Charles

Of course "there aint nothin like the real thing baby" as I have stated in other threads here, but digital allows so much flexibility and possibility especially when one has an economy of space and/or money. Making a digital speak correctly is the real trick. If you were ever an audiophile, you will remember that it was always the speakers that were the determining element in achieving excellence in sound. Most digital organs fail almost always solely on the speaker installation alone.

I believe there is emerging a new era in acoustical arts that permits the digital wanna be its own limited domain. Of course a real instrument is always the ultimate goal. They provide the "true singing voice unparalled" and last centuries, but the same way that English chant can lead us to the ultimate authentic GC, the digital can definitely HELP to bring us into the perfection of the real.

However, the danger with the digital is its ability to easily wander outside the realm of good taste and excellence into the contrived, the brash and the unbearable, which far too often is and has been the case.

I had a Fischer amp (tubes) JBL speakers and turntable (can't remember brand)... LOVED that system spinnin the vinyl!

Anyone remember Marantz and Thorens? Good stuff!

Whatever else one may say about these devices, they still are not organs. However much people get off scott free saying that they SOUND LIKE organs, that doesn't make them organs, does it? The technology may, in some cases, be impressive, and those who like to tinker with electronics and digitalia may have no end of fun with them, but that doesn't make them organs. Even if one were to fool the most discriminating pair of ears in the world, that still would not make them organs. They may be quite highly sophisticated sets of tuned buzzers, but they still are not organs. And now I've heard it all: one VOICES a set of SPEAKERS!!! Whatever one says about these devices, one has still to mention that they (very, very few of them) sound LIKE organs... what else to call something specious when one wishes to legitimise it: why its a (this or that kind of) organ. It has gotten so that when one references an organ, he needs to specify 'pipe' organ. He shouldn't. An organ is an organ. How sad it is that even serious musicians are complicit in this charade!

MJO:

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Do you listen to CD's?
Mp3's?
Tape recordings?
LP's?
The radio?
Do you watch the TV or go to the movies?

If so, you are not watching authentic entertainment... you should stop now.

You should only listen to LIVE musicians, and see LIVE plays with only flesh and blood actors. Period. Otherwise you are compromising your belief in what is "authentic". I don't think you should be complicit in ANY electronic charade if that is how you truly feel.

In fact, this conversation isn't in person... isn't that kind of a charade?

Have the smoky tendrils of rancour seeped in through the cracks and spoiled our tete a tete? Is there, after all, one view that's considered legitimate... the wrong one, at that!
Yes, I do think it astonishing that serious, I stress 'genuine', musicians who are complicit, are aiders and abbetors of the charade that electronic, digital, etc, 'organs' are organs when they possess nothing of substance that makes an organ an organ. They are inelluctably and ontologically fake. They are instruments of deceit. Their raison d'etre (other that making money) is to deceive. Of course, anyone reading this will certainly know whereof I speak and can thus promote these elaborately sophisticated sets of tuned buzzers only by the exercise of a, no doubt, grand and personally enjoyable portion of facetiousness.

So, my colleagues Francis and Charles might well muse as to whether or not the gadgets which they are championing should not, after all, more honestly be called something other than 'organ'. I believe 'to call a spade a spade' is what they would say on the street. It either is and organ or it isn't... and we all do know what are the components of organs and how they function... organs that are actually organs, I mean.

Nor do I eschew a relationship (though limited) with technology. My life is unquestionably helped by some of it. Yes, Francis, I listen to CDs by means of a CD player - but I do not refer to it as an orchestra, an organ, or a choir... nor do I tell anyone that it 'sounds' like any of these. There is no falsehood here: we know it isn't real and use it as an instrument of education and pleasure, which makes going to a live performance even more divine. Ditto, films. And, you are right, nothing is like real people performing art of one sort of another on stage or 'in choir'.
When we can't witness the real thing we are blessed with the techology that will present us with a pale but acceptable substitute, the which we do not pass off on anyone who might be fooled or taken in as real (least of all in the House of the Lord!). There is no deceit. There is, though, an incredible amount of deceit in the false organ business: people are overawed by an example of technology which impresses them right on cue because most of them haven't the knowledge or experience to pipe up and say 'you're daft! that DOESN'T sound like an organ'!

