a part of the rock and roll sound. It was widely used in rock and popular music during the 1960s and 1970s by bands like The Doors
The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
, Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
, Procol Harum
Procol Harum
Procol Harum are a British rock band, formed in 1967, which contributed to the development of progressive rock, and by extension, symphonic rock. Their best-known recording is their 1967 single "A Whiter Shade of Pale"...
, Santana
Santana (band)
Santana is a rock band based around guitarist Carlos Santana and founded in the late 1960s. It first came to public attention after their performing the song "Soul Sacrifice" at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, when their Latin rock provided a contrast to other acts on the bill...
and Deep Purple
Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968. Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although some band members believe that their music cannot be categorised as belonging to any one genre...
. Its popularity resurged in pop music around 2000, in part due to the availability of clonewheel organ
Clonewheel organ
"Clonewheel organ" is a jargon term used to refer to an electronic musical instrument that emulates the sound of the electromechanical tonewheel-based organs formerly manufactured by Hammond. The first generation of clonewheel organs used synthesizer voices, which were not able to accurately...
s that were light enough for one person to carry.
Other electronic organs
Frequency divider organs used oscillators instead of mechanical parts to make sound. These were even cheaper and more portable than the Hammond. They featured an ability to bend pitches.In the 1940s until the 1970s, small organs were sold that simplified traditional organ stop
Organ stop
An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist; some can be "on" , while others can be "off" .The term can also refer...
s. These instruments can be considered the predecessor to modern portable keyboards
Musical keyboard
A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the...
, as they included one-touch chords, rhythm and accompaniment devices, and other electronically assisted gadgets. Lowrey
Lowrey organ
The Lowrey organ is an electronic organ named after Chicago industrialist Frederick Lowrey.During the 1960s and 1970s, Lowrey was the largest manufacturer of electronic organs in the world. In 1989, the Lowrey Organ Company produced its 1,000,000th organ....
was the leading manufacturer of this type of organs in the smaller (spinet) instruments.
In the '60s and '70s, a type of simple, portable electronic organ called the combo organ
Combo organ
A combo organ is an electronic organ of the frequency divider type, generally produced between the early 1960s and the late 1970s. The combo organ concept, at least in the context of mass-production, is thought to have been born from the accordion, probably in Italy, as the brainchild of necessity...
was popular, especially with pop and rock bands, and was a signature sound in the pop music of the period, such as The Doors
The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
, Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
, and Iron Butterfly
Iron Butterfly
Iron Butterfly is a US psychedelic rock band best known for the 1968 hit "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".Their heyday was the late 1960s, but the band has been reincarnated with various members. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is the 31st best-selling album in the world, selling more than 25 million copies.-History:The...
. The most popular combo organs were manufactured by Farfisa
Farfisa
Farfisa is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy.The Farfisa brand name is commonly associated with a series of compact electronic organs, and later, a series of multi-timbral synthesizers. At the height of its production, Farfisa operated three factories to produce instruments, in...
and Vox
Vox (musical equipment)
Vox is a musical equipment manufacturer which is most famous for making the Vox AC30 guitar amplifier, the Vox Continental electric organ, and a series of innovative but commercially unsuccessful electric guitars and bass guitars...
.
Conn-Selmer
Conn-Selmer
Conn-Selmer, Inc. is a manufacturer and distributor of concert band, marching band, and orchestral instruments. It is a subsidiary of Steinway Musical Instruments and was formed after Steinway bought musical instrument manufacturers The Selmer Company and C.G. Conn.-Founding:In the late 1800s,...
and Rodgers
Rodgers Instruments
Rodgers Instruments Corporation is an American manufacturer of classical and church organs. Rodgers was founded in 1958 by Rodgers W. Jenkins and Fred Tinker, employees of Tektronix, Inc., of Portland, Oregon, and members of a Tektronix team developing transistor-based oscillator circuits...
, dominant in more larger instrument market, also made electronic organs that used separate oscillators for each note, giving them a richer sound, closer to a pipe organ, due to the slight imperfections in tuning, by not using precise division.
Also available are hybrids, starting from early 20th century, which incorporating a few ranks of pipes to produce some sounds, and using electronic circuits or digital samples for other sounds and to resolve borrowing collisions. Major manufacturers include Allen
Allen Organ
The Allen Organ Company builds classical digital and combination digital and pipe organs, as well as digital theatre organs. Its factory is located in Macungie in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.-History:...
, Walker, Compton
John Compton (organ builder)
John Compton , born in Newton Burgoland, Leicestershire, was a pipe organ builder. His business based in Nottingham and London flourished between 1902 and 1965.-Life:...
, Wicks, Marshall & Ogletree, Phoenix, Makin Organs, Wyvern Organs and Rodgers
Rodgers Instruments
Rodgers Instruments Corporation is an American manufacturer of classical and church organs. Rodgers was founded in 1958 by Rodgers W. Jenkins and Fred Tinker, employees of Tektronix, Inc., of Portland, Oregon, and members of a Tektronix team developing transistor-based oscillator circuits...
.
Digital organs
The development of the integrated circuitIntegrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
enabled another revolution in electronic keyboard instruments.
Digital organs sold since the 1970s utilize additive synthesis
Additive synthesis
Additive synthesis is a technique of sound synthesis that creates musical timbre by explicitly adding sinusoidal overtones together.The timbre of an instrument is composed of multiple harmonic or inharmonic partials , of different frequencies and amplitudes, that change over time...
