I have formally proposed the WikiProject Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Pipe Organ. Please add your name to the interested list and lets see if we can get this off the ground. Mdcollins1984 10:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Basically its a good article, but you are left with the impression that a typical organ is a 5 manual American/English organ. I think more focus/material on the German/French/Spanish/Danish... mechanical organs would be interesting and fair, both showing baroque and modern work. Also all consoles are the biggies - what about showing a baroque keyboard or some of Bernard Aubertins neo baroque organs? or the work of Carsten Lund (Denmark). Erik Kristiansen-- 80.164.17.212 21:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Not to sound like a snob, but shouldn't this section only refer to the use of actual pipe organs in popular music? Mentioning synthesizers and such in passing is fine, but it needs to stay focused on pipe organs. It seems to me that the material on the electronic organ in popular music should be transferred to that article or the organ (music) article instead. There is already a good foundation in both of those articles. If the article needs it, we could flesh out the section with actual pipe organs in popular music before the synthesizer days. Unfortunately that was before my time, so I don't know how frequently it was ever used. It's a big change, so I'd like to see if there is consensus first. -- W0lfie 17:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Another concern I have (other than the section above) is regarding the notable organ list on this page. It seems to me to be an ever growing list of what pertains to be a paragraph on every organ that has it's own article. What do others feel about this?
Mdcollins1984 23:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I've removed the notable organs to a semi-sorted List of notable pipe organs page. Slims the article down quite a bit! Mdcollins1984 00:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with the drastic removal of external links by Mdcollins1984, in particular "Pipedreams". It is an excellent link with the most comprehensive archived organ music online that I know of. The AGO has given Michael Barone a well-deserved award for Pipedreams – why in the world would you want to delete it?
I've put Pipedreams back in, along with the accurate list of largest pipe organs, which is certainly relevant and important to this subject. Why replace it with a very outdated one? Oriole fan 16:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
The Construction section of this article is bloated and disorganized. I attempted to rectify this by moving the subsections around to put the major subsections in the same order as the summary of the section that appears right under the Construction header.
All this came about because I attempted to do major cleanup on the Organ stop article, and ran into a wall: I'd have to write almost everything under the Pipes, Ranks, and Stops subsection at this article to make Organ stop comprehensive. That's silly. So, I went over to Pipe organ and stared at it for a while. After making the edits I detailed above, I thought I'd make a plea that we actively do something about the bloat in this article. The whole article is 63k; the Construction section alone is 40k!
Maybe we should move all of the information in Pipes, Ranks, and Stops, for example, into Organ stop and Organ pipe (then perhaps merge those two articles together). Then we could follow that example with the other sections, (though not completely blindly, of course). That might revoke our good article status for a while, since it would significantly change the nature of the article, but I believe that this kind of action could eventually lead to this article becoming featured at some point in the future. Thoughts, anyone? — Cor anglais 16 ( talk) 22:35, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
This article was classified as a good article in October of last year ( reviewed version). The article has significantly changed since then. Is it necessary for it to be re-reviewed for GA status if we want to move it into the featured article review process? Does anyone think the article is even ready for a FA review? I think it's come a long way in the last few months, and with some more cleanup, FA is a distinct possibility. — Cor anglais 16 05:14, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
The "Common uses of pipe organs" section seems to be short. It was taken out of the old lead; however, I feel like it doesn't belong either in its own section or in the lead.
The "See also" section is also quite short and somewhat useless… it contains three lists and a link to Mechanical organ, which doesn't really add anything of value to the information here. I feel bad deleting the section, though… can we flesh it out, or incorporate its links into the article?
Also, the paragraph at the end of the "Digital (pipeless) organs" section is focused on the inadequacies of the digital 32′ stop. I think no violence would be done if this information weren't present (though the first part of the paragraph, about the use of digital pedal ranks to supplement pipes, should certainly remain)… does this really belong in the article? — Cor anglais 16 04:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Speaking of things to delete, I have been bold and deleted the "Pitch" section of this article. The first paragraph had nothing to do with the organ or the article and everything to do instead with pitch. I looked at Pitch (music) and it seemed like everything was there, but to be safe I removed the first paragraph to Organ tuning. The second paragraph was removed to the "Keyboards" section of Organ console. If someone thinks that this was too bold, go ahead and revert. — Cor anglais 16 00:50, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
quote: "an organ with four keyboards is said to have four manuals". Is it? To my mind four keyboards would mean 3 manuals+pedals, and keyboard is not synonymous with manual.
Any views, or can I change it?
