St. Bede

Alleluia!
Praise the Lord, my soul!
I will praise the Lord all my life,
I will make music to my God as long as I live.

(Psalm 146, verse 1)

Organ or Piano?
The similarity between a piano and a church pipe organ ends with the fact that both instruments have a keyboard. Beyond this similarity, they are entirely different, since fundamentally the piano is a string instrument and the organ is a wind instrument.

Overview of the Organ
Church pipe organs are not mass produced. Each instrument is designed to suit the building in which it is contained in terms of its size, the way it is voiced, and its architectural design. Generally though, the organ is considered to be a one man orchestra, with the organist having at his/her disposal a full range of dynamics. It is a complex machine, and of course designs vary, but the following guide shows how the instrument works at an elementary level:

• The sound is produced by air flowing through pipes.

• The air is under controlled pressure (commonly referred to as wind) that has been mechanically generated.

• One or more sets of pipes are placed on a chest that stores the pressurised air.

• The entrance of air into those pipes is controlled by an organist operating one or more keyboards.

To see an explanatory diagram of how a mechanical church pipe organ works click here. Please also read the following glossary for further organ related definitions:

Console
This is the control centre of the organ from where the organist performs on the instrument. Consoles are sometimes mechanically attached to the organ, however for more sophisticated instruments the console is often detached from the main instrument, and connected by electronics.

Registers
Each register on the organ represents a separate musical instrument (rank of pipes). The registers can be traditionally recognised at the console as protruding devices (also known as "stops") that can be either drawn into an “on” position or pushed into an “off” position (note: the number of registers drawn into the "on" position indicates the number of ranks of pipes playing at once).

Divisions
An organ may have more than one keyboard, including an entire keyboard for the feet to play. Each keyboard is generally referred to as a division, and each division is assigned a unique group of registers. The ensemble of registers for each division has a unique tonal characteristic to that of a neighbouring division. Common names for divisions on English organs are great, swell, choir, solo and pedal.

Ranks
Once a register is drawn a rank of pipes is engaged inside the organ. Each pipe can only play one note, so for each register there are as many pipes as there are keys on the keyboard. The deepest notes on the organ are produced by pipes that are often bigger than an adult, whereas the highest notes are produced by pipes the size of a pencil.

To estimate how many pipes an organ has, multiply the number of registers by the number of keys on the keyboard. This will confirm that the pipes displayed at the front of the organ only represent a small percentage of the total number of pipes contained in the overall instrument.

Digital Church Organs
A digital organ is not a wind instrument, but an imitation of its wind instrument predecessor "the pipe organ". Instead of generating musical notes via wind driven pipes, a digital organ generates musical notes via digitally sampled recordings of wind driven pipes. Samples of each note are stored in digital format on a computer memory device and a computer is used to convert these digital samples into pipe organ notes. These re-created pipe organ notes are then fed to loud speakers via one or more amplifiers. From an organist's perspective, a digital organ console is the same as a pipe organ console and the techniques and skills required to play the instrument are the same.

A digital organ occupies far less space than a pipe organ of an equivalent specification and can be built for a fraction of the cost. Additionally, a digital organ is not affected by environmental factors such as temperature and humidity, which ultimately means that maintenance costs for items such as regular tuning are significantly reduced or eliminated altogether.

A great deal of research and development has been carried out into improving digital organ technology and making digital organs sound more realistic. This has largely paid dividends, though there is always room for improvement. Naturally the overall objective is to make it extremely difficult for the listener to tell the difference between "original" and "digital", and this largely depends on the combined sophistication of the console, amplifier and speaker technology. Just because a digital console has a very grand specification, it doesn't necessarily follow that the digital organ sounds and feels like the real thing.

All things being musically equal, ultimately the most obvious and immediate difference between the two type of instrument is the architecture. With wind instruments the focal point is not necessarily the organ console, but the bulk of the stand alone instrument, complete with ornate casework and pipes. Evidently this is not the case with digital instruments, and whilst the sound technology has made recent leaps and bounds into realism, the arrangement of speakers into realistic and awe inspiring items of convincing furniture often still leaves a lot to be desired. Digital organ builders would do well to take this into consideration in the future.

Playing the Organ
Since most church organs (both pipe and digital) have a pedal division, music composed for organ usually features 3 staves of music (generally right hand, left hand, feet). To interpret the music the organist should consider which divisions and registers are to be used appropriately. Many organ works suggest a suitable registration, which often changes over the duration of the music.

Consequently the organist is not merely concerned with playing the music, but how to go about seamlessly interchanging divisions and registers during performance.

The organ at the Holy Ghost church is a splendid example of Victorian technology, and much older than the Holy Ghost building. It was rescued from a redundant church in London and installed in the Holy Ghost church to commemorate the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1982. It had an extensive overhaul in the late 1990’s, and apart from the odd insignificant mechanical problem, has proved to be very reliable.

The organ is a tracker action wind instrument and has about 900 speaking pipes, 17 speaking registers, 3 divisions (swell, great and pedal), 3 couplers, 4 toe pistons, and 1 counter balance pedal (swell). In terms of dimensions it is a giant cube, and only just fits into a space the same size as the south transept (the room behind the glass door by the pulpit).

The organ at the Church of St. Bede is a 21st century organ built by Eminent Organs. The organ is a digital instrument and has 55 speaking registers plus alternatives, 4 divisions (swell, great, choir and pedal), 6 couplers and 2 counter balance pedals (swell and choir).

Guided tours and demonstrations of the organ can be arranged by appointment. Please speak to the organist for Cantorg (Francis Brookes) in the cloisters at the end of Mass.