February Organnotes

Here we are using British spelling for “colour” again.... However, “color” seems all too ordinary when discussing beautiful organ sounds! And, flutes are the most varied and colourful of all of the families of organ sound except for the reed stops. There are four basic forms that flute pipes are built in: stopped, partly-stopped, open, and harmonic. All of these can be made from either wood or metal pipes, and there are some types of construction that seem to defy definition - stopped pipes that are also harmonic, for instance. Of all of the families of organ sound, no other single family of sounds has all four varieties of construction. These four varieties of construction represent everything that can be done with organ pipe construction except for short-length resonators on reed stops.

There has hardly ever been an organ made without the ubiquitous Pedal Bourdon. This useful stopped wood flute illustrates one end of the colour spectrum of flute tones. Stopped flutes such as a Bourdon, Stopped Diapason, Gedeckt, Tibia Clausa, etc., have the least number of overtones and are the simplest-structured musical sounds that organ pipes can make. A really good Tibia Clausa has almost no overtone structure at all. A good Tibia is pure fundamental sound that was invented to reinforce the fundamental sounds of the organ. Holz (wood) Bourdons as manual stops usually have a bit of harmonic development. Gedeckts can be either wood or metal; the metal ones have more development than the stopped wood ones do. Another unique member of the stopped flute family is the Dopple Flute. These pipes are very rectangular and have two mouths, one on each side. At the worst, the Dopple Flute is just another Tibia; at its best, it is a very beautiful and colourful stopped flute sound. Metal stopped flutes can be anywhere from a Bourdon that is so un-developed that it is hard to tell whether the sound is from wood or metal pipes on to the Quintadena with every shade in between also being available. The Zauberflöte is a capped metal flute that is also harmonic - voiced to overblow and play its octave. Its unique sound blends with other flutes in a haunting way that is different from any other stop. The Zauberflöte is very difficult to voice, and, for this reason, the stop is not frequently built.

Partly-capped flutes come in many varieties. The most common is the Rohrflöte, or “Chimney Flute.” When these pipes are made with large (versus very small) diameter chimneys, they have a very haunting and beautiful sound. Besides the Rohrflöte with its cylindrical “chimney,” partly-open flutes come in the Koppleflöte (“coupling flute”) family. The traditional Koppleflöte has a short, squatty “witch’s hat” on the top of the caps. The Spillflöte (or “spindle flute”) has long tapered tops on the caps. Another variation of a partly-open capped flute is sometimes built that has no chimney but only a small hole in the cap. All of these partly-open flutes have the ability to develop some of the overtones that are only available with open pipes. Fully stopped or capped pipes cannot develop the odd-numbered overtones (octave, super octave, etc.) since they are half-length pipes. The partly-capped flutes have some development in these “open” series overtones although not nearly so much as a fully-open pipe creates.

Open flutes depend on large scales and, in relation to those large scales, quiet voicing to sound like flutes instead of some sort of Principal. Usually, open flutes are met as 4' or higher-pitched stops. These large-scale upper stops do not show out-of-tuneness very much, and, although they can be very difficult for the organ tuner to tune, they may tie an ensemble of sound together without inserting very much “high” sound into it. Other open flutes, particularly those made with wood pipes, are frequently met. The basic open wood flute can be anywhere from a gross flute on down through a “hohl” (“wood”) flute through a melodia or concert flute on to a flauto dolce or even an unda maris that is meant to go with a dulciana to create its effect. Many of these stops seem to be “out of date,” but they also work very well as 4' or 2' stops. If open wood flutes are of normal scales, they can be very pretty and colourful, indeed.

Some flute voices are not only open, but have tapered resonators that are smaller at the tops of the pipes than they are at the mouth. Here again, you may be more likely to meet a “Spitzflöte” at 4' or 2' (or as a 2 2/3' Nasard) than as an 8' stop. However, the standard accepted construction for a “Flauto Dolce” (which frequently has a celeste rank to go with it) is open, tapered pipes voiced very, very softly so they will be a flute instead of some sort of soft Gemshorn or Erzähler. Here again, if you push hard enough on the voicing of a Spitzflöte, it will become a Gemshorn; push harder, and it will become a Spitz Principal.