Also, can anyone find a reference/list for the most common manual config? We have a sentence saying 2M+P is the most common, but needs a reference or else should be deleted as we are pushing towards FA.
– MDCollins ( talk) 09:01, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
I've still had no luck finding a decent citation for the common configuration. I've removed the first issue about manual/keyboard by slightly re-writing the section. – MDCollins ( talk) 10:43, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Unless I'm missing it, we don't mention pipes en chamade (i.e. horizontal and protruding from the case, especially common in the Spanish style). Would this be better under Pipes or Casing? Barnabypage 13:52, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Should we make it clearer that the "historically-inspired instruments" we speak of in the mid-C20 are generally inspired by pre-Romantic instruments? At the moment the novice reader of the article could, I think, take away the impression that all organs since the Romantic era are still characterised by Romantic innovations such as higher wind pressure and "greater variations in sound and texture". The subject is a can of worms, I know! Barnabypage 20:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
The only recurring objection in the ongoing FAC review (despite the fact that only one person is reviewing the article) seems to be the prose. The reviewer keeps admonishing us to arrange for a copyedit from a reliable copyeditor. I've searched the classical music featured articles (there aren't many) and have not been able to find a copyeditor who hasn't left Wikipedia. Maybe we should add the article to the League of Copyeditors' queue? I'll be out of town until July 16, so I'm not really available to do much for a few days, but I wanted to check with the project before calling in the League of Copyeditors. — Cor anglais 16 16:57, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
I proposed this merger because Extension organ seems to me to be unnecessary. Everything that is necessary to say about extension, borrowing, and unification is already said in this article. — Cor anglais 16 05:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
1. I'm concerned about the para beginning "The visual arrangement of pipes in the façade", not least because we haven't defined "mouth" anywhere, and because I think readers unfamiliar with the subject will have a hard time visualising the three kinds of pipe movement in the facade. Could we use pictures of all three, or would that be over-egging the pudding?
2. We don't, to my surprise, mention the term "chamber organ" anywhere (although it redirects to Organ (music)). We should at least define it, and clarify that it has nothing to do with organ chambers. Has anyone got a good, concise, attributable definition? Barnabypage 20:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Also: before you get to stuck into the history, when you get to that long screed/waffle about the Iberian instruments (Renaissance and Baroque), just consider reverting it all. It was written by User:Juggernaught w and is certainly not in keeping with the style of the article. Had it been there when Cor and myself trimmed the article it would probably have gone. – MDCollins ( talk) 21:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
By the late medieval period, pipe organs were installed as permanent fixtures in buildings. At this time there were no sophisticated stop controls: the organist could either play on a single 8′ Principal stop or on the entire tonal resources of the organ (called the Blockwerk). In some cases, the Blockwerk comprised a very large number of ranks ranging from 16′ pitch all the way through 1′ pitch and higher.
In 1361, the first documented 'permanent' organ was installed in Halberstadt, Germany. [1] The chromatic keyboard, such as we see today, was used for the first time; the organ had three manuals and a pedalboard, although the keys were wider than on modern instruments. [2] The organ had 20 bellows worked by 10 men, and the wind pressure was so strong that the player had to use the full power of his arm to hold down a key. [1] It had no stop controls; each manual controlled several ranks at multiple pitches, called the Blockwerk. [2] This organ is commemorated in the performance of John Cage's Organ²/ASLSP, due to take 639 years.
(a) I've done some fairly extensive rewriting on the Repertoire section to avoid the long direct quotations.
