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The organ as a wind instrument

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Re: The organ as a wind instrument

#21

Post by mh7 »

cptcobalt wrote: post #3

The pipe organ is surely one of the most majestic & grand instruments, and I long for the day its most frequent use won't be drab church hymns. It's capable of so much more. It's also difficult to get exposure to. You've basically got make friends with a church music director to let you play theirs. That's not easy, especially as a queer self-taught musician—no religion, no music degree won't get you too far. It's a…

I don't see a way around that - Organs are inherently rare because of their size, cost, locations and maintenance requirements.

Unless someone finds a way of scaling up production and/or reducing the cost, you're not gonna see organs popping up everywhere, hence limited access.

Re: The organ as a wind instrument

#22

Post by IanCal »

PathOfEclipse wrote: post #11
cptcobalt wrote: post #3

The pipe organ is surely one of the most majestic & grand instruments, and I long for the day its most frequent use won't be drab church hymns. It's capable of so much more. It's also difficult to get exposure to. You've basically got make friends with a church music director to let you play theirs. That's not easy, especially as a queer self-taught musician—no religion, no music degree won't get you too far. It's a…

As an amateur pianist trying to learn organ specifically to play "drab" church hymns, I can say that while I admire the complexity and scope of the organ, At the same time, I don't find the organ particularly interesting musically. I just don't think it "sounds" great. I think this explains the lack of popularity of organ more than anything else. In my free time, I would much rather listen to piano music than organ m…

> No one is stopping you or any other secular organization from building your own organs. It seems weird to complain that churches were the only organizations willing to spend the money to build and maintain organs. If anything, you should be grateful they invested the resources in the first place. Without these churches, is it not possible the organ would be virtually extinct at this point?

I think its reasonable to be both happy these things exist at all, and are available to some for free rather than in extremely expensive private collections, while also lamenting the long history of exclusionary practices of the places these things exist.

We can easily take this to an extreme as an analogy where it would seem more reasonable to you to hear the complaint.

The world isn't perfect, and as strong as the desire is to reduce things to a "good" or a "bad" the real world comes with confusing good and bad points that we don't have to average out into a final score.

Re: The organ as a wind instrument

#23

Post by ginko »

cptcobalt wrote: post #6
rwmj wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sound track of Interstellar? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_(soundtrack)

Basically, the exception which proves the rule. I sincerely doubt most folks could name other titles which prominently feature organ as a focal instrument in a work. There's more, of course, but Interstellar tends to be people's first example.

There's of course In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfpn3wHoNGA

Plenty of other stuff if you look for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKVJt39mFUA&list=OLAK5uy_mTE...

Not to mention the tons and tons of secular Classical music, particular from the Baroque era like Händel's organ concertos.

Re: The organ as a wind instrument

#24

Post by jfk13 »

cptcobalt wrote: post #3

The pipe organ is surely one of the most majestic & grand instruments, and I long for the day its most frequent use won't be drab church hymns. It's capable of so much more. It's also difficult to get exposure to. You've basically got make friends with a church music director to let you play theirs. That's not easy, especially as a queer self-taught musician—no religion, no music degree won't get you too far. It's a…

This being Hacker News, you could consider Knuth's approach: have one built for your home. https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/organ.html

Re: The organ as a wind instrument

#25

Post by _a_a_a_ »

cptcobalt wrote: post #6
rwmj wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sound track of Interstellar? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_(soundtrack)

Basically, the exception which proves the rule. I sincerely doubt most folks could name other titles which prominently feature organ as a focal instrument in a work. There's more, of course, but Interstellar tends to be people's first example.

Rollerball.

Re: The organ as a wind instrument

#26

Post by recursive »

ginko wrote: post #23
cptcobalt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, the exception which proves the rule. I sincerely doubt most folks could name other titles which prominently feature organ as a focal instrument in a work. There's more, of course, but Interstellar tends to be people's first example.

There's of course In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfpn3wHoNGA Plenty of other stuff if you look for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKVJt39mFUA&list=OLAK5uy_mTE... Not to mention the tons and tons of secular Classical music, particular from the Baroque era like Händel's organ concertos.

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida definitely doesn't have a pipe organ. It's a vox or farfisa.

Re: The organ as a wind instrument

#27

Post by jvolkman »

Mostly unrelated to wind instruments: I always thought motorcycles and musical instruments came from the same Yamaha, but apparently they split back in 1955. Interesting that after almost 70 years both companies are still using the same logo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_Motor_Company#Beginning...

Re: The organ as a wind instrument

#28

Post by emersonrsantos »

There's a software that I used to emulate a pipe organ (and also harpsichords). I used it for years and it has a library with a lot of historical organs around the world: https://www.hauptwerk.com, as far as I know this is the only commercially supported PC/Mac software dedicated to this.

Re: The organ as a wind instrument

#29

Post by dang »

jfk13 wrote: post #24
cptcobalt wrote: post #3

The pipe organ is surely one of the most majestic & grand instruments, and I long for the day its most frequent use won't be drab church hymns. It's capable of so much more. It's also difficult to get exposure to. You've basically got make friends with a church music director to let you play theirs. That's not easy, especially as a queer self-taught musician—no religion, no music degree won't get you too far. It's a…

This being Hacker News, you could consider Knuth's approach: have one built for your home. https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/organ.html

Alan Kay too I think! "Play it grand"

Re: The organ as a wind instrument

#30

Post by fipar »

falcolas wrote: post #16

Also of interest: Wurlitzer Organs. Their biggest difference is the addition of non-wind instruments, and intentional vibrato added to the wind instruments. They were originally used to provide music and sound effects for silent movies and plays. There's one in Scottsdale, AZ that's a lot of fun to visit in person (there are YouTube videos of it too). Organ Stop Pizza

Yes! Adding to what you said, Wendy Carlos has an interesting writeup on her MIDI "Wurlitzer": https://www.wendycarlos.com/wurlynew/, and the "Historical Roots" section mentions the use in silent movies.
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