Need tips for tuning the pipe organ

[Viol 8]

Anybody who is willing to give it to me online?

The story is, I'm for time in that country, and found this small 20 rank organ. It's old, something is not working (I'll post the disposition if needed) and it's builders doesn't care (it was difficult to find them also bc the organ has no info on it). The church pays for these foreigners to come once a year.

Found a few pipes out of tune + a few are blowing air silently, no sound. These are main minor issues i want to fix. I tune a piano and play both, but not professionally.

So what stick i should use? And how to fix at least silent pipes better? This is the issue i didnt find any info about. Never done it myself yet. Though i watched videos and read about it.

[Coenraads]

You might find the article I wrote for Organ Canada useful:

https://sites.google.com/site/casava...a-tuning-part1

https://sites.google.com/site/casava...-tuning-part-2

John

[aeolian pat]

O.K. I've held of as long as I can. In my opinion I would say don't.

If you must, as stated in the a-tuning, don't grab other pipes for support they are made of very soft metal .They can can be damaged even by a light coat dragging against them.
If you must, there are two types of tuners, one is coning closed or the opening of the top of a pipe ( you should not try this method! ) and the other is raising or lowering a sleeve that surrounds the top of the pipe, one other method (rarer) of tuning a sealed pipe like a quintade, is by opening or closing the space between the ears on either side of the mouth, they will be very large.
If you should hold a pipe you must let it return to room temperature before tuning it. Longer is lower, shorter is higher.

One tunes slides with a heavy flat metal bar, the weight of the bar allows the energy to be transfer by a slight tap, sharply up or down, to the slide. Just run the bar parallel to the pipe.Some times a pipe may jump up, this is not unusual.
Wood pipes are tuned by raising or lowering a metal flap on open pipes, or twisting up or down of the cap on metal stopped pipes, or rocking back and forth on the wood stopper of wood pipes. Wood stoppers if they are dried out and shrink, can fall into the (larger) wood pipe. (usual offenders have a rope tied to them) They can also be stuck in place.

Organs are tuned by setting the temperament of the 4 foot great principal and tuning all other pipes to it. The 4 principal or octave is usually very stable You should not try and set a new temperament.

The bottom octaves of loud reeds are usually tuned to their own octave. I would leave the reeds to a more practiced hand. They can be damaged easily.

I'm assuming that this organ is from the early 1900 by your description. Kazakhstan seems an odd place to find a pipe organ, I see that there may be seven organs there. I know that there are Cavaille-Coll's in Russia.

Silent pipes may just be sitting off their valve or they may have been pulled because the valve won't close and the pipe speaks all of the time. If you hear a constant sheet of wind below a pipe that your not playing you could stick a heavy piece of paper between the top of the chest and the pipe so as to quiet the air noise.

You have to chose to tune or not, but less is better. If it's close to tuned leave it.

Regards
Pat.

PS> Never squeeze the mouth or try to alter the mouth of the pipe.

[myorgan]

Organs are tuned by setting the temperament of the 4 foot great principal and tuning all other pipes to it. The 4 principal or octave is usually very stable and you should not [sic?] try and set a temperament.

aeolian pat,

By any chance, did you mean something else? This sentence appears to contradict the prior sentence. If you miss the 24-hour window, I can change it for you, if you wish.

Michael

[Coenraads]

aeolian pat makes an excellent point about not touching the temperament of an existing organ, unless one is prepared to retune the whole instrument, a major undertaking and almost never done.

Thus it is important to know the organ's temperament before attempting to tune it with a visual tuner so that one can select the correct one from the menu offered by most tuners. Otherwise tune to the 4' principal and hope it has remained untouched. But what does one do when faced with tuning an organ whose temperament you do not know except that it is not equal?

This led to another article in Organ Canada which you can find on my website. And if you are curious about temperaments in general, this article may answer some of your questions.

https://sites.google.com/site/casava...-a-temperament

John

[Conacher]

I'll make two comments.

First, I agree with the comment made by others that you should not attempt to reset the temperament of the organ.

Secondly, there can be a number of reasons why a pipe is silent and you can hear only the movement of air. The simple solution in some cases is simply to replace a pipe that has been dislodged from its hole in the top of the wind chest. There are other potential causes but they require revoicing the pipe (typically making changes around the mouth opening). That is a skilled task and there is real risk of damaging the pipe if it is not done properly.

As an aside, when I worked for a pipe organ builder during my summers as a university student, I learned how to set an equal temperament by ear. It can be done but requires training and experience.

[Coenraads]

Or, try a fun challenge setting an equal temperament without training or experience. Starting from first principles, and using only an A 440 tuning fork, a calculator and a piece of paper, calculate the frequencies of the octaves above and below A 440 along with their second and third harmonics. Peruse this list and connect the frequencies of the harmonics that are within a few Hertz of each other. The intervals and the tuning order will quickly become apparent.

I tried this once, successfully, with my first harpsichord but have used tuners ever since.