(b) I think it might be worth pointing out that (with the obvious exception of Bach) few composers who have contributed extensively to the organ literature are household names, and similarly few of the household-name composers have written much for organ - i.e. the repertoire is to some extent dominated by 'organ specialists'. Do we have a reference we could cite in this respect? Barnabypage 20:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I've given this my tweak now, I'll request a read through from the WP:LOCE although Barnaby has done most of this legwork. I've reorganised the sections again - does it all follow through ok? The visual layout of the pics has been doctored too. I'm happy with it. – MDCollins ( talk) 12:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Its not just classical music that is played on a pipe organ, film scores can be played, pop music as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.145.242.49 ( talk) 14:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
October 19, 2008 (I believe) has been selected as the "International Day of the Organ." There is effort underway to promote the organ during 2008 (selected as the "Year of the Organ") and to put on the world's largest organ recital on October 19. I think we should do our best to get Pipe organ to FA status and to get it featured on the homepage on October 19, 2008. Thoughts? — Cor anglais 16 17:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I have formally proposed the WikiProject Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Pipe Organ. Please add your name to the interested list and lets see if we can get this off the ground. Mdcollins1984 10:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Basically its a good article, but you are left with the impression that a typical organ is a 5 manual American/English organ. I think more focus/material on the German/French/Spanish/Danish... mechanical organs would be interesting and fair, both showing baroque and modern work. Also all consoles are the biggies - what about showing a baroque keyboard or some of Bernard Aubertins neo baroque organs? or the work of Carsten Lund (Denmark). Erik Kristiansen-- 80.164.17.212 21:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Not to sound like a snob, but shouldn't this section only refer to the use of actual pipe organs in popular music? Mentioning synthesizers and such in passing is fine, but it needs to stay focused on pipe organs. It seems to me that the material on the electronic organ in popular music should be transferred to that article or the organ (music) article instead. There is already a good foundation in both of those articles. If the article needs it, we could flesh out the section with actual pipe organs in popular music before the synthesizer days. Unfortunately that was before my time, so I don't know how frequently it was ever used. It's a big change, so I'd like to see if there is consensus first. -- W0lfie 17:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Another concern I have (other than the section above) is regarding the notable organ list on this page. It seems to me to be an ever growing list of what pertains to be a paragraph on every organ that has it's own article. What do others feel about this?
Mdcollins1984 23:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I've removed the notable organs to a semi-sorted List of notable pipe organs page. Slims the article down quite a bit! Mdcollins1984 00:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with the drastic removal of external links by Mdcollins1984, in particular "Pipedreams". It is an excellent link with the most comprehensive archived organ music online that I know of. The AGO has given Michael Barone a well-deserved award for Pipedreams – why in the world would you want to delete it?
I've put Pipedreams back in, along with the accurate list of largest pipe organs, which is certainly relevant and important to this subject. Why replace it with a very outdated one? Oriole fan 16:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
The Construction section of this article is bloated and disorganized. I attempted to rectify this by moving the subsections around to put the major subsections in the same order as the summary of the section that appears right under the Construction header.
All this came about because I attempted to do major cleanup on the Organ stop article, and ran into a wall: I'd have to write almost everything under the Pipes, Ranks, and Stops subsection at this article to make Organ stop comprehensive. That's silly. So, I went over to Pipe organ and stared at it for a while. After making the edits I detailed above, I thought I'd make a plea that we actively do something about the bloat in this article. The whole article is 63k; the Construction section alone is 40k!
Maybe we should move all of the information in Pipes, Ranks, and Stops, for example, into Organ stop and Organ pipe (then perhaps merge those two articles together). Then we could follow that example with the other sections, (though not completely blindly, of course). That might revoke our good article status for a while, since it would significantly change the nature of the article, but I believe that this kind of action could eventually lead to this article becoming featured at some point in the future. Thoughts, anyone? — Cor anglais 16 ( talk) 22:35, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
This article was classified as a good article in October of last year ( reviewed version). The article has significantly changed since then. Is it necessary for it to be re-reviewed for GA status if we want to move it into the featured article review process? Does anyone think the article is even ready for a FA review? I think it's come a long way in the last few months, and with some more cleanup, FA is a distinct possibility. — Cor anglais 16 05:14, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
The "Common uses of pipe organs" section seems to be short. It was taken out of the old lead; however, I feel like it doesn't belong either in its own section or in the lead.
The "See also" section is also quite short and somewhat useless… it contains three lists and a link to Mechanical organ, which doesn't really add anything of value to the information here. I feel bad deleting the section, though… can we flesh it out, or incorporate its links into the article?
Also, the paragraph at the end of the "Digital (pipeless) organs" section is focused on the inadequacies of the digital 32′ stop. I think no violence would be done if this information weren't present (though the first part of the paragraph, about the use of digital pedal ranks to supplement pipes, should certainly remain)… does this really belong in the article? — Cor anglais 16 04:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Speaking of things to delete, I have been bold and deleted the "Pitch" section of this article. The first paragraph had nothing to do with the organ or the article and everything to do instead with pitch. I looked at Pitch (music) and it seemed like everything was there, but to be safe I removed the first paragraph to Organ tuning. The second paragraph was removed to the "Keyboards" section of Organ console. If someone thinks that this was too bold, go ahead and revert. — Cor anglais 16 00:50, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
quote: "an organ with four keyboards is said to have four manuals". Is it? To my mind four keyboards would mean 3 manuals+pedals, and keyboard is not synonymous with manual.
Any views, or can I change it?