, then sampling technology
Sampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
(1980s) and physical modelling synthesis
Physical modelling synthesis
In sound synthesis, physical modelling synthesis refers to methods in which the waveform of the sound to be generated is computed by using a mathematical model, being a set of equations and algorithms to simulate a physical source of sound, usually a musical instrument...
(1990s) are also utilized to produce the sound.
Virtual Pipe Organs, played via MIDI, access samples of real pipe organs stored on a computer, as opposed to digital organs that use DSP and processor hardware inside a console to produce sounds or deliver sound samples. They have high polyphony (up to about 40,000 pipes/1PC), which is necessary as there is a sample for every single pipe on the organ, plus samples and modeling effects such as mechanical action noise and pipe wind fluctuations. Addition of touch screen monitors or custom midi controllers allows the user to control the virtual organ console (drawing stops, operating couplers etc.) In its basic form, without a traditional wooden console, a Virtual Organ can be obtained at a much lower cost than other digital classical organs. With Stereo
STEREO
STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...
or mulitple channel audio systems, virtual organs can approach the acoustic realism of a real pipe organ. For example, for most Virtual Organs with a pedal division containing 16 ft or 32 ft pipes, a subwoofer arrangement is required to reproduce the powerful movement of air at frequencies around 32 Hz or lower. For personal purpose, typically small studio quality near-field monitors with subwoofer are used.
Steam organ
The wind can also be created by using pressurized steam instead of air. The steam organ, or calliopeCalliope (music)
A calliope is a musical instrument that produces sound by sending a gas, originally steam or more recently compressed air, through large whistles, originally locomotive whistles....
, was invented in the United States in 19th century. Calliopes usually have very loud and clean sound. Calliopes are used as outdoors instruments, and many have been built on wheeled platforms.
Classical music
The organ has had an important place in classical music throughout its history. Antonio de CabezónAntonio de Cabezón
Antonio de Cabezón was a Spanish Renaissance composer and organist. Blind from childhood, he quickly rose to prominence as performer and was eventually employed by the royal family...
, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras. He was among the first major keyboard composers of Europe, and his work as a teacher helped establish the north German organ...
, and Girolamo Frescobaldi
Girolamo Frescobaldi
Girolamo Frescobaldi was a musician from Ferrara, one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. A child prodigy, Frescobaldi studied under Luzzasco Luzzaschi in Ferrara, but was influenced by a large number of composers, including Ascanio...
were three of the most important composers and teachers before 1650. Influenced by these composers, the North German school then rose to prominence with notable composers including Dieterich Buxtehude
Dieterich Buxtehude
Dieterich Buxtehude was a German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in church services...
and especially Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, considered by many to have achieved the height of organ composition. During this time, the French Classical school
French Organ Mass
The French Organ Mass is a type of Low Mass that came into use during the Baroque era. Essentially it is a Low Mass with organ music playing throughout: part of the so-called alternatim practice.-History:...
also flourished.
After Bach, the organ's prominence gradually lost ground to the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
. Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
, A.P.F. Boëly
Alexandre Pierre François Boëly
Alexandre Pierre François Boëly was a French composer, organist, and pianist. Born into a family of musicians, Boëly received his first music lessons from his father, Jean François, who was a countertenor at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris and a composer and harp teacher at the court of Versailles...
, and César Franck
César Franck
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....
led a resurgence in the mid-19th century, leading a Romantic movement
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
that would be carried further by Max Reger
Max Reger
Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and academic teacher.-Life:...
, Charles-Marie Widor
Charles-Marie Widor
Charles-Marie Jean Albert Widor was a French organist, composer and teacher.-Life:Widor was born in Lyon, to a family of organ builders, and initially studied music there with his father, François-Charles Widor, titular organist of Saint-François-de-Sales from 1838 to 1889...
, Louis Vierne
Louis Vierne
Louis Victor Jules Vierne was a French organist and composer.-Life:Louis Vierne was born in Poitiers, Vienne, nearly blind due to congenital cataracts, but at an early age was discovered to have an unusual gift for music. Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a French...
, and others. In the 20th century, composers such as Marcel Dupré
Marcel Dupré
Marcel Dupré , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Marcel Dupré was born in Rouen . Born into a musical family, he was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when...
, Kaikhosru Sorabji
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji was an English composer, music critic, pianist, and writer.-Biography:...
and Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
added significant contributions to the organ repertoire.
Because the organ has both manuals and pedals, organ music has come to be notated on three staves. The music played on the manuals is laid out like music for other keyboard instruments on the top two staves, and the music for the pedals is notated on the third stave or sometimes, to save space, added to the bottom of the second stave as was the early practice. To aid the eye in reading three staves at once, the bar lines
Bar (music)
In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...
are broken between the lowest two staves; the brace surrounds only the upper two staves. Because music racks are often built quite low to preserve sightlines over the console, organ music is usually published in oblong or landscape format.
Soap operas
From their creation on radio in the 1930s to the times of television in the early 1970s, soap operas were perhaps the biggest users of organ music. Day in and day out, the melodramatic serials utilized the instrument in the background of scenes and in their opening and closing theme songs. Some of the best-known soap organists included Charles PaulCharles Paul
Charles Paul is an American composer and organist, most known for his musical accompaniment on radio and television.Originally providing musical accompaniment to such old-time radio programs as The Adventures of Ellery Queen and Young Doctor Malone, he transitioned to television in the 1950s...
