"Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing." (Psalm 100:1-2)

Serving the Streetsville and Meadowvale communities since 1836.

Phoenix Organ Installation Diary at Streetsville United

At a special congregational meeting held December 15, 2002 the congregation of Streetsville United Church approved the purchase and installation of a Phoenix PD-351 Digital Organ to replace its current Keates Pipe Organ with some components dating back to 1920. This diary will attempt to log the progress of the organ's construction and installation during the spring of 2003.

Sunday, April 06, 2003

It's a Miracle that the old Organ ever Worked!

Today we decommissioned and removed our Keates traditional pipe organ, originally cobbled together in 1960, using parts from a 1920 organ, and refurbished again in 1980. (But not before Robin gave it one rousing rendition of Holy, Holy, Holy as its last organ postlude.) At about 12:15 Peter Mara made the electrical disconnection. As we dissassembled the console we uncovered a maze of wires, several boards of diode matrices and a wiring connection job that would have stressed out even the most demanding technician. Not one main cable to the pipes, but rather a maze of cables that would confuse even the most diligent wiring technician. Definitely 1960's electronics at its best (and let's face it .. this organ turned out to be electronic in many ways except for the sound generation). At the end of the day we have available for sale an organ console shell, a two manual keyboard and a RCCO standard pedalboard; whoever acquires them will be able to take advantage of digital technology to create a new pipe organ.

Another crew worked on removal of the pipes in the pipe chambers; here we were easily able to remove the pipes and lay them out on the pews but the challenge lay in removing the associated wind chests. In the picture on the left, Les Cunningham is diligently trying to figure out how many additional screws are holding down this windchest that held part of the Bourdon Pedal Rank. The pipes are either laid out on the pews or, to keep the smaller ones sorted out by rank, stored in plastic boxes pending their sale. The availability of the pipes for sale will be made known tomorrow on some pipe organ discussion forums on the Internet.

Pipe organ builders take great pride in their work; what we uncovered today demonstrated that they required significant dedication and focus to complete a fully operational pipe organ, capable of responding in a timely manner to every keystroke of the organist. However, this comes at great expense -- not only monetary but also highly demanding, detailed manual labour to build a quality instrument. Today's digital organ (and certainly the Phoenix model we have acquired) not only delivers authentic pipe organ sound but also significantly reduces both the complexity of installation and the space requirements. We really had an opportunity to appreciate this first hand today.

Tomorrow construction of the speaker shelves in the pipe chambers commences along with the first work on the choir loft modifications. By the end of the day tomorrow we should have a handle on how low we can make the floor of the organ enclosure after having a chance to observe the structure below the organ pit. To accommodate the new console work will also commence on expanding the organ pit to the south by about 20 inches. We thank Bernie Brennenstuhl, Rob Butterworth, Gary Clipperton, Les Cunningham, Dave Faulkner, Peter Mara and John and Dianne Wilton for their assistance today.
Posted 4/06/2003 10:31:00 p.m. by Jim Courtney