When I was studying organ with Robert Jones at UofH, the university was given a carillon by a wealthy dowager. Except that is wasn't a carillon, it was a Schulmerich electronic bell device. I was chosen to go to the Schu factory for a two week study of how to play the carillon, Much of the workshop took place nearby Princeton and we were housed in the Westminster Choir College. Actually, I learnt a lot about bells that has been useful to me with actual bells, whether carillons or change-ringing. The point of all this is that Mr Schulmeric at one point threw in the tid-bit that they had put 5 or 6 bell founders out of business. Such Schadenfreude as gleemed upon his face at that remark I have never seen the likes of again. The room became silent, and I became livid.
The same thing is going on the the organ world and I have friends and colleagues who think that it's perfectly legitimate development - even to the point of being unmoved at the idea that organs would become relics of the past. This is calumny.
Technology has many valuable and legitimate uses. But making people think of organs as antiquated technology rather than a priceless legacy is calumny and deceit.

God's House should have nothing in it that isn't real. We don't put plastic flowers on the altar, we don't put electric candles on the altar, we don't use recorded music in place of our own selves... etc., etc., and we should not have organs that aren't organs

While we're at it, let's do away with microphones and associated paraphernalia for public address systems and making recordings in the church.

We shouldn't stop there: pull the plug (disconnect) the electric blowers that pump air into our pipe organs - only hand and/or foot pumped bellows should supply the wind for our pipe organs.

And, please: abolish electric and electro-pneumatic organ actions!! Only tracker organs should be allowed in God's house!!!

After all, the original meaning of "organ" was clearly "pipe organ" - not what was surely the misleading Greek όργανον (organon), "organ, instrument, tool" (who had no idea what the meaning of the word really is).

The organ should be restored to its 8th century and earlier association with gladatorial combat.

Purists should demand that only traditional methods and materials should be used in the building of cathedrals - no more electric, diesel, or gasoline powered tools, cranes, and vehicles!

Would someone please turn out the (heaven forbid, electric!) lights when he/she leaves the church?

Albert

I think we all agree with you. However, there are speakers that CAN handle the sound. Look at the link above... Marshall and Ogletree... I am seeing a new acoustic emerge with a company like this.

"Purists should demand that only traditional methods and materials should be used in the building of cathedrals - no more electric, diesel, or gasoline powered tools, cranes, and vehicles!"

Why CHGiffen, you closet organ-reform advocate! You sound just like one of those flat-earthers. Make it unmusical and hard to play in the name of authenticity. Now that's the name of the game. WWSD? - what would Schnitger do? ;-)

I have heard some digital instruments in good rooms that sounded better than they had any right to sound. I have also heard some good pipe organs in bad rooms that sounded horrible. Sometimes its more a case of where the organ is placed, that determines how good or bad the instrument sounds.

Actually, in a room with commendable acoustics and absent of sound-absorbing materials (other than people) microphones and speakers are not needed. I have actually seen Catholic churches of modern vintage that had padded walls! This is the sort of idiocy that needs to be done away with.

And, for my friend CHG -
Going back to the instrument such as was used in the Roman circus is rather extreme, is it not? I would propose that there is a difference between a valid or logical historical improvement (or, at least development) and something which is not at all developmental, but an outright substitute which has no relationship at all with its imitated precursor except that it produces pitches of the diatonic scale in timbres which resemble those of organ stops.
Also, one does not have to rely on hand-pumped instruments to be able (hopefully) to discern and appreciate the real difference in sound that they make. Ditto temperaments. Likewise, I do not have to heap scorn upon Rosalind Tureck (sp?) or G Gould to appreciate that Bach on a harpsichord is the sound he conceived of, heard and preferred. Suffer it not to be said of anyone who has a 'purist's' standards and sensibilities that he does not give 'non-purist' artistry its artistic due. But, again, I speak of real develpments of given 'substance', not substitute imitations which are not consubstantial. This does not prejudice technology, it merely insists on intellectual honesty.

CHG - I did indeed take your remarks in good humour. Where would we all be but for humour? Let us banter on! Purity can, after all relate only to a given paradigm of pureness, which is as fleeting as time. We are of the XXI. century. We must then, if we are wise, treasure a purist Mozart requiem, a purist Beethoven while maintaining a healthy respect and admiration for Furtwangler, Karajan, et al. We almost have an obligation, because of the scholarship available to us, to reconstruct how chant most likely sounded in the 9th, or the 13th, or whatever century, and even appreciating the beauty of the so-called Solesmes method even though it has no standing at all nowadays in current chant scholarship and has not been used at Solesmes for many years (Fr Columba says 'not ever'). We may always appreciate true artistry while recognising that it may not represent how Tallis sounded in his time with his boys - a thing of which one is truly unwise not to discern and appreciate.
And since this all started out about organs, I will offer the proposal that while we appreciate the panoply of organbuilding schools and styles, and the legacy of musical variety of which we are heirs, we ought at the very least to, with all good and confident humour, be sure that we are meaning an organ when we say organ, and not something that isn't an organ. Any less is not broadmindedness... it is sloppy and indistinct judgment; it is not being a modern technologically astute person... it is intellectual dishonesty which is unworthy of a true technologue.

