A reed pipe (also referred to as a lingual pipe) is an organ pipe that is sounded by a vibrating brass strip known as a reed . Air under pressure (referred to as wind) 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.
Reed pipes include all stops of the "Reed" class, and some stops from the "Hybrid" class. The reed stops of an organ are collectively called the "reed-work". [1]
A reed pipe comprises a metal tongue (the reed) which rests against a shallot, in which is carved a tunnel. The reed and shallot are held in place by a wooden wedge. This assembly protrudes from the underside of the block and hangs down into the boot. A tuning wire is inserted through the boot and is bent to hold the reed against the shallot. The wire is moved up or down using a tuning knife in order to change the length of the tongue that is permitted to vibrate, thereby changing the pitch produced by the pipe. The resonator joins with the upper opening of the shallot and extends above the boot. The resonator may be made in a wide variety of lengths, shapes, and configurations, depending on the desired tone quality.
An en chamade is a specific type of reed which is mounted horizontally on the organ case rather than stood vertically inside the organ case. [2] This is done to project the tone more directly at the listener. In cases where this cannot be done, hooded reeds (generally trumpets) are used. This method of construction projects the sound in the same manner with a vertical resonator which turns at a 90-degree angle at the top. [2]
In places where a full-length resonator will not fit, a technique called mitering is used, wherein organ pipes are created so that instead of standing straight up, they appear to make a loop in the middle of the resonator. This is done by joining several small pieces of metal together. [2]
As wind enters the boot, it travels over the reed, causing it to vibrate against the shallot. This produces the pipe's sound. The wind passes through the shallot and up into the resonator, which focuses and refines the sound wave produced by the reed. The length of the air column as well as the length, mass, and stiffness of the reed itself, determine the frequency of the instrument. [3]
A less-common type of reed construction is the free reed. The term refers to two types of reeds where the tongue does not beat directly against the shallot in order to produce the reed tone, which creates a unique sound (these are most commonly used on nineteenth-century German or French organs). In one case, the free reed stop will appear from the outside like a normal reed (complete with boot, tuning wire, and resonator, etc.). The only difference lies in the action of the tongue (see above), which beats "through" the shallot (hence the German term for the reed — durchschlagend). In the other form of the reed, an enclosed boot does not exist (as in normal reed pipes); therefore, all the tongues are held together in the same chamber, as in the harmonica, accordion, or harmonium. This arrangement makes it possible to change the volume produced without changing its pitch by varying the wind pressure, which is not possible with normal organ pipes. Volume adjustment was available to the organist by means of a balanced expression pedal which varied the wind pressure delivered to the free reed stop. This type of free reed was popular among certain organ builders of the nineteenth century due to the increased interest in a more expressive aesthetic.
The tonal characteristics of reed pipes are determined by several factors, the most important of which is the interaction between the shallot and the tongue. The thickness and curve of the tongue itself play an important role in determining the tonal quality of the pipe. When voicing a reed pipe, the voicer will take great care in shaping the curve of the tongue, because this controls how the tongue beats against the shallot. Whether the shallot is cylindrical or tapered (and, in the latter case, whether or not the taper is inverted) greatly affects the pipe's timbre. Likewise, the "cut" (referring to the depth of the shallot and the shape of the opening) and the closed-end shape (whether the closed end of the shallot is flat, domed, or Schiffschen) determine whether the tone is more Baroque or more Romantic. In addition, the type of block (whether a standard shape or a French "double-block") in which the reed assembly is set has an effect on the sound.
Scaling is important when determining the final tone color of a reed pipe, though it is not of primary importance as it is in flue pipe construction. This is because reed pipe resonators simply reinforce certain partials of the sound wave; the air column inside the resonator is not the primary vibrator. The shape of the resonator, however, is quite important: an inverted-conical resonator (such as is typical with a Trumpet rank) produces more harmonics than does a cylindrical resonator (like that of a Clarinet rank).
