Heat and humidity and organs - need advice
  • AbbysmumAbbysmum
    Posts: 196
    Hiya all,

    I have another organ question. It's July, and it's been stupidly hot (I'm sure you've experienced it). This past weekend, it was about 35C/95F, and with humidity it was more like 45/113 or more. This is the Canadian prairies. The organ (and organist) didn't like it. Our church is about 115 years old, and has heat in the winter (mostly) but no cooling in the summer. It's a 1912 Cassavant.

    I really noticed I was struggling to make the organ sound "right" - I figured out after the fact that the humidity was probably making me lose the upper harmonics, making everything kinda muffled and flat. It was my first time really noticing it - in the winter we often see the opposite contrast when it's -40C/F and it's so loud outside!! And I don't notice a significant tone/harmonic change on the piano under similar conditions.

    When we have to play in those hot, sticky conditions, do you adjust what stops you're pulling to try and work around that? I'm reading conflicting info online about how the different materials react to the conditions. More reeds? More strings? More cowbell? Or do you just grin and bear it and hope for the best?

    Also, the keys are ivory (I think - some sort of natural material anyway). Even if my hands are dry (I have a trusty fan that blows right on me without ruffling my pages), the keys lose their "slip", making them sticky to the touch and challenging to play (for clarity - they are responding as they should. It's the movement of my fingers across the keyboard I'm referring to). I forget how much slip we actually use while playing until we can't easily do it anymore. What do you do in those conditions? I don't notice the stickiness on my feet as much, but my shoe bottoms are suede and the pedals are a hardwood of some kind, so I don't think it has the same stickiness as the keys.

    Thanks!



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  • KVH50
    Posts: 7
    I usually don't account for temperature/humidity in registration on its own, unless it has put something unusably out of tune. I'd be on the lookout for any mechanical problems caused by short-term humidity (e.g. swelling of wooden components could cause moving parts to stick; condensation could cause electronic components to behave erratically).
  • francis
    Posts: 11,386
    Definitely more cowbell... that will rile up the congregation, and produce some interesting harmonics as they rise to sing.
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen Abbysmum CharlesW
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,310
    "more cowbell" ... thanks to cartoon history, this makes me think of an 8 ft Clarabella stop.
  • DrJS
    Posts: 22
    You often have to forego the reeds under those conditions, because the reed and flue pipes will be out of tune with each other.
    Sometimes, one division will also go out from the rest if it sits closer to an exterior wall that gets direct sunlight.
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  • AbbysmumAbbysmum
    Posts: 196
    You often have to forego the reeds under those conditions, because the reed and flue pipes will be out of tune with each other.


    Yeah, I def noticed that this morning when I was practicing with our violinist. I pulled an oboe stop to try to cut through a bit to solo out the melody and while we were mostly tuned to each other before, we definately weren't at that point lol.

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  • AbbysmumAbbysmum
    Posts: 196
    "more cowbell" ... thanks to cartoon history, this makes me think of an 8 ft Clarabella stop.


    It was a from a SNL skit when I was a teenager. With Christopher Walken I think.

    "You know what this needs? More cowbell!"
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  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 793
    It was a from a SNL skit when I was a teenager. With Christopher Walken I think.

    A classic. I mean it. Explore the space.
    https://youtu.be/cVsQLlk-T0s?si=uUN78KSErGgNYJ4G
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 12,092
    Without a decent HVAC system that can control year-round temperature and humidity, about all you can do is pray for better weather.
    Thanked by 1Roborgelmeister
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 793
    Without a decent HVAC system that can control year-round temperature and humidity, about all you can do is pray for better weather.

    Perhaps it’s time for the CCCB to reinstate Rogation Days in Canada. Good weather and protection against calamities and the parish boundaries was their primary purpose.
    Thanked by 1novusgordo
  • AbbysmumAbbysmum
    Posts: 196
    Perhaps it’s time for the CCCB to reinstate Rogation Days in Canada.


