How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?

[jbird604]

My question following this long-winded description refers to how much out-of-tune-ness is acceptable in a pipe organ, how disagreeable this will be to organists and those who hear the organ played. Not that I am asking anyone to "quantify" such in cents or beats per secondor something, just to generally comment on how a pipe organ's tuning affects you. Here's the story:

Matt and Iare in the process of tuning one of the local pipe organs in a nice church-- a medium-size instrument, quite pleasant but unremarkable in many ways. It started life almost 100 years ago asa Kimball with fewer than 10 ranks. Along the way it was electrified and has been enlarged several times. From the look of it, I'd guess the church may have obtained a second organ which they combined with the old Kimball, then finally added a complete third manual division at an even later date.

In its present form, it is fairly complete with a varied stoplist and is almost completely straight. The only unification is an extended Gemshorn rank that speaks at 16, 8, and 4, and a reed or twosimilarly unified. So, it's a decent church organ, worthy of the task and in quite good working order. It has not had regular maintenance in recent decades and probably hadn't been tuned in many years until Matt and I tuned it back in the winter. This summer tuning, we thought, would be a chance to refine the tuning considerably over what we were able to accomplish the first time.

The biggest problem we are havingwith tuning is in the upper octave or so, and especiallyon higher pitched stops. It seems that there are a number of pipes that simply cannot be tuned sharp enough, and there are others that seem to change pitch shortly after being set to the correct tuning. (We are setting the pitch very near A440 at the church's preferred temp, and most of the pipes are easily adjustable to this pitch level.)

We are doing all the things one normally does to stabilize pipe pitch -- the building has been held at a constant temperature for many days, the chamber temp is stable and close to the room temp, we are avoiding over-handling the pipes, and taking care with tuning slides and caps and so on. I really don't think our technique is at fault, nor is there anything we can do about these faulty pipes without running up a bill that the church is not willing to pay. The blower, reservoirs, and other winding components seem to be in good order, so I don't think the wind is at fault either.

So, my question is to you who play pipes all the time: How much detuning is tolerable or acceptable to you? How troubled are you by having a few notes way up high that sound rather flat (when played with their octave below at least)? Do you think the average church goer will even notice?

John

[Jay999]

Re: How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?



Hi John. The tolorence for out of tuneness is mostly with the organist of the church. Many organists accept this, many do not.

Are you setting a temperament with a tuning device, then tuning the rest of the organ to pipes, or are you tuning the organ throughout with the tuning device?

[jbird604]

Re: How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?



Jay,

Thought you might chime in here! Thanks!

We are tuning throughout with a Peterson V-SAM. Using octaves when the pitches get outside the useful range of the Peterson. Celestes, mixtures,and mutations we'vejust checkedby ear.

You comment is helpful already. After sleeping on the situation last night I actually feel better this morning. I know this organ already sounds about a million times better than it did before we tuned it the first time. It was just AWFUL. Don't know how in the world they put up with it, or how they could sing with it.

This second tuning gives us a chance to go even further, to tune some ranks that we passed over last time because they were "close enough" considering the state of it. Now it's becoming apparent that we won't be able to do a really "perfect" tuning, though, and that had me a little worried.

John

[arie v]

Re: How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?



John,

Are the treble pipes you are trying to tune sleeve tuned or cone tuned? If they are cone tuned, it is possible that the organ originally was not tuned to A-440. If they are sleeve tuned, if you know what you are doing, you can cut them slightly shorter on a band saw, and re-sleeve them.

As for how close the tuning should be, I personally like to do a very close tuning in the treble end, as I don't like a lot of high end beating going on. They drift enough over time as it is. Also, you have to remember that tuning is affected by the stability of the wind supply. The better the tuning, the better the overall result in my opinion.

AV

[jbird604]

Re: How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?



Arie,

All are sleeve-tuned, and they are still a bit flat with the sleeve fully retracted. Cutting the pipes is not something we reallywant to get into right now, but we have talked about it.

We're going back to this organ Monday, will re-visit the pipes that are flat and decide on a case by case basis whether to leave them alone or suggest cutting.

Thanks for the comment.

John

[Jay999]

Re: How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?



A lot of pipe organs have been built with the pitch lower than 440 CPS. Blame that on the tuning forks they used at the factory, or perhaps the pipework was voiced in a hot voicing room....I don't have the answer as to why....but I have come across this many times before....where the pipework won't tune to A-440. I have usually found the "favored" pitch to be around 434 to 438. Actually, I have very few instruments that are tuned to 440...most of those are played with orchestral instruments.

You have several things to consider, in the view of whether to cut up the pipes or not cut up the pipes.

There are additions to the original instrument. While the additions would probably tune flatter to match the original organ, you can't just flatten the reeds. That would probably make them louder if flattened on the wires, or impossible to tune with the scrolls rolled all the way up over the slots. On the other hand, in cutting up the tops to make things sharper, if you have mixtures to cut up the tops, you're changing the scale of the pipes by shortening the tops, and this can cause unbelievable tuning problems.

