OLE Pipe Organ Class
October 12, 2015
Kenneth Jones , 1985
Chugiak Our Redeemer Lutheran Church
PLEASE make a point to watch these short videos BEFORE the class on October 12.
Hydraulis organ
https://youtu.be/bP2u8NBI5m8
http://www.archaeologychannel.org/video-guide/video-guide-menu/video-guide-summary/109-the-ancient-hydraulis
The Water Organ: An Early History of the Organ - ELCA
www.elca.org/News-and.../3
Water organ
https://youtu.be/MNHkCc9P_A4
Ktesibios or Ctesibius – a Greek engineer working in Alexandria in 3 BC. He did not think he was inventing a new instrument but was solving a problem in mechanics or engineering. The problem? How can one person play more than one wind instrument at a time?
Models included the aulos, pan-pipes, shofar, and mouth organ. These instruments were known in the ancient world to both Greek and Hebrew cultures.
A pipe organ needs 4 basic components:
1. Pipes that produce sound
2. Are placed on a chamber that stores wind
3. Under pressure that has been mechanically generated
4. Access of wind to pipes controlled by a keyboard
Ktesibios’ solution:
1. to place several existing wind instrument of different sizes
2. above a chamber containing air under pressure
3. pressure generated by simple hand-operated pumps and controlled by the weight of water
4. and to control access to the individual wind instruments through a simple system of keys and valves to admit the air.
Depictions of this early organ exist in many forms, from graffiti, to images on medallions, to a terra cotta lamp in the shape of a hydraulis. Descriptions were given in detail and historians have been able to build copies of the instrument with some reliability. However, no descriptions exist about the types of pipes – flues or reeds – that were used originally. Early in the history of the hydraulis though, it seems that the larger and lower pipes appeared on the left of the instrument and the shorter, higher pipes were on the right. Hence, the convention of having the bass to the left and the treble to the right dates back to the early years of the hydraulis. ALL keyboard instruments are designed this way.
Staff – music reading detour here…
We’re back… The hydraulis was used for “solo” performance (it took 2-3 people to play), as well as for providing accompaniments to games and combat.
By the 2nd century AD descriptions of the bellows organ begin to appear. Bellows replaced two parts of the hydraulis. They were made of leather and wood.
1. Bellows provided the source of wind to the organ
2. Bellows provided a means to control the wind pressure.
By 395 AD the Roman Empire had split into the Eastern Empire which became the Byzantine Empire. By 476 AD, the last Roman emperor Romulus Augustus was deposed. Western Roman culture disappeared and knowledge of the organ seems to have disappeared from the 5th century AD to the middle of the 8th century when the organ was returned to the West as a gift from a ruler of the East. The Byzantine Empire retained theoretical treatises on music as well as Greco-Roman musical instruments.
Reminder:
Organ concert at Anchorage Lutheran Church on Sunday, October 25, at 4:30 pm. All are invited. Admission is free, but donations help the performer. Hans Hielscher from Wiesbaden, Germany will be the performer. Since the organ is in the loft, the concert will be projected onto a screen in the front of the sanctuary in real time.