Saturday, March 27, 2010

Recital is in Two Weeks










Rob took pictures for my poster advertising the recital. Here's one from my best side. We might take more pictures with the organ here at home; I wasn't totally happy with the chapel shots.

2 comments:

TH2 said...

I've always wondered - and remember I know nothing about the organ, but what are those white thingamajigees to the upper left/right of the keyboard?

Do they adjust pipes? Open and close? Restrict airflow? Key changers? Or, perhaps, dispensers for variocolored slurpees, like at 7-11?

Mary said...

Right you are, TH2. An organist gets mighty thirsty while playing! Really, there should be such a feature.

Methinks you know more than you let on. Originally, air from the wind source went through ALL the pipes, and the STOPS were used to STOP the air from flowing into unneeded pipes. Today, things work oppositely, but the draw knobs (shown here), or tabs, or rockers, instead allow the air to flow.

The little white buttons, known as pistons, allow the organist to assign certain stop combinations for quick changes during playing. Many organs also have toe pistons in case the hands are too busy. (The organ at St. Paul's has no toe pistons for the manuals (keyboards), and that makes playing certain pieces impossible without an assistant!)