With due regard for the primacy of the pipe organ, my parish is one example where a digital organ can serve an important role. The church was built in the 80s, and it is a typical half-round modern church with padded pews, carpet everywhere, and paneling in the choir area designed to keep the sound INSIDE the choir stall.

At the time it was state of the art sound system, built on the premise that you would extensively mic everything and have a full-time technician in the sound booth. Now it is dying, and my '82 vintage Allen 2-manual is on its last legs (thank goodness; I'm getting sick of the punch cards and alterables).

A pipe organ will (I pray) one day honor the walls of this church, but not without significant other changes to the building -- changes that are not financially within sight. So once my Allen finally goes, a digital organ would be ideal in the meantime. Otherwise I am stuck with an upright piano until our parish raises the funds for a pipe organ.

With all that is said about the endurance of pipe organs vs. digital, the recent designs in digital organs would probably outlast my church building, designed in the modern temporary style.

I don't believe it is illegitimate to call a digital organ an organ; I think it's appropriate to specify the type of organ (digital/pipe etc.) and to note that SC indeed uses the term "pipe organ."

Jon

Permit me to posit an opposing point of view, which may come as a shock to some who know me and know that I have vigorously advocated for the need to put real pipe organs (a wind instrument, played from a keyboard) into churches.

Here's the rub. We are in a Renaissance, a period of reconstruction wherein we are trying to undo the damage done by ugly buildings that do not reflect our Faith, do not draw us into something wholly other, take us into a place that transcends time and space. It's a hard thing to accomplish, especially in churches that were designed and built shortly before and long after the "season of silliness," and are remarkable by their total lack of any reference to sacredness (See "Ugly As Sin" by M. Rose).

It is possible (as Stoik has demonstrated) to build new buildings along classic principles. But it is also in many cases necessary to tastefully and carefully renovate and improve the interiors of existing spaces that are otherwise totally featureless and ugly with sanctuary furnishings, appointments and sacred art that better reflects the sacred purpose of the place.

That said, many of these places simply cannot be made to accommodate a pipe organ, try as we might to cram one in. It's like trying to put a square peg into a round hole, or trying to put a pot roast into a Pringle's can. It simply can't be done, even with the smallest of instruments. Many of these spaces were simply not envisioned to house an organ, and even a place for a piano is set up as an afterthought. And, as ideal as I can say it would be to go immediately to unaccompanied voices with no instrument at all (as preferred to an electronic instrument), the sound of an organ is a necessary part of reintroducing a sacred sound to the ears of a people who are very thirsty from 40 years of wandering in a desert devoid of any beauty at all. A friend of mine told me that when one is thirsty enough, one will gladly drink urine and think it's champagne.

Electronic simulators (which we call digital "organs" for the sake of brevity and ease of reference), are often a stop-gap, a temporary and necessary measure that helps lead us on the way to something more permanent and beautiful.

With all due respect to those on both sides of this argument, let me plead with you to, as Fr. Z would put it, resist the temptation to make the better be the enemy of the good.

[Edit, P.S. I'll buttress my position by describing the chapel at the seminary where I am an adjunct instructor in sacred music. The chapel is a tall, square box. The axis is on a diagonal, with the tabernacle at the opposite corner from the entrance in a round, stained glass alcove behind a glass screen that has no real reference or purpose. Originally, the lectern was just inside the entrance to the chapel, facing the middle of the box, but was moved (for reasons that are unclear) to a place not designed to accommodate it; the altar remains in the middle and is a sort of squashed stop-sign shaped affair not big enough to have candles or a crucifix on it. There is a large (too large) crucifix hanging from the ceiling beneath a large lantern or copula, and the pews are arranged in squared-off circles around the altar. The stations of the cross are hung on the walls (which are brick with slots for modern stained glass windows of unremarkable craftsmanship), but there are no real side aisles (since there's no real nave) so there's no way to "walk" the stations. Some of the stations are behind chairs along the walls, or in the corner where the piano and organ console are crammed, together with a cabinet housing an overly-large and complex sound system. (The chapel holds perhaps 75 - 100 people tops, so I wonder why a sound system is necessary at all). The speakers for the organ are hung high on the walls between trusses that support the underside of the lantern copula. Nothing about the space works. There's no processional axis to speak of, there's no distinction between nave and sanctuary, the tabernacle is rather hidden and separated from the main space and there was essentially no provision made for a pipe organ. It's truly sad, as this is supposed to be a house of priestly formation, and the men are not being exposed to what should be the ideal or truly formed in what sacred art and architecture are about. I have studied the space and tried to conceive of a way to renovate it to make it more Catholic and less like a modern, nondescript, "Luther-palian" worship space and I've concluded that it can't be done. And, the electronic organ they installed is the cheapest of the cheap and sounds horrid. In this case, opting for all unaccompanied singing would be ideal, but that's not the trajectory they seem to be on. For the time being, it's all-contemporary-junk-all-the-time. And, no, I'm not the music director for the chapel. That honor falls upon someone with far fewer degrees and far less knowledge, who comes with the requisite price tag. Remember, you get what you pay for.]