, John Gart, and Paul Barranco. In the early 1970s, the organ was phased out in favor of more dramatic, full-blown orchestras, which in turn were replaced with more modern pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
-style compositions.
Popular music
Church-style pipe organs are occasionally used in popular musicPopular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
. In some cases, groups have sought out the sound of the pipe organ, such as Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
, and Arrogant Worms, which combined the distinctive sounds of electronic synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
s and pipe organs when it recorded both music album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
s and video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
s in several cathedral
Cathedral
A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...
s in Europe. Rick Wakeman
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...
of British progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
group Yes
Yes (band)
Yes are an English rock band who achieved worldwide success with their progressive, art, and symphonic style of rock music. Regarded as one of the pioneers of the progressive genre, Yes are known for their lengthy songs, mystical lyrics, elaborate album art, and live stage sets...
also used pipe organ to excellent effect in a number of the group's albums (including Close to the Edge and Going for the One
Going for the One
Going for the One is the eighth studio album from the English progressive rock band Yes, released in 1977 on Atlantic Records. It was produced after an extended break for solo activity from the group, and marks the return of keyboardist Rick Wakeman, who had departed in 1974 after the Tales from...
). Wakeman has also used pipe organ in his solo pieces such as "Jane Seymour" from The Six Wives Of Henry VIII
The Six Wives of Henry VIII (album)
The Six Wives of Henry VIII is the debut studio album from the English keyboardist and composer Rick Wakeman, released in January 1973 on A&M Records. It is an instrumental progressive rock album with its concept based on his interpretations of the musical characteristics of the six wives of Henry...
and "Judas Iscariot" from Criminal Record. Even more recently, he has recorded an entire album of organ pieces – Rick Wakeman at Lincoln Cathedral
Lincoln Cathedral
Lincoln Cathedral is a historic Anglican cathedral in Lincoln in England and seat of the Bishop of Lincoln in the Church of England. It was reputedly the tallest building in the world for 249 years . The central spire collapsed in 1549 and was not rebuilt...
. Likewise, Keith Emerson
Keith Emerson
Keith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...
used a pipe organ with The Nice
The Nice
The Nice were an English progressive rock band from the 1960s, known for their blend of rock, jazz and classical music. Their debut album, The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack was released in 1967 to immediate acclaim. It is often considered the first progressive rock album...
and progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
group Emerson, Lake and Palmer on their earlier albums on the songs "The Three Fates," "The Only Way" and "Promenade." George Duke
George Duke
George Duke is a multi-faceted American musician, known as a keyboard pioneer, composer, singer and producer in both jazz and popular mainstream musical genres. He has worked with numerous acclaimed artists as arranger, music director, writer and co-writer, record producer and professor of music...
employed the pipe organ in a flamboyant manner in the piece "50/50" on the Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
album Over-Nite Sensation
Over-Nite Sensation
Over-Nite Sensation is an album by Frank Zappa & The Mothers, released in 1973 . It was recorded in March – June 1973 at these studios: Bolic Sound in Inglewood, Whitney, in Glendale, and Paramount in Los Angeles...
. Dennis DeYoung
Dennis DeYoung
Dennis DeYoung is an American singer, songwriter, musician and producer best known for being a founding member of the rock band Styx, a tenure that lasted from 1970 to 1999.-Early life:...
of American rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
group Styx
Styx (band)
Styx is an American rock band that became famous for its albums from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Chicago band is known for melding the style of prog-rock with the power of hard rock guitar, strong ballads, and elements of American musical theater....
used the pipe organ at Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
's St. James Cathedral
St. James Cathedral, Chicago
St. James Cathedral or formally Cathedral of Saint James is the motherchurch of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America Diocese of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. It is the oldest church of the Anglican Communion and Episcopal tradition in the Chicago area, having been founded in 1834. ...
on the song "I'm O.K." on the group's 1978 album Pieces of Eight. In 2000 Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
frontman Thom Yorke
Thom Yorke
Thomas "Thom" Edward Yorke is an English musician who is the lead vocalist and principal songwriter for Radiohead. He mainly plays guitar and piano, but he has also played drums and bass guitar...
played the organ on the Kid A
Kid A
Kid A is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released in October 2000 by the Parlophone label. A commercial success worldwide, Kid A went platinum in its first week of release in the United Kingdom. Despite the lack of an official single or music video as publicity, Kid A...
album to great effect, most notably in "Motion Picture Soundtrack". More recently, Arcade Fire have used a church organ on the songs "Intervention
Intervention (song)
"Intervention" is a song by Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire. It is the third single released from the band's second full-length album, Neon Bible. The single was released to digital retailers on December 28, 2006, and was released as a 7" vinyl in the UK under Rough Trade Records on May 21,...
" and "My Body Is a Cage" on their second album Neon Bible
Neon Bible
Neon Bible is the second album by Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire, released in March 2007 on Merge Records. Originally announced on December 16, 2006 through the band's website, the majority of the album was recorded in a church that the band bought and renovated.Neon Bible became Arcade...
