The organ as a wind instrument

- If you're looking for pipe organs and are in the US, check out https://pipeorgandatabase.org/ . It's very comprehensive, has stoplists for most organs, and has pictures for many of the larger ones.

- I see quite a few people calling organ music boring, particularly in association with church music, and I'd like to challenge that assumption. Off the top of my head, a handful of things that come to mind:

(1) Hymns are meant to be sung with, usually by people who are not trained singers. That leads to significant limitations for the accompaniment. That said, there is a lot more variation in preludes, postludes, etc.

(2) Organ is hard. Being able to play boring hymns well with a week or two of preparation can easily take 2-3 years of daily practice, even with previous background on piano.

(3) Many recordings fail to capture the full magnitude of organ music. To repeat something that I think is a bit oversaid, but is accurate nonetheless: the building is the instrument. The building is the instrument.

(4) One thing that it's hard for me to tell is how much of the difference of opinion is that I have unusual tastes in music, and how much is that a lot of people haven't had the opportunity to hear good organ music played by a good organist.

(5) Yes, you can be expressive on organ. Yes, it's hard. Depending on the song (and the composition itself plays a big role here - don't think that a composer can't be expressive) that may come across in rubato, opening/closing the swell box (and potentially others), articulation, manual changes, etc. (I've heard just a few pieces with people one foot on the swell pedal for most of the song. They were very impressive, although I suppose a lot of that comes from the perspective of an organist. It's also very hard. See point 2.) Also:

(6) Choosing registration in and of itself is kind of an art (and a lot of fun, especially on big organs). There are so many different timbres you can get on an organ that it's really beyond comparison to most other instruments; using this alone it's easy to express everything from mournful to bombastic fanfare.

That became more of a jumbled mess than I intended, but hopefully there's something of interest to some of you.

Here's Rob Scallon exploring the largest pipe organ in the midwest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeB3JnKp8To

Here's a more in depth look at all the sounds of that same organ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1S42E1BW9w - this channel has documented a number of organs over the years.

Now I'm wondering if you read my previous comment. I already stated: all things are defined by what they include and exclude. Excluding and including is amoral. It only takes on a moral character when you consider what is being included or excluded and why. Being "less exclusionary" could be bad, depending on your perspective! I asked you to be more specific, and you chose not to do so, although I can probably guess what you mean, I will instead wait on you to be explicit.

> Hmm. I'm not sure religion mostly spread by being as welcoming as possible to everyone. It's also not relevant.

Inclusivity and welcomeness are not the same thing. Christianity is inclusive because it posits every human to be a child of an all-powerful God, having instrinsic worth, and the capacity to be saved and exalted by that God. While conquest definitely played a part in the religion's expansion, it certainly isn't the only factor or even the primary factor.

> You call it an obvious thing yet ignore it in the following sentence.

No. No, I didn't. And the rest of your final paragraph doesn't make any more sense to me. For instance, I never said there had to be a primary emotion. I did, however, suggest that there should be one, at least relative to the subject of organs, specifically organ production and access.