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Bourdon, bordun, or bordone normally denotes a stopped flute type of flue pipe in an organ characterized by a dark tone, strong in fundamental, with a quint transient but relatively little overtone development. Its half-length construction makes it especially well suited to low pitches, and economical as well. The name is derived from the French word for 'bumblebee' or 'buzz'.
This stop is most commonly found in the manuals and the pedal at 16 ft (4.9 m) pitch. In lower registers, it provides the foundation but does not provide much pitch definition. It is also found in the pedal division at 32 ft (9.8 m) pitch, where its roll of sound can actually shake the building it is installed in. When installed in the pedal division, it is often known as Subbass or Soubasse (Fr.).
The Bourdon is also frequently found at 8 ft (2.4 m), especially in French organs, and is equivalent to the German Gedackt and English Stopped Diapason, which give a similar sound. Although varying between builders, the Bourdon stop is usually fairly soft and neutral, but colorful in the tenor/alto register.
The pipes can be built of wood or metal, but are overwhelmingly constructed of wood in modern organ building (French makers from Cavaillé-Coll on prefer metal). They are thick-walled and generally square in cross-section, with a high mouth cut-up to produce the fluty tone. Bourdon is a stopped pipe, having an airtight stopper fitted into the top. This makes the tone one octave lower than a pipe of open construction (they are only one half the length of an open pipe of the same pitch), and also eliminates the development of even-numbered harmonics ("squaring off" the timbre), helping to create the characteristic tone quality.
This stop is very common in church organs and indeed theatre organs. In an organ so small as to have only one 16 ft (4.9 m) stop in the pedal division, it will almost invariably be a bourdon, as the unassertive tone works well under soft or loud combinations, and blends well with all sounds of the organ.
'Bourdon' has many spellings and German organ builders will often use "Bordun", or even "Untersatz" (typically when it is in the pedals) on the stop knob for this rank. "Subbass" was originally a stop of a somewhat different design than the Bourdon, but the word is accepted today[ citation needed ] as a synonym for a Bourdon in the pedals. The Italian spelling is "Bordone".
The piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when pressed on the keys. Most modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys: 52 white keys for the notes of the C major scale and 36 shorter black keys raised above the white keys and set further back, for sharps and flats. This means that the piano can play 88 different pitches, spanning a range of a bit over seven octaves. The black keys are for the "accidentals", which are needed to play in all twelve keys.
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass. Most organs have many ranks of pipes of differing pitch, timbre, and volume that the player can employ singly or in combination through the use of controls called stops.
The vox humana is a short-resonator reed stop on the pipe organ, so named because of its supposed resemblance to the human voice. As a rule, the stop is used with a tremulant, which undulates the wind supply, causing a vibrato effect. The vox humana is intended to evoke the impression of a singing choir or soloist, though the success of this intent depends as much upon the acoustics of the room in which the organ speaks as it does the voicing of the pipes. It is almost invariably at 8 ft pitch, though on theater organs it is not uncommon to encounter a chorus of vox humana stops at 8 ft and 4 ft pitch, with the addition of a 16 ft acting as a pedal stop.
An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist; each can be "on", or "off".
A pedalboard is a keyboard played with the feet that is usually used to produce the low-pitched bass line of a piece of music. A pedalboard has long, narrow lever-style keys laid out in the same semitone scalar pattern as a manual keyboard, with longer keys for C, D, E, F, G, A and B, and shorter, raised keys for C♯, D♯, F♯, G♯ and A♯. Training in pedal technique is part of standard organ pedagogy in church music and art music.
A theatre organ is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films, from the 1900s to the 1920s.
A manual is a musical keyboard designed to be played with the hands, on an instrument such as a pipe organ, harpsichord, clavichord, electronic organ, melodica, or synthesizer. The term "manual" is used with regard to any hand keyboard on these instruments to distinguish it from the pedalboard, which is a keyboard that the organist plays with their feet. It is proper to use "manual" rather than "keyboard", then, when referring to the hand keyboards on any instrument that has a pedalboard.
