Why?????????????

[Richard2]

Nowadays (I'm speaking of England) many churches have ELECTRIC guitars
without any criticism - so why are there criticisms of electronic organs?
I was not aware that there is any legal requirement for a pipe organ in church
and the electronics that I have played for many years have accompanied the
worship with no problem, needing no maintenance, freeing space for a vestry
and 3-manuals and 56 stops a pleasure to play rather than the original worn-out
2-manual 11-stop pipe job.
I do agree that a pipe organ of about the same specification and well maintained
would be preferable.
Also, finance could well be a deciding factor.
What do other organists (who regularly play an electronic) think?
Richard 2.

[andyg]

I think this can of worms has been opened many, many times Richard. You could search the Forum a bit or look at the bottom of threads for the Similar Threads box, which will lead you to more.

[jbird604]

This does raise an interesting question though. An electric guitar actually sounds almost nothing like a real guitar. The piercing, metallic, grungy tone is a ridiculous caricature of a real guitar. Yet popular culture has accepted the electric guitar as a legitimate instrument. (Classical guitarists of course don't use them, but rock guitarists far outnumber the classical players.)

The situation is different with organs. While digital organs properly voiced and installed can sound amazingly like the real thing, we still have a very large segment of the organ community which refuses to accept the digital organ as a valid musical instrument. There is even a good bit of rancor at times directed toward the digital organ builders and proponents. This is odd, really.

If players of digital organs were as far off musically from classical playing as electric guitarists are from classical guitarists, one could understand the disdain and dismissing, but actually there is little or no difference in the playing styles and repertoire (forgetting for the moment such players as Cameron Carpenter, who has made the digital organ a different kind of instrument).

Fortunately, there are a great many pipe organ fans who increasingly appreciate the sounds of digital organs. The acceptance of digital has been helped greatly by the development of Hauptwerk and other VPO systems, which enable the reproduction of pipe organ sounds, including even their environments, in great detail and in any kind of playing situation.

We can only hope that the future will see more coming together of the pipe and digital players and fans for the greater benefit of the cause of organ music.

Yes, there are many of us here and many players everywhere who enjoy playing digital organs and would feel less well served by small and poorly maintained pipe organs we would otherwise have to play, if we didn't have digitals in our churches and homes.

[KC9UDX]

Bear in mind there are multiple types of electric guitar, and they can all be played without distortion.

I don't think any kind of guitar has any place in a church. However I'm pretty sure King David didn't play pipe organ, so I am the one in the wrong.

[samibe]

I'll bite since you mentioned two of my loves (guitar and organ). I love classical guitar and electric guitar. I have played both for many years (before organ) and even built my own electric guitar about 10 years ago. I loathe the twang of the high strings on a steel string acoustic guitar, though. Which is probably the main reason I like electric guitar (the pickups capture the full harmonic spectrum from even the high strings not just the harmonics that happen to occur near the soundbox resonance frequencies). I don't mind a little distortion for electric guitars as long as it is still possible to hear chord. A little crunch is just fine or else we wouldn't put reeds on our organs (especially pedal reeds). I will say that there are plenty of guitar purists, though. Guitarists aren't immune to the electric vs. "real" debate. The interesting thing with guitars is that there isn't much of a price difference between electric and acoustic. It is possible to get $100 guitars of any type and they will be a very similar construction (and have similar flaws). Spending between $400 and $1000 gets you in the range of very good guitars of any style. Spending very far over $2000 usually only gets you an art piece or a collectable. There are also novices in the guitar community that think they know a lot more than they actually do and cause a decent amount of damage (just like our organ community). I have repaired a couple of classical guitars that folded in half when someone tried to restring them with steel strings. While the grass may look greener over there, I really don't think it is.

As far as electric vs. pipe organs. I consider myself a utilitarian. I will work with what is available. We have an Allen MDS-5 at my church. All of the presets are taken and I dislike the blind capture system. So, I'm working on hand registering on the fly.
I would really like to play a substantial pipe organ someday. It is just not ever going to happen regularly for me. We have a church near our house that has a small reuters pipe organ that they are planning on expanding. As it is right now, I would like to experiment with it but I wouldn't like having to work around its deficiencies (several missing notes and whole ranks significantly out of tune) to play for a service. I will likely have to play it for a service sometime in the coming years. When that happens regardless of the state of the organ, I will do my best with it.

While I think my aural skills are pretty good, I'm pretty sure that in a live, side-by-side, blind test between a digital organ and a pipe organ of similar spec and voicing, I would not be able to tell which was which.

I prefer digital because for the same amount of money and space it is possible to get a much more useful and flexible organ (with a huge audio complement). Also, except for the very largest of pipe organs, 32' stops pretty much only come digital.

[ShadyJoe]

This does raise an interesting question though. An electric guitar actually sounds almost nothing like a real guitar. The piercing, metallic, grungy tone is a ridiculous caricature of a real guitar. Yet popular culture has accepted the electric guitar as a legitimate instrument. (Classical guitarists of course don't use them, but rock guitarists far outnumber the classical players.)

An electric guitar IS a real instrument. It is a different instrument from an acoustic guitar. While many of the skills and techniques translate from one to the other, they are two different instruments. Certainly there are a lot of hacks playing both. Wonderful music can be played with both.

The same holds true with acoustic pianos vs electric pianos. (I'm not referring to modern electronic pianos.) They sound different and get played differently.

Now get into pipe organs, electric organs, and Hammond organs. Lots of sameness and lots of difference.

A bad musician can make any instrument sound good. I've heard some good musicians make bad instruments sound good. And some musicians cannot play some genres well at all, while excelling in others.