. Muse
Muse (band)
Muse are an English alternative rock band from Teignmouth, Devon, formed in 1994. The band consists of school friends Matthew Bellamy , Christopher Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard...
have also used a church organ on their album Origin of Symmetry
Origin of Symmetry
Origin of Symmetry is the second studio album by English alternative rock band Muse, released on 17 July 2001 by Taste Records. In the UK it reached #3 and was certified platinum. The title for the album comes from a concept put forward by Michio Kaku in his book Hyperspace.On Origin of Symmetry,...
in the form of "Megalomania", played by their frontman Matt Bellamy. It has been performed live only once on a pipe organ, at the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
. Roger Hodgson
Roger Hodgson
Charles Roger Pomfret Hodgson is a British musician and songwriter, best known as the former co-frontman, and founding member, of progressive rock band Supertramp....
(formerly of Supertramp
Supertramp
Supertramp are a British rock band formed in 1969 under the name Daddy before renaming to Supertramp in early 1970. Though their music was initially categorised as progressive rock, they have since incorporated a combination of traditional rock and art rock into their music...
) used a pipe organ for the songs Say Goodbye, Open the Door and Danielle in 2000 for the album Open the Door.
On the other hand, electronic organ
Electronic organ
An electronic organ is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally, it was designed to imitate the sound of pipe organs, theatre organs, band sounds, or orchestral sounds....
s and electromechanical organs such as the Hammond organ
Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard...
have an established role in a number of non-"Classical" genres, such as blues, jazz, gospel, and 1960s and 1970s rock music. Electronic and electromechanical organs were originally designed as lower-cost substitutes for pipe organs. Despite this intended role as a sacred music instrument, electronic and electromechanical organs' distinctive tone-often modified with electronic effects such as vibrato, rotating Leslie speakers, and overdrive-became an important part of the sound of popular music. Billy Preston
Billy Preston
William Everett "Billy" Preston was a musician who gained notoriety and fame, first as a session musician for the likes of Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and The Beatles, and later finding fame as a solo artist with hits such as "Space Race", "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "Nothing from...
and Iron Butterfly
Iron Butterfly
Iron Butterfly is a US psychedelic rock band best known for the 1968 hit "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".Their heyday was the late 1960s, but the band has been reincarnated with various members. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is the 31st best-selling album in the world, selling more than 25 million copies.-History:The...
's Doug Ingle
Doug Ingle
Doug Ingle is a founding member and former organist, vocalist and primary composer for the band Iron Butterfly. He also had a short stint with the pop group Stark Naked and the Car Thieves in the early 1970s after he left Iron Butterfly.- Biography :Ingle's father Lloyd, a church organist,...
have featured organ on popular recordings such as "Let it Be
Let It Be (song)
"Let It Be" is a song by The Beatles, released in March 1970 as a single, and as the title track of their album Let It Be. It was written by Paul McCartney, but credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was their final single before McCartney announced his departure from the band...
" and "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", respectively. Well-known rock artists using the Hammond organ include Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, Counting Crows
Counting Crows
Counting Crows is an American rock band originating from Berkeley, California. Formed in 1991, the group gained popularity following the release of its debut album in 1993, August and Everything After, which featured the hit single "Mr. Jones"...
, Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
, Hootie & the Blowfish
Hootie & the Blowfish
Hootie & the Blowfish is an American rock band that enjoyed popularity in the second half of the 1990s. They were originally formed in 1986 at the University of South Carolina by Darius Rucker, Dean Felber, Jim Sonefeld, and Mark Bryan. The band has recorded five studio albums to date, and has...
, Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Suzanne Crow is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, musician, and actress. Her music incorporates elements of rock, folk, hip hop, country and pop...
, and Deep Purple
Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968. Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although some band members believe that their music cannot be categorised as belonging to any one genre...
.
Recent performers of Popular organ music include William Rowland
William Rowland
William Harold Rowland was a Welsh cricketer. Rowland's batting style is unknown, but it is known he occasionally fielded as a wicket-keeper. He was born in Llandrillo-yn-Rhos, Denbighshire....
of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
Broken Arrow is a city located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Oklahoma, primarily in Tulsa County but also with a small section of the city in western Wagoner County. It is the largest suburb of Tulsa. According to the 2010 US Census, Broken Arrow has a population of 98,850 residents...
who is noted for his compositions of "Piano Rags," which he plays on a Wurlitzer theatre organ in Miami, Oklahoma
Miami, Oklahoma
Miami is a city in Ottawa County, Oklahoma, United States. As of 2009, the population estimate was 12,910. It is the county seat of Ottawa County. The city is named after the Miami tribe...
; George Wright
George Wright (organist)
George Wright was an American musician, possibly the most famous virtuoso of the theatre organ of the modern era....
(1920–1998) whose "Jealousie" and "Puttin on the Ritz" are some of the finest performances of this genre and Virgil Fox
Virgil Fox
Virgil Keel Fox was an American organist, known especially for his flamboyant "Heavy Organ" concerts of the music of Bach. These events appealed to audiences in the 1970s who were more familiar with rock 'n' roll music and were staged complete with light shows...
(1912–1980), who bridged both the classical and religious areas of music with pop and so-called Heavy Organ concerts that he played on an electronic organ accompanied by a light show similar to those created in the 1960s for rock concerts. Jimmy Smith
Jimmy Smith (musician)
Jimmy Smith was a jazz musician whose performances on the Hammond B-3 electric organ helped to popularize this instrument...
was a famous jazz organist of the 20th century.