A flue pipe is an organ pipe that produces sound through the vibration of air molecules, in the same manner as a recorder or a whistle. Air under pressure is driven through a flue and against a sharp lip called a labium, causing the column of air in the pipe to resonate at a frequency determined by the pipe length. Thus, there are no moving parts in a flue pipe. This is in contrast to reed pipes, whose sound is driven by beating reeds, as in a clarinet. Flue pipes are common components of pipe organs.
An organ pipe is a sound-producing element of the pipe organ that resonates at a specific pitch when pressurized air is driven through it. Each pipe is tuned to a note of the musical scale. A set of organ pipes of similar timbre comprising the complete scale is known as a rank; one or more ranks constitutes a stop.
The Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is the largest fully-functioning pipe organ in the world, based on the number of playing pipes, the number of ranks and its weight. The Wanamaker Organ is located within a spacious 7-story Grand Court at Macy's Center City and is played twice a day Monday through Saturday. The organ is featured at several special concerts held throughout the year, including events featuring the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ Festival Chorus and Brass Ensemble.
A reed pipe is an organ pipe that is sounded by a vibrating brass strip known as a reed. Air under pressure is directed towards the reed, which vibrates at a specific pitch. This is in contrast to flue pipes, which contain no moving parts and produce sound solely through the vibration of air molecules. Reed pipes are common components of pipe organs.
Ophicleide and Contra Ophicleide are powerful pipe organ reed pipes used as organ stops. The name comes from the early brass instrument, the ophicleide, forerunner of the euphonium.
Gedackt is the name of a family of stops in pipe organ building. They are one of the most common types of organ flue pipe. The name stems from the Middle High German word gedact, meaning "capped" or "covered".
This article describes the process and techniques involved in the tuning of a pipe organ. Electronic organs typically do not require tuning.
A Tibia Clausa is a type of pipe organ pipe. It is a large-scale, stopped wood flute pipe, usually with a leathered lip. The rank was invented by Robert Hope-Jones. Tibia Clausas provides the basic foundation tone of the organ with few overtones or harmonics. The Tibia Clausa is arguably the most important rank of pipes in a theatre pipe organ, with some organs having as many as 5. The stop shares similarities with the Bourdon and the Gedackt found in some church pipe organs. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Tibia Clausa was sometimes used as an alternate name for Doppelflöte. Most tibias are made from wood, as by Wurlitzer etc., although examples of metal tibias may be found made by the John Compton Organ Company.
The pipe organ is played from an area called the console or keydesk, which holds the manuals (keyboards), pedals, and stop controls. In electric-action organs, the console is often movable. This allows for greater flexibility in placement of the console for various activities. Some very large organs, such as the van den Heuvel organ at the Church of St. Eustache in Paris, have more than one console, enabling the organ to be played from several locations depending on the nature of the performance.
Registration is the technique of choosing and combining the stops of a pipe organ in order to produce a particular sound. Registration can also refer to a particular combination of stops, which may be recalled through combination action. The registration chosen for a particular piece will be determined by a number of factors, including the composer's indications, the time and place in which the piece was composed, the organ the piece is played upon, and the acoustic environment within which the organ resides.
Casavant Frères Ltée. Opus 1841 is a pipe organ built by the famous Casavant Frères of Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec. The organ was first completed in 1911 as Casavant Brothers - Opus 452 for St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church at 40 Bentinck Street, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada. St. Andrew's later became St. Andrew's United Church and is now the Highland Arts Theatre.
The Haskell organ pipe construction, sometimes known as "Haskelling" is a method of organ construction used when space does not permit the builder to build a full-length pipe. It consists of a shorter tube nested within another shorter tube. This construction, however, subtly alters the tone of the pipe, causing it to adopt a slightly string-like tone. The minimum height of a 16-foot pipe using this technique is around 10 feet.
St Martin and St Meriadoc's Church, Camborne is a Grade I listed parish church in the Church of England in Camborne, Cornwall.