great, now that we have all that excitement out of the way, we can get down to the boring-err, very important and informative... stuff? that we are supposed to be writing about.
Also, a technical note: due to technical problems, involving my lack of internet, my roomate's not lack of internet and a flying space-monkey (don't ask, the whole situation is rather confusing), I am unable to post my photo's with my text. Therefore, I will post two separate articles, one on my thoughts, other with photos.
And now if you will raise your seatbacks to the upright position, and raise your tray tables up, we will begin making our descent from the air of my brain to actually talking about important things like....
THE REUTER ORGAN COMPANY
I have very little interest in mass production. It is great for toothbrushes and staplers. I don't want to build those. And so, to visit a company that creates these massive structures unique to each location in house from start to finish was an inspiration. How unique each of their pieces fit each client's needs declares their excellence of craft. And what the heck-I love classical music!
Within the first few minutes of our tour, we learned that very little has changed since the invention of the modern pipe organ (Organs have apparently been around since the Greeks, but the organ we know today was pioneered in the 1700's). Main changes include the use of electricity to power the system, an idea which the Reuter company pioneered in 1917. The client base has remained static as well, as the main consumers of organs are firstly Churches, and then concert halls, universities, and occasionally very rich private owners.
Organs are highly complex systems. The Keys that are played are simply a tiny fraction of all the movements happening behind the shutters. Those keys are housed in the console, the cockpit of the organ. The modern organ uses electrical signals sent down fiberoptic wire to trigger sound. The signals travel to the wind chest and reservoir. The signal triggers a specific flap to release air into a single pipe, which then produces a tone.
For every specific sound an organ makes, 60 separate pipes must be manufactured. Larger organs can house up to 50 sets of pipes, making for thousands of pipes in each organ.
The housing, cockpit, resivoir, etc. are all made of wood. For the wind chest, Poplar wood is used because of it's lack of knots, better for holding in air. Outsides and finishing woods vary upon color and taste.
All the wood is stored in house, where it is milled per project. It is then taken to the shop to be finished. More complicated work, such as the holes cut for the wind-chest and the ornamental work are cut with a CNC router, which apparently sounds like a jet taking off, so you know the thing is damn cool.
Reuter Organ company is the only company to still produce their own organ keys. All are a base layer of wood, and are then overlayed in plastic, bone or finished as plain wood.
Pipes that are over four feet long are rolled sheets of either copper or zinc, and finished with either automotive paint, varnish, or specifically for copper, flamed (a technique which includes exposing the copper to flame) smaller pipes are fashioned from a smelting of lead and tin, done in shop using a floating method. Pipes are all fashioned by hand, due to the difference in size of each pipe.
The final variant is valves, which are fashioned from sheep leather. These valves attach the pipe to the reservoir The reservoir is also lined with kangaroo leather, which stretches in two directions.
In the final stages, the whole organ is constructed in house for a trial run, and then deconstructed and shipped to its new home.
Aren't organs cool? I'm done.
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