There are generally two main types of reed stops: chorus reeds (such as the Trumpet, Clairon and Bombarde), whose main function is to blend with the flue stops and reinforce the full organ; and solo reeds or orchestral reeds (such as the Clarinet, the Oboe, and the Cor Anglais), which often (but not always) imitate orchestral instruments, and are used for quieter, solo passages (similar to woodwinds in an orchestra).
Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments.
A reed is a thin strip of material that vibrates to produce a sound on a musical instrument. Most woodwind instrument reeds are made from Arundo donax or synthetic material. Tuned reeds are made of metal or synthetics. Musical instruments are classified according to the type and number of reeds.
Hornbostel–Sachs or Sachs–Hornbostel is a system of musical instrument classification devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, and first published in the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914. An English translation was published in the Galpin Society Journal in 1961. It is the most widely used system for classifying musical instruments by ethnomusicologists and organologists. The system was updated in 2011 as part of the work of the Musical Instrument Museums Online (MIMO) Project.
An aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes, and without the vibration of the instrument itself adding considerably to the sound.
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, volume, and construction 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 sheng is a Chinese mouth-blown polyphonic free reed instrument consisting of vertical pipes.
A free reed aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound as air flows past a vibrating reed in a frame. Air pressure is typically generated by breath or with a bellows. In the Hornbostel–Sachs system, it is number: 412.13. Free reed instruments are contrasted with non-free or enclosed reed instruments, where the timbre is fully or partially dependent on the shape of the instrument body, Hornbostel–Sachs number: 42.
Overblowing is the manipulation of supplied air through a wind instrument that causes the sounded pitch to jump to a higher one without a fingering change or the operation of a slide. Overblowing may involve a change in the air pressure, in the point at which the air is directed, or in the resonance characteristics of the chamber formed by the mouth and throat of the player.
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 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, in a pipe organ. 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.
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 musical instrument known as the regal or regalle is a small portable organ, furnished with beating reeds and having two bellows. The instrument enjoyed its greatest popularity during the Renaissance. The name "regal" was also sometimes given to the reed stops of a pipe organ, and more especially to the vox humana stop.
Helmholtz resonance, also known as wind throb, refers to the phenomenon of air resonance in a cavity, an effect named after the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz. This type of resonance occurs when air is forced in and out of a cavity, causing the air inside to vibrate at a specific natural frequency. The principle is widely observable in everyday life, notably when blowing across the top of a bottle, resulting in a resonant tone.
A single-reed instrument is a woodwind instrument that uses only one reed to produce sound. The very earliest single-reed instruments were documented in ancient Egypt, as well as the Middle East, Greece, and the Roman Empire. The earliest types of single-reed instruments used idioglottal reeds, where the vibrating reed is a tongue cut and shaped on the tube of cane. Much later, single-reed instruments started using heteroglottal reeds, where a reed is cut and separated from the tube of cane and attached to a mouthpiece of some sort. By contrast, in a double reed instrument, there is no mouthpiece; the two parts of the reed vibrate against one another. Reeds are traditionally made of cane and produce sound when air is blown across or through them. The type of instruments that use a single reed are clarinets and saxophone. The timbre of a single and double reed instrument is related to the harmonic series caused by the shape of the corpus. E.g. the clarinet is only including the odd harmonics due to air column modes canceling out the even harmonics. This may be compared to the timbre of a square wave.
The Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ, known also as the Midmer-Losh and the Poseidon, is the pipe organ in the Main Auditorium of the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, built by the Midmer-Losh Organ Company. It is the largest organ in the world, as measured by the number of pipes.
This article describes the process and techniques involved in the tuning of a pipe organ. Electronic organs typically do not require tuning.
A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitch of the vibration is determined by the length of the tube and by manual modifications of the effective length of the vibrating column of air. In the case of some wind instruments, sound is produced by blowing through a reed; others require buzzing into a metal mouthpiece, while yet others require the player to blow into a hole at an edge, which splits the air column and creates the sound.
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.
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