The American Theatre Organ Society ATOS
ATOS
ATOS is a high density railway transport management system of an unprecedented scale. The system has been continuously built up in stages after the online operation of its first station commenced in 1994 and successfully operating since then...
has been instrumental in programs to preserve the instruments originally installed in theatres for accompaniment of silent movies. In addition to local chapter events they hold an annual convention each year, highlighting performers and instruments in a specific locale. These instruments feature the Tibia pipe family as their foundation stops and regular use of tremulants. They were usually equipped with mechanical percussion accessories, pianos, and other imitative sounds useful in creating movie sound accompaniments such as auto horns, doorbells, and bird whistles.
Sporting organs
In the United States and Canada, organ music is commonly associated with several sports, most notably baseballBaseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
and ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
.
The baseball organ has been referred to as "an accessory to the overall auditory experience of the ballpark." The first team to introduce an organ during breaks of play (before and after games, in between innings, and during longer stoppages) was the Chicago Cubs
Chicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs are a professional baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the Central Division of Major League Baseball's National League. They are one of two Major League clubs based in Chicago . The Cubs are also one of the two remaining charter members of the National...
, who put an organ in Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field is a baseball stadium in Chicago, Illinois, United States that has served as the home ballpark of the Chicago Cubs since 1916. It was built in 1914 as Weeghman Park for the Chicago Federal League baseball team, the Chicago Whales...
as an experiment in 1941 for two games. Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, hired baseball's first full-time organist, Gladys Goodding, the following year. Over the years, many ballparks caught on to the trend, and many organists became well-known and associated with their parks or signature tunes: Eddie Layton
Eddie Layton
Edward M. "Eddie" Layton played the organ at old Yankee Stadium for 31 seasons, earning him membership in the New York Sports Hall of Fame.-Career:...
playing at Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium was a stadium located in The Bronx in New York City, New York. It was the home ballpark of the New York Yankees from 1923 to 1973 and from 1976 to 2008. The stadium hosted 6,581 Yankees regular season home games during its 85-year history. It was also the former home of the New York...
for over 50 years, Jane Jarvis
Jane Jarvis
Jane Nossette Jarvis was an American jazz pianist. She was also known for her work as a composer, a baseball stadium organist and a recording industry executive...
greeting the New York Mets
New York Mets
The New York Mets are a professional baseball team based in the borough of Queens in New York City, New York. They belong to Major League Baseball's National League East Division. One of baseball's first expansion teams, the Mets were founded in 1962 to replace New York's departed National League...
at Shea Stadium
Shea Stadium
William A. Shea Municipal Stadium, usually shortened to Shea Stadium or just Shea , was a stadium in the New York City borough of Queens, in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. It was the home baseball park of Major League Baseball's New York Mets from 1964 to 2008...
with their club song "Meet the Mets
Meet the Mets
"Meet the Mets" is the fight song of the New York Mets of Major League Baseball. It was written in 1961 by Ruth Roberts and Bill Katz. A rewritten and modernized version was recorded in 1984....
", Ernie Hays serenading a Busch Memorial Stadium
Busch Memorial Stadium
Busch Memorial Stadium, also known as Busch Stadium, was a multi-purpose sports facility in St. Louis, Missouri that operated from 1966 to 2005....
crowd with "Here Comes the King
Here Comes the King
Here Comes the King is a well-known advertising jingle written for Budweiser, whose slogan is "The King of beers." Budweiser is the flagship brand of the Anheuser-Busch brewery....
", Nancy Bea
Nancy Bea
Nancy Bea Hefley is the popular long-time stadium organist for Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers.-Early life:...
as the organist for the Dodgers
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers are a professional baseball team based in Los Angeles, California. The Dodgers are members of Major League Baseball's National League West Division. Established in 1883, the team originated in Brooklyn, New York, where it was known by a number of nicknames before becoming...
, Chicago favorite Nancy Faust
Nancy Faust
Nancy Faust is the popular former long-time stadium organist for Major League Baseball's Chicago White Sox.-Early life:...
urging Chicago White Sox
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are a Major League Baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois.The White Sox play in the American League's Central Division. Since , the White Sox have played in U.S. Cellular Field, which was originally called New Comiskey Park and nicknamed The Cell by local fans...
fans to tell an opposing pitcher or a Pale Hose home run to "Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)" or Rick DePiro
Rick DePiro
Rick DePiro, who is known by his stage name Ricky Dee, is an American Country singer-songwriter, notable and award winning jazz pianist, and popular/ jazz organist, and a music producer who has recorded and produced over twenty-five albums...
playing for Cleveland Indians
Cleveland Indians
The Cleveland Indians are a professional baseball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. Since , they have played in Progressive Field. The team's spring training facility is in Goodyear, Arizona...
games and known for his youth and controversy with songs like "If I Only Had A Brain
If I Only Had A Brain
"If I Only Had a Brain" is a song by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg . The song is sung in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz by the characters that meet Dorothy...
