organ help, registration

[timothy42b]

I have to play an unfamiliar organ next Sunday.  It's a Viscount, British? in a small German chapel.  I haven't played organ much in the past year as the local church preferred piano, but my church closed and I'm attending this one.

When I showed up last Sunday they induced me to play a couple of the mass pieces.  That was intimidating, the stops had strange names and I didn't figure out a good registration on the fly.  I'm not an organist and I rely heavily on the pre-sets in a case like this but I couldn't find any.  There were toe pistons but I've never actually seen one before and didn't dare try them. 

But this Sunday I'll have a good half hour to play with it before anyone arrives.  How do pistons work?  Are they like a default registration, or more like a memory function? 

[richard black]

Are they like a default registration, or more like a memory function?

Possibly both, actually. On many modern organ consoles you can set pistons to bring up whatever stops you want. On older ones, they are hard-programmed. In general, they are simply pleasant groups of stops in increasing loudness, so Piston 1 will bring up something like a couple of flutes, 2 something a little louder, and the highest-numbered (6 or 8, commonly) the full brass and mixtures.

However, if there are no keyboard pistons you'll just have to find out whether the toe ones bring up only pedal registrations (unlikely, I would think) or registrations across the entire instrument.

[gyzzzmo]

I agree, everybody should registrate for organ donation!!!!!

[timothy42b]

I agree, everybody should registrate for organ donation!!!!!

Eye could liver with that.

I found out Sunday that the toe pistons are presets that only affect the pedals, and there seems to be no way to cancel them after I tried them.

There is a graduated series of presets that I used in the service, and have decided don't sound very good.  So now I have to get there early and do it stop by stop.  There seem also to be some buttons that might be programmable, i couldn't really tell how to set them. 

The nice thing is there is an accelerator pedal for each manual, so I can get them to match in volume. 

[quantum]

Those "accelerator pedals" or expression shoes.  See if the right most one is labeled "crescendo".   A crescendo shoe works by not increasing the volume of set stops but by gradually adding stops.  Usually used if manually adding stops is to laborious for the music at hand, you could use it to give some sense of effective registration. 

Pistons: There are what you call "general" which you can program all stops, or "divisional" which for example the GREAT manual can be changed independent of all other manual/pedals.  The pedal toe studs you referred to would be divisonals.  Careful, sometimes chimes or carillon is programmed to #1.  #2 would then be the softest registration. 

I wouldn't try programming pistons just yet until you become familiar with the organ.  They can give you a guide to making your own registrations.

Cancel: usually the right most piston on the lowest manual.  Make use of this when you want to silence all stops. 

Stop families: Very basically there are 4 stop families on a classical organ.  Principal, flute, string, and reed.  There are a great many names that can be used for stops.  It would probably make more sense to you at first to become familiar with the stop families then the individual names would not be so overwhelming. 

Principals or Diapasons are the most recognizable organ tone. 

Flutes sound as they are called. 

Strings are not actual strings, but pipes which have a string like quality.

Reeds are generally the loudest stops on the organ. 

Footages: You probably notice numbers under the stop names.  These refer to the octave at which the note sounds.  8' (read "eight foot") sounds as written.  4' = 1 octave higher, 2' = 2 8va higher, 1' = 3 8va higher.  16' = 1 8vb lower.  32' = 2 8vb lower. 

There are also mutations which are seen as fractions.  These are not the pitch you play but one of the partials in the harmonic series. 

There are also mixtures which have roman numerals.  These numbers refer to the number of ranks involved for a single note.  They are used to add more colour to the sound. 

Try experimenting with what the various pitch designations do. 

EG: Play a simple chord and draw and 8' principal and listen.  Then add 4' principal to that, see how the sound changes.  Add 2' principal to that and listen again.  Add Mixture  and listen again. 

Push cancel and do the same with the flutes. 


If you can get the exact model number of this organ maybe we can look up a spec sheet and tell you more about it.  Look under the keydesk or on the back panel. 

[timothy42b]

If you can get the exact model number of this organ maybe we can look up a spec sheet and tell you more about it.  Look under the keydesk or on the back panel. 

It's a Viscount Dormus 8.  I'll play it four more Sundays, then I'll move to a different country. 

[quantum]

It's a Viscount Dormus 8.  I'll play it four more Sundays, then I'll move to a different country. 

Haven't been able to dig up anything.  Try https://organforum.com there are a lot of people there who could tell you more

[timothy42b]

Haven't been able to dig up anything.  Try https://organforum.com there are a lot of people there who could tell you more

Owner's manuals are available but you have to pay and wait for them.  I think since it is so old and lightly played (it's a meditation chapel, being used as overflow) not all the functions work correctly.  Even cancel. 

I did confirm the right pedal affects only manual 1 and the left pedal only manual 2.  Never did figure out what the HR button does, nor the ripieno piston.  The expression pedals are very touchy - there is almost no movement between too soft and too loud.    I like the sweet tone of this organ with mostly flutes, but it wasn't loud enough for congregational singing, and as I added stops it got nasal and reedy.  I know, I know, a poor workman blames his tools.  I arrived early enough to really play with registration and just never could get the sound in my head onto the organ.  So I used the preset volume buttons, p-mf-f-ff etc.

And now I'm done with it.  We move back to the main chapel for the next two Sundays, I haven't even seen that organ yet, so I'll probably be back with more stories! <grin>  Then I leave Germany. 

When I get back to the US I'm going to take some lessons, organ is really intriguing  to play. 

[timothy42b]

The chapel renovations are done and we moved back in.  It's a small meditation chapel off the main church in a town in central Germany. 

I was pretty surprised to see the organ I'd be playing this morning, never saw anything like it.  I needed help to turn it on, after that the rest was obvious. 

The name on it was Willi Peter Koln, I assume the Koln means made in Cologne.  It had one manual, no pedals.  I sat on a square organ bench that contained the motor and fan, and a vent hose connected it to the console.  Yup, it's a real pipe organ, not an electronic, and I have never actually played one before. 

The console has only four stops, marked 8, 4, 2, and 1 1/4.  They are neither rocker switches nor drawbars, but great big levers like you'd use to electrocute Frankenstein. 

The 8 foot stop sounded like a principal, although the cabinet is only 3 feet high so there's no way an actuaL pipe is that long.

This thing sounded good, better than any of the lower end electronics I've played.  There are of course no expression pedals and it can't be played softly.  Adding stops did not increase volume all that much, the blower must be maxed out.  The tone changed a lot.

Anyway, that was a lot of fun.  I might get one more chance at it before I leave the country.