    It would be good for us, methinks, if they did that. However, they never will due to "pastoral interests".
  • novusgordo
    Posts: 30
    Quoth @SponsaChristi:
    Perhaps it’s time for the CCCB to reinstate Rogation Days in Canada. Good weather and protection against calamities and the parish boundaries was their primary purpose.
    Let's start by convincing them to give us back things like Ascension Thursday NOT SUNDAY and Corpus Christi Thursday NOT SUNDAY before we worry about the rogations.
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  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 793
    it was about 35C/95F, and with humidity it was more like 45/113 or more [...] The organ (and organist) didn't like it

    Your organ wasn’t the only instrument that doesn’t like this hot weather. It was 30°C in my apartment yesterday. I was curious about how my oboe is in the heat. It swelled up and was difficult to put together because the wood expanded and the keys were slower than a combine on an undivided highway because the heat also caused the metal rods to expand. The gist of it is unless it’s a brass instrument, instruments don’t like heat and humidity.

    Just curious, while not useful during Mass, would industrial strength dehumidifiers in the church over night and when not in use possibly work to keep humidity at bay? You can rent them from Home Depot.
    Let's start by convincing them to give us back things like Ascension Thursday NOT SUNDAY and Corpus Christi Thursday NOT SUNDAY before we worry about the rogations.

    No, we need more processions, more fasting, and more penance if we’re going to get anywhere in the Church. As Jesus said, “some demons can only be removed with prayer and fasting.”
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen Abbysmum
  • AbbysmumAbbysmum
    Posts: 196
    It was 30°C in my apartment yesterday. I was curious about how my oboe is in the heat. It swelled up and was difficult to put together because the wood expanded and the keys were slower than a combine on an undivided highway because the heat also caused the metal rods to expand.


    My daughter played oboe through school, so I can completely understand. Even the reeds get persnickedy.

    Also, combines. I snickered. Rural Manitoba has their share.

    Just curious, while not useful during Mass, would industrial strength dehumidifiers in the church over night and when not in use possibly work to keep humidity at bay?


    1. There's no money.
    2. The windows are perpetually open all summer long. They are 20 feet in the air and take a special ladder to open/close them, so they get opened once the weather is nice, and closed in the fall.
    3. There is a basic air uptake system that can draw air upwards and exhaust it. It helps draw in cooler/drier air. In the 20 years I've been here, it's generally enough to make the church comfortable enough except for a handful of days. But this year has been awful, with no break in the weather for weeks now - just grinding heat and humidity.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,326
    Temperature shifts should not be affecting harmonics. It affects tuning and general instrument stability, but doesn't change how pipes speak. That said, humidity does affect reverberation (it increases with humidity because there are more molecules knocking about). The only reason I change registrations is either because a rank is unstable (dead notes or ciphers) or because something has gone out of tune with everything else. This particularly affects small reeds, and it goes both ways: extreme heat and humidity, and extreme cold and aridity both affect organs harshly. Occasionally, I will go knock a specific pipe back into tune for whatever our current conditions are (such as when a few important notes need to be in tune for a trumpet voluntary at a wedding).
  • AbbysmumAbbysmum
    Posts: 196
    Temperature shifts should not be affecting harmonics. It affects tuning and general instrument stability, but doesn't change how pipes speak. That said, humidity does affect reverberation (it increases with humidity because there are more molecules knocking about). The only reason I change registrations is either because a rank is unstable (dead notes or ciphers) or because something has gone out of tune with everything else. This particularly affects small reeds, and it goes both ways: extreme heat and humidity, and extreme cold and aridity both affect organs harshly. Occasionally, I will go knock a specific pipe back into tune for whatever our current conditions are (such as when a few important notes need to be in tune for a trumpet voluntary at a wedding).


    That makes sense. It was definitely a dampening of the harmonics in the end. I have noticed that the small reeds are terrible in the winter while passable in the summer, so that also jives with what you're saying. We have hot, sometimes humid summers and very cold, arid winters with just basic climate control (except for the pianos, which have humidity pads).

    I don't have access to the pipes, although now I have an image of percussive maintainence on them stuck in my head! LOL
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