Definition

Introduction

The word "organ," as so many words in English, has different meanings depending on the context in which it is used. Even within a musical context, "organ" can be indefinite in its connotations. This liberal use of the word is found not only in English but also in Greek and Latin writings, where organon and organum were used to mean variously ¹

• a musical instrument generically.
• the specific instrument we recognize today as the pipe organ.
• a type of composition for voices.

Even if one considers the English word in its application to a specific musical instrument, it has different connotations to different readers. To some it conjures up visions of ornate displays of pipes arranged in beautiful cases, with the keyboards almost never seen by most who enter the building.⁹

Others think only of an elaborate console, with row upon row of keyboards, buttons, switches and knobs visible to the eye, but not a pipe in sight.¹⁰

In many cases, instruments that are referred to as "organs" do not even have pipes, but produce their sound through electronic reproduction of pipe sounds.

In the face of all this confusion, it is necessary to make a decision as to what the "organ" really is. Many writers - - of dictionaries, encyclopedias, and textbooks - - have given accurate definitions of the organ as a specific musical instrument. For the purposes of this tutorial, the word is used as it has been by recent writers Willi Apel ² and Peter Williams.³ That is, the organ is a musical instrument in which:

• the sound is produced by air flowing through pipes.
• the air is under controlled pressure (commonly referred to as wind) that has been mechanically generated.
• one or more sets of pipes are placed on a chest which stores the pressurized air.
• the entrance of air into those pipes is controlled by a player operating one or more keyboards.

Instruments not included in this definition

• Mouth organ. In several Asian cultures, the instrument called in various cultures sho, sheng, khaen or other names has some resemblance to the organ, and it, along with the similar "syrinx," is an older instrument that the organ.⁴ Although these instruments have pipes set in a small container for wind, that wind is not mechanically generated or controlled, nor do these instruments have a keyboard.
  

• Harmonium. The harmonium differs from an organ chiefly in its sound-producing element. Although its sound is controlled by at least one keyboard, and air under either positive or negative pressure is used to produce the sound, there are no pipes in a "pump organ." The photograph to the left shows a small harmonium of the type built in the United States as a parlor instrument in the late nineteenth century.⁶⁹ The two large pedals are used to operate the wind mechanism, which draws air under negative pressure through a reed-box. European instruments usually work in the opposite way, forcing air under positive pressure over the reeds.


• Electronic organs. Electronic organs allow the performer to control the sound through keyboards, but the sound itself is produced electronically through a system of amplifiers and speakers. Although these instruments can be used very well in performing organ music, and although technologically they are able to reproduce the sounds of pipes with increasing faithfulness to the originals, their place in the history of the organ must be excluded in this tutorial. This exclusion applies to instruments that generate sound through
• rotating sound wheels, as in the Hammond
• analogue sound reproduction, as in many instruments produced in the third quarter of the twentieth century, notably those by both the Rodgers and the Allen organ companies.
• Digital instruments that store and retrieve sounds through more modern means.
• Synthesizers. These instruments are excluded on the same basis as electronic organs. In both cases, the sound is produced by a system of amplifiers and speakers, but a synthesizer is not limited to the reproduction of sounds produced on a pipe instrument.

Additional Characteristics

According to the definition given above, an organ must have several specific components. In practice, these required components take a variety of forms. Additionally, organs over the past few centuries have developed other special characteristics which distinguish them. Thus, an organ built in the Netherlands in the sixteenth century has pipes, keyboards, and windchests filled with wind, but the connections between the keyboard and the rest of the instrument differ from those found in a Wurlitzer theater organ built in the 1920's, even though it also has pipes, keyboards, and windchests filled with wind. The two instruments might look and sound different, but they are both organs by the definition.

Since its invention in the second century BCE, the organ has changed and developed in many ways. Its appearance, its size, and its mechanical complexity have altered to reflect not only technological developments but also changing musical aesthetics. To many people, it is the nature of these changes that gives the instrument a special fascination. They do not alter the essential nature of the organ, however. They are simply distinguishing characteristics whose presence or absence distinguishes one type of instrument, or even one specific organ, from another. The additional features include

• the appearance and placement of the components
• the specific nature and number of pipes
• the number of keyboards present
• devices which change timbres
• devices which change dynamics

• To continue with descriptions of the instrument, make a selection from the menu THE ORGAN AND HOW IT WORKS.
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• A short review quiz of material presented on this page.