Also, can anyone find a reference/list for the most common manual config? We have a sentence saying 2M+P is the most common, but needs a reference or else should be deleted as we are pushing towards FA.
– MDCollins ( talk) 09:01, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
I've still had no luck finding a decent citation for the common configuration. I've removed the first issue about manual/keyboard by slightly re-writing the section. – MDCollins ( talk) 10:43, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Unless I'm missing it, we don't mention pipes en chamade (i.e. horizontal and protruding from the case, especially common in the Spanish style). Would this be better under Pipes or Casing? Barnabypage 13:52, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Should we make it clearer that the "historically-inspired instruments" we speak of in the mid-C20 are generally inspired by pre-Romantic instruments? At the moment the novice reader of the article could, I think, take away the impression that all organs since the Romantic era are still characterised by Romantic innovations such as higher wind pressure and "greater variations in sound and texture". The subject is a can of worms, I know! Barnabypage 20:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
The only recurring objection in the ongoing FAC review (despite the fact that only one person is reviewing the article) seems to be the prose. The reviewer keeps admonishing us to arrange for a copyedit from a reliable copyeditor. I've searched the classical music featured articles (there aren't many) and have not been able to find a copyeditor who hasn't left Wikipedia. Maybe we should add the article to the League of Copyeditors' queue? I'll be out of town until July 16, so I'm not really available to do much for a few days, but I wanted to check with the project before calling in the League of Copyeditors. — Cor anglais 16 16:57, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
I proposed this merger because Extension organ seems to me to be unnecessary. Everything that is necessary to say about extension, borrowing, and unification is already said in this article. — Cor anglais 16 05:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
1. I'm concerned about the para beginning "The visual arrangement of pipes in the façade", not least because we haven't defined "mouth" anywhere, and because I think readers unfamiliar with the subject will have a hard time visualising the three kinds of pipe movement in the facade. Could we use pictures of all three, or would that be over-egging the pudding?
2. We don't, to my surprise, mention the term "chamber organ" anywhere (although it redirects to Organ (music)). We should at least define it, and clarify that it has nothing to do with organ chambers. Has anyone got a good, concise, attributable definition? Barnabypage 20:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Also: before you get to stuck into the history, when you get to that long screed/waffle about the Iberian instruments (Renaissance and Baroque), just consider reverting it all. It was written by User:Juggernaught w and is certainly not in keeping with the style of the article. Had it been there when Cor and myself trimmed the article it would probably have gone. – MDCollins ( talk) 21:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
By the late medieval period, pipe organs were installed as permanent fixtures in buildings. At this time there were no sophisticated stop controls: the organist could either play on a single 8′ Principal stop or on the entire tonal resources of the organ (called the Blockwerk). In some cases, the Blockwerk comprised a very large number of ranks ranging from 16′ pitch all the way through 1′ pitch and higher.
In 1361, the first documented 'permanent' organ was installed in Halberstadt, Germany. [1] The chromatic keyboard, such as we see today, was used for the first time; the organ had three manuals and a pedalboard, although the keys were wider than on modern instruments. [2] The organ had 20 bellows worked by 10 men, and the wind pressure was so strong that the player had to use the full power of his arm to hold down a key. [1] It had no stop controls; each manual controlled several ranks at multiple pitches, called the Blockwerk. [2] This organ is commemorated in the performance of John Cage's Organ²/ASLSP, due to take 639 years.
(a) I've done some fairly extensive rewriting on the Repertoire section to avoid the long direct quotations.
(b) I think it might be worth pointing out that (with the obvious exception of Bach) few composers who have contributed extensively to the organ literature are household names, and similarly few of the household-name composers have written much for organ - i.e. the repertoire is to some extent dominated by 'organ specialists'. Do we have a reference we could cite in this respect? Barnabypage 20:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I've given this my tweak now, I'll request a read through from the WP:LOCE although Barnaby has done most of this legwork. I've reorganised the sections again - does it all follow through ok? The visual layout of the pics has been doctored too. I'm happy with it. – MDCollins ( talk) 12:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Its not just classical music that is played on a pipe organ, film scores can be played, pop music as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.145.242.49 ( talk) 14:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
October 19, 2008 (I believe) has been selected as the "International Day of the Organ." There is effort underway to promote the organ during 2008 (selected as the "Year of the Organ") and to put on the world's largest organ recital on October 19. I think we should do our best to get Pipe organ to FA status and to get it featured on the homepage on October 19, 2008. Thoughts? — Cor anglais 16 17:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)