John, please let me suggest some of these things first:

Do you adjustthe tuner to compensate for temperature changes as you are tuning? When I tune with a tuner, I will stop and readjust the tunerto middle C and C# of the first stop I started with, three or four times during the tuning of each new stop. That could bethe problem.

Or, are the trebles, being on a lower placement,subject to a draft blowing across the chests?

If the problem exists in just a note here and there, are there sagging languids, or dirtywindways to cause the airstream to blow less efficiently?

Are the affected pipes sitting on a "home made" chest where the pipes are too close to each other, and are "drawing or pulling" on each other?

I would look at all of these areas before cutting the tops of the pipes. It's too bad we don't live closer to each other, John. I've got a multitude of electronic organ problems...we could swap our problemsand make a great pair of "friends in need". Indeed!Best wishes to Tag, Aunt Minnie, and Yavonna.

[Havoc]

Re: How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?

A lot of pipe organs have been built with the pitch lower than 440 CPS. Blame that on the tuning forks they used at the factory, or perhaps the pipework was voiced in a hot voicing room....I don't have the answer as to why....but I have come across this many times before....where the pipework won't tune to A-440. I have usually found the "favored" pitch to be around 434 to 438. Actually, I have very few instruments that are tuned to 440...most of those are played with orchestral instruments.

The obsession with 440 is a recent phenomena. And it is more a problem for "amateur" musicians then it is for real professionals. Organs often are tuned lower and then like you say, they sit often around 435. As music is all about relative frequencies it doesn't really matters.

You have several things to consider, in the view of whether to cut up the pipes or not cut up the pipes.

Very sensible advise meaning "don't make it worse than it already is, you could get yourself into deep water".

[OrgansR4Me]

Re: How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?

I'm not qualified to speak on organ tuning, but I found a familiar chord in Havoc's advice. When I'm not satisfied and think I can add just one more touch to my project, I usually make things worse. As he and other's have said, if you cut and don't achieve the result you hoped for, there's just no turning back! And of course, I've heard some terrible "beats" but I don't think the organ you are working on is all that bad or you'd never have asked for comments -- you'd have been compelled to a remedy. Hope this work is bringing you more joy than frustration! As for 98% of the congregation, they probably don't have an ear that will allow them to know the difference. "Make a joyful noise!"

[jbird604]

Re: How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?



Thanks, everyone. All this advice is being taken to heart. We'll be looking at the organ again Monday and will try to get to the root of the problem rather than taking the shears to individual pipes. I too tend to think there's a simpler explanation.

Will update after we see it again.

John

[Guest]

Re: How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?

Something that I don't think has been yet mentioned with regard to the overall pitch of organs is that instruments installed before the energy crisis of the late '70s and '80s were in churches that were routinely heated to a higher temperature. When energy costs rose so dramatically, many churches lowered their thermostats. Lower temperature = lower pitch.

[soubasse32]

Re: How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?



It is a big mistake to assume an old organ should be at A440.

An old organ typically has large-scaled pipework, save for the string stops; if you trimlarge-scale pipes youwill make them more flutey. More flutey means they will be harder to tune in the treble. The whole organ will change character as it goes sharper and pipes are cut down - it will get louder and start sounding more like a calliope.

Insuch acaseI would be inclined to repitch the organ at A435, which was more close to standard for a very old organ. Itmight cause a bit of a problem if the organ and piano are played together, or if instrumentalists try to play along with the organ.

However, I like to leave an organ at its original pitch - let the others play to IT. It seems undignified to cut down pipes on an organ that hassurvived atoriginal pitchfor nearly(or more than)a century - why repitch it NOW?

[Havoc]

Re: How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?

In such a case I would be inclined to repitch the organ at A435, which was more close to standard for a very old organ. It might cause a bit of a problem if the organ and piano are played together, or if instrumentalists try to play along with the organ.

Most instrument player that are used to tune their own instrument (so almost all except piano players) won't have much problem with this. And if the piano is tuned to the organ then there is no problem at all.

As mentioned, the public will have no clue at all except those few blessed (?) with absolute pitch. The rest is just atonal and follows whatever is leading.

[Guest]

Re: How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?



Hi

Trebles being a little flat shouldn't be even noticed by most of the congregation. One point is that if the toes were closed down previously for voicing purposes, that will lower the pitch somewhat, perhaps enough to make it untunable to 440 pitch. I would just carefully lower the slider, then snip a little off the end.

Al

[Guest]

Re: How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?

Another "feature" of colder churches (see my post above) is different stratification. If the trebles of a formerly well-tuned organ are flat of the basses, suspect a lower temperature. The trebles, being short, are down in cooler air. The basses, being tall, act like chimneys and can set up a draft, noticeable to anyone by the mouths of 16' open pipes under such circumstances.

[Guest]

Re: How out of tune is acceptable in a pipe organ?



On one of the instruments in my care, I have to do a "creative de-tune" in the summer, as one division is right up against the church roof, and the other division is below it on the chancel floor (it's a small church).  I have to set the upper level at -10 cents below the pitch oh the lower level right at 11:00 a.m., and tune everything to the first rank, as by 12 noon the upper level will be roughly +10 cents off of the lower level!  (Thank goodness there aren't any reeds up top!!!) 

Otto P.