" played often for the Umpires. During the 1990s, several teams fired their organists and replaced them entirely with recorded music and sound effects. However, many fans support organs at ballparks, believing it to be a traditional aspect of the game. As a result, several teams (notably the St. Louis Cardinals
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are a professional baseball team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are members of the Central Division in the National League of Major League Baseball. The Cardinals have won eleven World Series championships, the most of any National League team, and second overall only to...
and Pittsburgh Pirates
Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pittsburgh Pirates are a Major League Baseball club based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They play in the Central Division of the National League, and are five-time World Series Champions...
) have begun to feature organ music more prominently, and in 2009 the Atlanta Braves
Atlanta Braves
The Atlanta Braves are a professional baseball club based in Atlanta, Georgia. The Braves are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League. The Braves have played in Turner Field since 1997....
re-introduced an organist at Turner Field
Turner Field
Turner Field is a stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, home to Major League Baseball's Atlanta Braves since 1997. Turner Field was originally built as Centennial Olympic Stadium, it was completed in 1996 to serve as the centerpiece of the 1996 Summer Olympics...
, even going so far as to promote his Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
feed to take requests from fans.
Jazz
The electronic organ, especially the Hammond B-3, has occupied a significant role in jazzJazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
ever since Jimmy Smith
Jimmy Smith (musician)
Jimmy Smith was a jazz musician whose performances on the Hammond B-3 electric organ helped to popularize this instrument...
made it popular in the 1950s. It can function as a replacement for both piano and bass in the standard jazz combo.
Predecessors
- Panpipes, pan flute, syrinx, and naiNai (pan flute)The nai is a Romanian and also Moldavian diatonic pan flute used since the 17th century and used in lăutari bands.-Structure:...
, etc., are considered as ancestor of the pipe organ. - AulosAulosAn aulos or tibia was an ancient Greek wind instrument, depicted often in art and also attested by archaeology.An aulete was the musician who performed on an aulos...
, an ancient double reed instrument with two pipes, is the origin of the word Hydr-aulis (water-aerophone).
Early organs
- 3rd century BC - the Hydraulis, ancient Greek water-powered organ played by valves.
- 1st century (at least) - the Ptera and the Pteron, ancient Roman organ similar in appearance to the portative organs
- 2nd century - the Magrepha, ancient Hebrew organ of ten pipes played by a keyboard
- 9th century - the automatic flute player (and possibly automatic hydropowered organ)Book of Ingenious DevicesThe Book of Ingenious Devices was a large illustrated work on mechanical devices, including automata, published in 850 by the three Persian brothers known as the Banu Musa working at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, Iraq, under the Abbasid Caliphate...
, a mechanical organMechanical organA mechanical organ is an organ that is self playing, rather than played by a musician.Usually, mechanical organs are pipe organs although some instruments were built using reeds similar to those found in a harmonium. Since the 1950s, some instruments have been built using electronics to generate...
by the Banū MūsāBanu MusaThe Banū Mūsā brothers , namely Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir , Abū al‐Qāsim Aḥmad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir and Al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir , were three 9th-century Persian scholars of Baghdad who are known for their Book of Ingenious Devices on automata and mechanical devices...
brothers
Medieval organs
- Portative organPortative organA portative organ is a small pipe organ that consists of one rank of flue pipes, sometimes arranged in two rows, to be played while strapped to the performer at a right angle...
, a small portable medieval instrument - Positive organPositive organA positive organ is a small, usually one-manual, pipe organ that is built to be more or less mobile. It was common in sacred and secular music between the 10th and the 18th centuries, in chapels and small churches, as a chamber organ and for the basso continuo in ensemble works...
, a somewhat larger though still portable instrument (occurs on an obeliskHippodrome of ConstantinopleThe Hippodrome of Constantinople was a circus that was the sporting and social centre of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. Today it is a square named Sultanahmet Meydanı in the Turkish city of Istanbul, with only a few fragments of the original structure surviving...
of the 4th century) - RegalRegal (musical instrument)The regal was a small portable organ, furnished with beating reeds and having two bellows. The instrument enjoyed its greatest popularity during the Renaissance. The name was also sometimes given to the reed stops of a pipe organ, and more especially the vox humana stop.The sound of the regal was...
, a small portable late-medieval instrument with reed pipes and two bellows.
16th century - useless resonance pipes were removed, and regal became a beating-reed organ.
It may be seen as the ancestor of the harmoniumHarmoniumA harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ. Sound is produced by air being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion...
and reed organReed organA reed organ, also called a parlor organ, pump organ, cabinet organ, cottage organ, is an organ that generates its sounds using free metal reeds...
s, and the varieties of 'squeezeboxSqueezeboxThe term Squeezebox is a colloquial expression referring to any musical instrument of the general class of hand-held bellows-driven free reed aerophones such as the accordion and the concertina...
'
Reed organs
- HarmoniumHarmoniumA harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ. Sound is produced by air being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion...
or parlor organ, a reed instrument usually with many stops and two foot-operated bellows - American reed organ is a foot bellow or electric reed keyboard similar to the Harmonium, but that works on negative pressure—it sucks air through the reeds
- MelodeonMelodeon (organ)A melodeon is a type of 19th century reed organ with a foot-operated vacuum bellows, and a piano keyboard. It differs from the related harmonium, which uses a pressure bellows. Melodeons were manufactured in the United States sometime after 1812 until the Civil War era...