The other construction for open flute pipes is “harmonic.” Any stop marked “harmonic” will have double-length resonators at least part-way through its compass. You can demonstrate a harmonic flute by blowing on a beverage bottle. First, blow gently; you will create a tone. As you blow harder and harder, the pitch will go a bit sharper at first and then jump up to twelve notes higher. Of course, this higher note is the first overtone that the beverage bottle can make (since it can’t make the octave because it is a “stopped pipe”). To encourage harmonic flute pipes to over-blow to their octaves, the voicer bores a very small hole half-way up the pipe’s resonator. With this hole in place, the pipe can be made to play its octave without blowing it particularly hard if desired. The ordinary transverse flute that is a standard member of any orchestra has two ranges. The lower range is “ordinary length,” and the upper range is over-blown by the player. For this reason, harmonic flutes can be very “orchestral” in colour if they are voiced properly. If desired, they can be made to have that distinctive “chirf” as they speak that the transverse flute has in its upper register. On the other hand, this effect can be mostly eliminated. Doing this results in a unique and liquid sort of sound. Harmonic flutes are usually metal, but many beautiful examples are wood. Sometimes, Concert Flutes have harmonic notes for their upper octaves. E. M. Skinner’s famous “Silver Flute” stop was a very soft Harmonic Flute at 8' pitch which usually was also furnished with a celeste rank. The Silver Flute has a bit more character and development than a typical Flauto Dolce does.

The sad part about this is that most organs do not have more than a couple of examples of flute sounds. We know of one 4-manual, 80-rank organ that has a collection of flute stops that all sound very much alike (we suppose in the name of “ensemble” sound....). There are so many different colours of flutes available that every flute stop - even in a large organ - can have its own colour as well as pitch and place in the specification. “Try it. You’ll like it!”

This Month’s Funny

A noted organist was once asked whether “zimbelstern” or “cymbelstern” was the preferred term for the device. His response was classic: “It doesn’t make much difference really. It just depends on how much you have had to drink when you attempt to say the word.” This same organist once received a telephone call from a young pianist at a country church who “had raised $2,000 and was going to buy the largest pipe organ in town....” Being put out at having to deal with the call, he curtly informed this person that they might be more likely to buy the largest pipe - possibly a gutter pipe - in town for that sum....

This type of chime is an affordable alternative to some sort of electronically-produced “bongatron” sounds that are broadcast at the neighbors through loudspeakers.
This chime of bells is played from a traditional carillon-style baton keyboard. This allows the player to create loud and soft notes as desired. This method of playing the bells makes it easily possible to play relatively complicated arrangements that include chords and other musical elements that would be confused if all of the bells were always struck at the same volume. With the baton-style keyboard, it is easy to play melody or other important notes louder so that the music makes “musical sense.” This chime also has enough notes that music written for a small carillon can be reduced to its range and played on it.

In addition to the manual keyboard, the tenor bell - the largest bell which is mounted at the top of the tower - also is mounted so that it can be swung by pulling the rope and, thus, rung as a traditional “church bell.” When the bell swings, it not only produces a fully-loud sound, but it also creates a slight change in pitch due to the Doppler effect as the bell swings back and forth. For playing from the keyboard, this bell is also equipped with an external hammer instead of the internal clappers that the other bells which are hung dead in the tower have.

The sound of these bells is a gentle, pretty and very “English” style of sound. They are tuned to avoid dissonant overtones, and harmonies sound very good when played on them.

A chime of real bells like this can be installed at a cost which is not much more than some sort of electronic imitation. Although our chime at St. Francis of Assisi is only hand-played, it is, of course, possible to play the bells electrically either as the only way they are played or in addition to the manual strikers. Please give us a call if you are interested in knowing more about these bells. We will be glad to send you a CD of the bells so you can hear them for yourself. If you have a tower, the bells can be installed in it. If your church - like ours - does not have a tower, a free-standing tower like the one in the picture can be erected to house the bells. The final piece of good news is that every single piece of this chime - the bells, the action, the tower, everything! - is built right here in the good old USA. “Let us build one for you!”

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