David Andrew -
Your account is truly heart-rending. It must be very difficult for you. Sad it is but true, that there are some situations for which there seems to be no solution desired. One can only be agape at those who offer the Sacrifice in such an environment and preach about the centrality of Christ, while making of his temple something more akin to a 'sacred' dance hall. It would take a man of rare ability, taste and intellect to make such people really see the light, do what ought to be done and give the Lord his due; or, as we Chair of St Peter Catholics say in the PBC, to offer that which really is 'our bounden duty and service'... and to do it in 'the beauty of holiness'. I wish that I had some counsel, some balm, for you. Alas, all I can do is pray that you will find grace and strength, and that your superiors will find sanity.... that they will find real religion!

As for an organ. which is the subject of this conversation: is even a small portative possible? If not and a cappella is out, how about violins or other instruments? You are in a most unenviable situation in which something rather bad had been purposfully built and furnished with, apparently, no inkling by the perpetrators that they have missed the boat, and at any rate don't wish to do what would be improvements.
It does seen to me that you and your people are hostage to some brand of Taliban as was mentioned by our friend Chas in CenCa above

It would be interesting were you to keep us abreast of develpments there and any possible (or real) improvements.

We will keep you in out prayers
We all might pray that some benefactors would come your way, who would say 'My! you need a new chapel!... and, OH! It needs an organ, and, and....!'

All, pardon if I came across as absolutely against the electronic substitute (organ). Let me give you some background, though, and perhaps this would be something MJO would subscribe to, at risk of assuming a "holier-than-thou" posture. Of course I have respect for those like CinCC above, but I would say that sort of attitude to this debate is sometimes equivalent to just letting the issue of a "four-hymn sandwich" vs. a sung Mass be dismissed as "perfect as enemy of the good"..."music is music", after all! I deal with that attitude every day...I prefer a "seamless garment" (RIP +Bernadin) approach to music-making and the instruments on which we make it! It works much better for music than life issues!

I am a convert. I have never ceased to be frustrated with the attitude of the Roman Catholic church in this country toward sacred music. Somehow, Protestant denominations can fund-raise for a suitable instrument and make it a priority in worship. In many cases in the US, even after huge capital campaigns which gross millions upon millions of dollars designated for physical improvements, a Catholic diocese/seminary/parish thinks it is suitable to spend $200-300k on an organ. This is absurd! I suppose we should "aim high" and buy new cars that cost $6k, right? Nonsense. but that's the same sort of income proportion that these campaigns work on. I am just trying to make the point that committees, the powers-that-be, whatever, are often trying to do the best that they can to make parishioners knuckle over and accept an unworthy substitute, electronic or pipe (which is possible, since some are built so poorly!) Why not think of an organ as a monument to faith in and of itself, much like the building or the stained glass windows, or a worthy marble altar? Or are we just utilitarians who need tools, and nothing more. Besides, how many Rodgers have you played that have been voiced? Not one, in my experience. I've been able to do that some myself, and it sounds much better, but there is no love in those installations.

A case in point, at my current place of employment. Somehow, the parishioners were brought to believe that they possess one of the finest pipe organs in the city. Far from it! Just in the ten-block area around my church, we have at least two organs by a very fine English and Canadian builder which are far and away superior in every way. However, since they didn't look outside of a Catholic place, they were unaware. My predecessor did his best to try to improve it and started a campaign to improve the organ, but sadly it is such a mish-mash of pipework from different places that it would be better to keep it running and hope for a replacement with judicious reuse of existing pipework. That said, I AM glad it is a pipe organ.

The point is, if we aim for mediocrity in the instruments we play, then mediocre results are what we achieve. A guitarist that thinks a Baby Taylor is the best thing to work with will still be a guitarist, but one without many horizons for improvement or imagination.