, a reed instrument with an air reservoir and a foot operated bellows—popular in the USA in the mid-19th century
Squeezeboxes
- SqueezeboxSqueezeboxThe term Squeezebox is a colloquial expression referring to any musical instrument of the general class of hand-held bellows-driven free reed aerophones such as the accordion and the concertina...
es such as the accordionAccordionThe accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
, concertinaConcertinaA concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It has a bellows and buttons typically on both ends of it. When pressed, the buttons travel in the same direction as the bellows, unlike accordion buttons which travel perpendicularly to it...
, BandoneónBandoneónThe bandoneón is a type of concertina particularly popular in Argentina and Uruguay. It plays an essential role in the orquesta típica, the tango orchestra...
, etc., free reed instruments in which the bellowsBellowsA bellows is a device for delivering pressurized air in a controlled quantity to a controlled location.Basically, a bellows is a deformable container which has an outlet nozzle. When the volume of the bellows is decreased, the air escapes through the outlet...
is operated by the squeezing action of the instrumentalist;
Mechanical organs
- Barrel organBarrel organA barrel organ is a mechanical musical instrument consisting of bellows and one or more ranks of pipes housed in a case, usually of wood, and often highly decorated...
—made famous by organ grinders in its portable form, the larger form often equipped with keyboards for human performance - Novelty instruments or various types that operate on the same principles:
OrchestrionOrchestrionAn orchestrion is a generic name for a machine that plays music and is designed to sound like an orchestra or band. Orchestrions may be operated by means of a large pinned cylinder or by a music roll and less commonly book music. The sound is usually produced by pipes, though they will be voiced...
, fairground organFairground organA fairground organ is a pipe organ designed for use in a commercial public fairground setting to provide loud music to accompany fairground rides and attractions...
(or band organ in the USA), dutch street organ and Dance organDance organA dance organ is a mechanical organ designed to be used in a dance hall or ballroom. Being intended for use indoors, dance organs tend to be quieter than the similar fairground organ...
—these pipe organs use a piano roll player or other mechanical means instead of a keyboard to play a prepared song.
Sound art
- HydraulophoneHydraulophoneA hydraulophone is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water where sound is generated or affected hydraulically. Typically sound is produced by the same hydraulic fluid in contact with the player's fingers...
- PyrophonePyrophoneA pyrophone, also known as a "fire/explosion organ" or "fire/explosion calliope" is a musical instrument in which notes are sounded by explosions, or similar forms of rapid combustion, rapid heating, or the like.-Related musical instruments:...
(fire organ) - Sea organSea organThe Sea organ is an architectural object located in Zadar, Croatia and an experimental musical instrument which plays music by way of sea waves and tubes located underneath a set of large marble steps. The waves create somewhat random but harmonic sounds...
- Water organWater organThe water organ or hydraulic organ is a type of pipe organ blown by air, where the power source pushing the air is derived by water from a natural source or by a manual pump...
- Wave organWave Organthumb|A binaural listening boothThe Wave Organ is an acoustic sculpture constructed on the shore of San Francisco Bay by the Exploratorium. Through a series of pipes, the wave organ interacts with the waves of the bay and conveys their sound to listeners at several different stations...
- Wind organWind organA wind organ is a musical instrument designed to be 'played' by the wind. Designs of wind organs vary depending on the artist constructing the organ...
Mouth-played instruments
- Pan flutePan fluteThe pan flute or pan pipe is an ancient musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting usually of five or more pipes of gradually increasing length...
- Mouth organMouth organA mouth organ is a generic term for free reed aerophone with one or more air chambers fitted with a free reed.Though it spans many traditions, it is played universally the same way by the musician placing their lips over a chamber or holes in the instrument, and blowing or sucking air to create a...
s such as:- RecorderRecorderThe recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes—whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple...
, a kind of fippleFippleA fipple is a constricted mouthpiece common to many end-blown woodwind instruments, such as the tin whistle and the recorder. These instruments are known variously as fipple flutes, duct flutes, or tubular-ducted flutes.-How it works:...
flute that uses the same mechanism for sound production as the pipe organPipe organThe pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
. - HarmonicaHarmonicaThe harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
, where the musician effectively blows directly onto the reeds, is also known as a mouth organMouth organA mouth organ is a generic term for free reed aerophone with one or more air chambers fitted with a free reed.Though it spans many traditions, it is played universally the same way by the musician placing their lips over a chamber or holes in the instrument, and blowing or sucking air to create a...
; - MelodicaMelodicaThe melodica, also known as the "blow-organ" or "key-flute", is a free-reed instrument similar to the melodeon and harmonica. It has a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. Pressing a key opens a hole,...
, also known as 'blow-organ'
- Recorder
- BagpipesBagpipesBagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones, using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. Though the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe and Irish uilleann pipes have the greatest international visibility, bagpipes of many different types come from...
- Asian free reed instruments, such as the Chinese ShengSheng (instrument)The Chinese sheng is a mouth-blown free reed instrument consisting of vertical pipes.Traditionally, the sheng has been used as an accompaniment instrument for solo suona or dizi performances. It is one of the main instruments in kunqu and some other forms of Chinese opera...
, LushengLushengThe lusheng is a Chinese musical instrument with multiple bamboo pipes, each fitted with a free reed, which are fitted into a long blowing tube made of hardwood. It most often has five or six pipes of different pitches, and is thus a polyphonic instrument...
