This just in: The Charleston Daily Mail posted a fabulous video!
In recent
posts, I’ve talked about personnel arriving from Casavant Frères to “voice” the
organ.
So exactly
what does it mean to “voice” the organ?
I’ve been
doing a little research on the subject, and thought I’d share some of my new-found
knowledge.
Voicing is
a lot more complicated than simply tuning the instrument. This process has to
do with giving the organ its own unique sound and making sure it fits in its
new home.
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Jean-Sébastien DuFour and Daniel Fortin at the console |
The art of
voicing requires our two voicers, Jean-Sébastien DuFour and Daniel Fortin, to
adjust the pipes for brightness and volume in our sanctuary.
Each stop
(control knob) may manipulate a number of pipes (rank) and they must make all
those pipes sound right together.
Then they
must take the placement of the instrument and the acoustics of the room into
consideration to create a “musically cohesive ensemble.” (Casavant Frères Web site)
An organ is
actually a hybrid instrument, a combination of wind and keyboard instruments.
The sound
is created by air vibrating in the pipes: the longer the pipe, the lower the
pitch. Of course, the shorter pipes result in higher pitches. The organ sits on
a wind chest.
Our organ
(specs) uses an electric slider mechanism to force air steadily into the wind chest,
and then into the bottom of the pipes themselves.
The
keyboards and pedalboard are used to tell a system of valves which pipes to
open and close, allowing the air in or shutting it out.
Confused yet? Well, that’s the basics. There’s
more, but I’ll leave that to those of you who want to delve deeper. (See links below)
Jean-Sébastien
and Daniel do all those complicated adjustments. As a matter of fact, they
finish voicing our organ today.
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Jean-Sébastien readies small pipes for installation. |