The math fails to consider that at no time are all 4,000 pipes playing in a pipe or pipeless organ. If they did, huge blowers and massive wind regulators would be required, instead the builders compute the size of reservoirs, regulators and blowers at what the requirements of 12 keys depressed simultaneously will require.

A subwoofer cannot move air while maintaining pitch and clarity which is why a 16 ft posaune does not play solely through a subwoofer.

A sampled instrument is the CD player we all enjoy listening to. A synthesized instruments is Switched On Bach, which makes no attempt to sound like any instrument, even when it plays from a CD.

There are massive inventions going on in digital organs, while some feel that the pipe organ suffers from buyers and sellers who insist on historical accuracy. An installation of a single pipe 32' in length with keys like a flute would provide an affordable alternative to purchasing a lower octave of 12 pipes. "Oh, but the scaling won't be right!" Yet builders have done this sort of thing throughout organs for years and years.

A 32' at Riverside under Fox had flexhaust for its length rather than wood or metal.

The joke was for many years that the best playing pipe organs were in Catholic churches since they were used every day, but many of them were the worst organs because they had to have one and cost-cutting to get contracts was...and is....rampant. Lesser builders, your name is often Catholic.

I've actually worked for one of the better builders and one of the worst at the same time and that was funny, since they were not in competition...

The arguments against digital are rarely balanced out with clear, concise arguments against pipes, which is sad. There are situations where pipes fit the need, situations where digitals do and even, in many cases, situations where blending the two make lots of sense.

The pipe world provides evidence to support that, as there are three distinct groups of builders:

1. Those who never use digital tone generation.
2. Those who sometimes, under strict regulation, use limited tone generation.
3. Those who use it as needed, without restriction.

Unfortunately, at least one builder from group 3 convinces churches that they MUST have an 8' trumpet on the Great and they only way to do it is digital (for a variety of reasons) which then eliminates any builders from group 2 as their agreement within their association (group 2) rules out that possibility, and group 1 automatically backs out with that kind of request.

Check out these sites:

http://apoba.com/

http://www.pipeorgan.org/

This debate makes sense academically and as entertainment (and my predilections are aligned more with FNJ and Francis, as if that mattered.) And I mean not to denigrate the importance of this debate among organists and afficianados on the virtues of instruments alone.
However, everything ecclesial with which we're engaged is subject to subsidiarity. And ritually, the organ must bow to the human voice as the principal instrument of praise. This has been reiterated millions of times I'm sure over centuries. So, if a pedestrian is pulled in off the street, hopefully first that would be the result of the sound of voices and hearts conjoined in worshipping through sweet song. If not, and the pedestrian "senses" the magnificence of a fine pipe organ played well, then I would hope the pedestrian remains to join in singing praise if that is called for by the occasion, or returns for a service with intent to adorn those "senses" with thanking our Creator with his/her voice in sung praise.

Hello. I've been following the discussion and my preference has always been for a real pipe organ. Our church recently bought a used electric organ, but it is horrible. It moans and groans (not to mention the choir is a disaster). Someone then decided to purchase some kind of keyboard, as well as a used baby grand piano. Strange, when most of the time we have those guitar groups doing most of the singing when the choir is on holiday.

I'm really not sure where to begin in making a suggestion to our church to throw out the old organ and invest in a pipe organ - even if it is a small organ, 2 manual with a few stops. I'm sure one can already do much with it. Our parish is not a big parish. Making a suggestion is difficult in our parish, since it seems everything I say falls on deaf ears, or there is some sort of bad musical liturgy dictatorship in place (for decades it seems).

I'm 42 and am classically trained with ten years of piano. What's the best way to suggest a pipe organ to the parish? How did any of you get a pipe organ (or even a digital one) in your parish? How did you overcome the opposition, if there was any?

At first I wanted to disagree with cantusFirmus, but reading his message through I agree 100%.

People have to hear the music of the church sung.

I visited a Greek Orthodox church recently....found an organ they use all the time and red carpet covering the otherwise acoustically reverberant marble floor usp and down the aisles. Major disappointment to find that they have abandoned singing unaccompanied and begun to kill the singing acoustics in their church. I wonder which came first, the carpet or the organ?

When combining digital with pipes it is common to see Aeoline string ranks, which are very soft, not hooked up and playing because they cannot be heard in the church. At one time they could be, but when they added carpeting, pew cushions and curtains, the voicing of the organ to the room was greatly disturbed.

Churches act with total disregard to the acoustics of the room when they decide to make the church more comfortable.