"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.

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

Just what is all this voicing...

Today Don spent another day voicing the second (Baroque) and third (English with Orchestral Instruments) specifications. It was also an opportunity to learn some background to some of the stops and how they fit into the overall picture. For instance, we have a Piccolo Trumpet stop especially for use with Handel's "The Trumpet Will Sound" of The Messiah oratorio. An orchestral brass combines tuba, trombone, trumpet, French Horn into one orchestral ensemble.

So, what is voicing? Effectively it is the process of tuning the instrument and then making appropriate adjustments to the sanctuary acoustics. With a traditional pipe organ this can be a very long tedious task. Remember that organ in Lausanne? -- it will take about eight (8) months to completely voice each note (pipe) of its 6900 pipes. With a 'digital pipe' organ, such as ours, this task is simplified by the use of a computer program which can readily scale the volume relationships of the various pipes. In addition to calibrating the volume relationships, voicing of this type of organ includes making additional adjustments for wind (the rise and fall within the playing of a note) as well as reverberation. In the latter case, with the 'dry acoustic' of our sanctuary (due to the presence of a carpeted floor covering), the reverberation is severely inhibited.

In the course of this voicing, Don also reassigned some stops to different "instruments" with the result that, for instance, the cathedral choir can be played on both the Swell and Choir for an interesting "stereo" effect (remember each of these divisions is in one of the gallery pipe chambers facing each other). Some stops have been reassigned to match the desirability of playing two of them simultaneously via different keyboards.

Posted 5/21/2003 10:52:00 p.m. by Jim Courtney