Re: [Phys-L] Saving Money on Tuning a Pipe Organ

[Anthony Lapinski <alapinski@pds.org>]

Interesting! I attended the summer AAPT meeting in Sacramento in 2004.
Workshop W11 (July 31) was Demonstrations in Musical Acoustics by Donald
Hall. Anyone attend? Over 40 demos and handouts. Outstanding! In the
afternoon we all walked to St. John's Lutheran Church (17th and L streets,
near the state Capitol) for Donald to explain and perform the church organ.
Wow! Four keyboards with nearly 4000 pipes ranging from 1 inch to 8 feet in
length. It was an unforgettable experience. He also gave a detailed 7-page
handout about this organ, which he uses in his Musical Acoustics class at
the local university. Can scan/send if anyone is interested.

On Thu, Dec 10, 2020 at 9:22 PM Bill Norwood via Phys-l <
phys-l@mail.phys-l.org> wrote:

> Hi Phys-L,
>
> A local church was recently celebrating having just gotten their pipe
> organ tuned. I responded by declaring that they could save money if
> considering the following:
>
> 1. Temperature: Presumably the organ pipes are kept within a 40-degree
> temperature range throughout the year, in which case there would be no
> significant change in any pipe dimension, so, temperature variability would
> not be an incentive for “tuning.”
>
> 2. Humidity:  If humidity cannot be kept constant (within 1 or 2 %) then
> the organ will never be in tune, because the humidity normally changes at
> least daily irrespective of time of year. However, the average humidity is
> lower in winter, but we cannot predict how cold a winter is coming.
> Therefore I claim that humidity cannot be a reason for organ “tuning.”
>
> 3. Vibration:  The more the organ is played the more the pipes assembly
> will be vibrated, and the more the pipe sleeves will drift downward.
> Therefore, after a newly-installed organ has been played for a year, and
> the pipes and their mountings have gravitationally settled, then the
> sleeves could be stabilized so they can no longer move.
>
> 4. No further tunings should be necessary, barring an earthquake or nearby
> excavation, or other incident such as a prank, a stolen pipe, or a rat
> dragging foreign matter into a pipe, or a local soprano out of control.
>
> 5. The congregation should not have been told that the organ had been
> tuned, rather they should have been asked to report any changes in organ
> sound as the months went by. That would have enabled objectivity. A log of
> these reports would sometimes enable correlating organ sound changes with
> common organ sound-affecting incidents.
>
> DID I GET THIS RIGHT?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Bill Norwood
> U of MD at College Park
> Since 1966
>
> P.S.
> I have no experience tuning organs - just guitars.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
> _______________________________________________
> Forum for Physics Educators
> Phys-l@mail.phys-l.org
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