, HulusiHulusiThe hulusi or cucurbit flute is a free reed wind instrument from China. It is held vertically and has three bamboo pipes which pass through a gourd wind chest; the center pipe has finger holes and the outer two are typically drone pipes...
, YuYu (wind instrument)The yu was a free reed wind instrument used in ancient China. It was similar to the sheng, with multiple bamboo pipes fixed in a wind chest which may have been made of bamboo, wood, or gourd. Each pipe contained a free reed, which was also made of bamboo. Whereas the sheng was used to provide...
, BawuBawuThe bawu is a Chinese wind instrument. Although shaped like a flute, it is actually a free reed instrument, with a single metal reed. It is played in a transverse manner...
, and Hulusheng, plus the Japanese Shō, Thai KheneKheneThe khene is a mouth organ of Lao origin whose pipes, which are usually made of bamboo, are connected with a small, hollowed-out hardwood reservoir into which air is blown, creating a sound similar to that of the violin...
, and Korean SaenghwangSaenghwangThe saenghwang is a Korean wind instrument. It is a free reed mouth organ derived from the Chinese sheng, though its tuning is different....
are known to be the inspiration for the western reed organReed organA reed organ, also called a parlor organ, pump organ, cabinet organ, cottage organ, is an organ that generates its sounds using free metal reeds...
.
See also
- Closed tubeClosed tubeIn the field of acoustics, a tone is created by the periodic vibrations of air applied to a resonator. There are several ways in music to create such vibrations. One of these is to use a closed tube and to blow across the end. This creates a Bernoulli, or "siphon", effect just below the open end or...
- Electronic organElectronic organAn electronic organ is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally, it was designed to imitate the sound of pipe organs, theatre organs, band sounds, or orchestral sounds....
- Hydraulis
- HydraulophoneHydraulophoneA hydraulophone is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water where sound is generated or affected hydraulically. Typically sound is produced by the same hydraulic fluid in contact with the player's fingers...
- List of organ builders
- List of organ composers
- List of organists
- Open tubeOpen tubeIn the field of acoustics, a tone is created by the periodic vibrations of air. There are several ways in music to create such vibrations. One of these is to use a tube and to blow across the end. This creates a note of a given frequency, depending on the length of the tube and the pressure of the...
- Organ recitalOrgan recitalAn organ recital is a concert at which music specially written for the organ is played.The music played at such recitals was typically written for pipe organ, which includes church organs, and symphonic organs...
- Organ repertoireOrgan repertoireThe organ repertoire consists of music written for the organ. Because it is one of the oldest musical instruments in existence, written organ repertoire spans a time period almost as long as that of written music itself. The organ's solo repertoire is among the largest for any musical instrument...
- Organ tablatureOrgan tablatureOrgan tablature is a form of musical notation used by the north German Baroque organ school, although there are also forms of organ tablature from other countries such as Italy, Spain, Poland, and England...
- OrganistOrganistAn organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...
- OrganumOrganum (musical instrument)An organum is any one of a number of musical instruments which were the forerunners of the organ.The name comes from the Latin organum, meaning any tool in general or any musical instrument in particular , which in turn came from the Greek organon, with similar meanings, itself derived from ergon...
- Pipe organPipe organThe pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
- Residence organResidence organA residence organ is a musical organ installed in a personal home...
- Street organStreet organA street organ is a mechanical organ designed to play in the street. The operator of a street organ is called an organ grinder. The two main types are the smaller German street organ and the larger Dutch street organ....
External links
- Organ Music of the Day - Discover fascinating world of organ through Organ Music of the Day. Reed about and watch performances of some of the most exciting organ works. Updated regularly.
- Music and organ recital at Notre-Dame de Paris
- iao.org.uk - Regularly updated list of over 1600 hand-crafted links to websites covering all aspects of classical organs and organ music
- npor.org.uk – Homepage of the National Pipe Organ Register of the British Institute of Organ Studies, with extensive information on and many audio samples of original instruments
- orgel.edskes.net – Edskes Organ website with information and photos of various organs
- Encyclopedia of Organ Stops – Information on construction and sound of various organ stops
- Pipe organs
- ibiblio: The Organ UK Quarterly Magazine about pipe organs
- ibiblio: The Pipe Organ
- The American Guild of Organists – A professional association serving the organ and choral music fields
- The Incorporated Association of Organists - UK umbrella organisation for 90 affiliated organists' associations and 6,000 individual members
- The Organ Historical Society – The Society promotes a widespread musical and historical interest in American organbuilding through collection, preservation, and publication of historical information, and through recordings and public concerts.
- Organlive.com – Over 10,000 tracks of free organ music, delivered via streaming audio
- Pipedreams – organ radio broadcasts, articles, and more
- Pipe Organs 101
- The World's Largest Organs
- nzorgan.com – a vast website that chronicles in detail the installation of a pipe organ in New Zealand
- A Great Dom-Bedos Roubo Organ Project in Italy
- Theatre organs
- Electronic organs
Resources for Organ Audio Recordings
- Aeolus Germany CD company with recording of historic European Organs often with under recorded music
- JAV Recordings American CD Company with recording of historic American Pipe Organs by Skinner & Aeolian Skinner and also European Organs
- Regent Records British CD Company with recording of historic English Pipes Organ