That piercing, metallic, grungy tone you've heard may have been some hack, or it may be someone playing some music that you don't understand. Something I've learned over the years is just because I don't like something doesn't mean its bad, just bad to me.

[jbird604]

I understand completely. Guess I sounded a little bit elitist and/or uninformed. Yes, the electric guitar (at least the kind we are familiar with in the hands of a typical rock, jazz, country, or metal player) is a different instrument from the acoustic guitar, and each has its own sound, playing style, and appropriate usage, and a lot of how it sounds depends upon the performer and what kind of sound he or she intentionally gets out of it.

Now if lovers of the acoustic guitar were up in arms just because electric guitars exist in the world, that might be a bit like a few folks I know in the pipe organ world. Some of them -- not all of them, just some diehard pipe-only believers -- are pretty much unhappy that the speaker organ was ever invented. They see no use for it at all, and seem to believe that a church without the space and funds for a 50-rank tracker suitable for playing a wide variety of music should at least find themselves a used 2-rank single-manual no-pedals cabinet organ and hire a player who knows how to make interesting music on it. Or just have a harmonium, or a piano, or sing a capella. Anything but a "toaster."

And I suspect that our OP above has encountered that attitude somewhere, given that his grievance concerns those who disparage churches that have exchanged a rickety and inadequate pipe organ for a modern digital.

As one of our forum members says (to paraphrase) "It's not what you play, .... it's the fact that you ARE playing that counts!" I congratulate any parish that has taken in hand to provide an organ in good working order for its services, and the manner of the tone production is of far less concern than that it does the job a church organ is supposed to do.

Richard2, I'm one of those who plays a digital organ in church, and I am very happy that my church decided upon good advice 20 years before I even came to the church to put to rest an old pipe organ that was in terrible condition and seriously inadequate, and brought in a decent digital.

It is a little bit sad to see an old pipe organ dismantled and sent to the scap yard (as I saw happen just a couple weeks ago in a church near me), but sometimes you just have to move on and bring in an organ that can at least be depended on to work and be in tune when it's needed.

[davidecasteel]

I don't think any kind of guitar has any place in a church. However I'm pretty sure King David didn't play pipe organ, so I am the one in the wrong.

For accompanying Hymns, I am in full agreement. As an occasional appearance for a special number, I can handle. Classical guitar can be very beautiful, and as accompaniment to a soloist a guitar can do excellent work. (Joan Baez singing Plaisir d'Amour, for example. https://www.last.fm/music/Joan+Baez/...ir+D%2527amour )

David

[Larrytow]

This thread is quite timely for me. For the last three months I have been playing occasionally for a rural church in my area. It is a beautiful sorta old building from 1911. The organ is a Wangerin 6 rank built in 1913. At some point (1990 {ish} I think, from looking at dates inside it ) it was converted from tubular pneumatic to electro-mechanical action at a considerable cost.

While that is nice and all, it is still a 6 rank organ. The issue is that this organ is voiced for leading a relatively good amount of folks in that building. However, this congregation gets 25 people there most Sundays, and the organ is way too loud when using anything but the stopped flute or the salicional with that few people. The open diapason is unenclosed, so I can pretty much never use that without blowing them out.

For the about same money as the rebuild, they could have got a pretty nice digital organ, that would be Much more versatile in So Many ways. I would not think they should get an Allen Q325 like my home church has, but any digital organ could be used with all sorts of combinations at whatever volume one desires. Can't do that with this pipe organ.

But then, they seem to like what I get out of their organ, because I did get a compliment two weeks ago. " I had no idea our organ could sound like that ! " And ya, I did have to ask that person " is that good or bad ? " It is not easy to make that one sound good though.

[jbird604]

Hmmmmmm. I'll remember that next time I hear the phrase "I didn't know our organ could sound like that!" LOL.

[Leisesturm]

I think it could be argued that a fine classical guitar or even a Martin acoustic have LESS in common with a Gibson 'Flying V' or Fender 'Stratocaster' than any make of fine pipe organ has with a Rodgers or Allen digital. The solidbody electric guitars are completely different instruments from the acoustic ones! No player of a fine acoustic classical guitar would have any qualms about having a microphone stuck near the soundhole of their guitar if they were going to play in a large, dead, auditorium that does not make it into an electric guitar. Comparing a pipe organ to a Hammond B3 is a much fairer comparison. I can certainly understand why a pipe organ afficiando might be nervous upon hearing that their affiliation plans to replace the Balcom and Vaughan with a Hammond B3. However, when one considers what goes into substantial pipe organ vs a digital of the same tonal resources it becomes difficult to sympathize with a dogmatic refusal to consider the digital option.

Once a month I play for a medium size (building) Lutheran church with a Brombaugh tracker. We are talking about a seriously expensive instrument because of the prestige of the builder. It is only used at the 8:00am traditional worship service and I am pretty much the only organist in the rotation that deals with it to any great degree. I heel and toe on the flat, straight, pedalboard albeit in bare feet. At my interview I was informed that I cannot use the single Reed in either the Pedal or the manuals, nor the 2' Principal, or the 1-1/3. That leaves me around six ranks that I can use. Mostly I accompany hymns on just 8' and 4' flutes and the 8' string. I'll pull the 4' Principal for a last verse lift. For Postludes I use more resources. I don't know ... for a whole lot less money they could have had the mother of all digitals in that church and probably would still have a decent size congregation coming to hear it. But no, even though sited right in Rodgers back yard (about 1 mi from the former Hillsboro location) someone just HAD to have a pipe organ there, and it had to be a tracker ... sigh.

[jbird604]

That ^^ is exactly what I'm talking about! (And at least yours is in good condition. Pity the players who are stuck with only six ranks to use, and every rank has numerous dead or untunable notes!)