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From: rdp@teddy.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: Random stuff...actually, are pipe organs loud?
Message-ID: <1279@teddy.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Sep-85 16:27:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: teddy.1279
Posted: Fri Sep  6 16:27:08 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Sep-85 01:24:30 EDT
References: <253@decwrl.UUCP> <1238@teddy.UUCP> <1343@hound.UUCP> <1256@teddy.UUCP> <1346@hound.UUCP>
Reply-To: rdp@teddy.UUCP (Richard D. Pierce)
Organization: GenRad, Inc., Concord, Mass.
Lines: 59
Summary: 

Well, I think Mr. Grantges and I have beaten the organ horse to death by
now. It seems the major difference of opinion is not how loud the instruments
really are, but what is defined as loud. My impressions of things are thus,
I think, that at the 85 or so dB I have actually measured instruments at,
that they are quite loud, but not so loud as to tax the capabilities of
modern direct-radiator transducers. Mr. Grantges takes the view, and I do
not wish to denegrate his viewpoint, that, in his opinion, they have to be
louder than that, because they SOUND louder than that. Well, I really can't
disagree with his viewpoint. Nor can I agree. But such is what the world is
made of.

What we seem to have great differences on seems to be more style of performance,
Suitability of instruments and musical genre, etc. This is a debate I could
engage in for hours. I have heard many different organs playing many
different pieces. I have my likes, and he has his, and you have yours.

Much of my non-personal data comes from quite a few large texts on organs
and organ music. Here is, if anyone is interested, a (corrupted by less
than perfect recall) a list of texts I use as references:

	Sumner, William Lesley: "The Organ"

	Andersen, Poul Gerhardt, "Organ Building and Design"

	Barnes, W. "The Contemporary American Organ" (most notable for his
	  	description of his tour of European organs, which he
		considered to be aneamic, thin, underpowered, etc!)

	Audsley, G. A. "The Art of the Organ Builder", Dover Press

	Audsley, G. A. "The Twentieth Century Organ", Dover Press

	Austin Niland "The Organ"

	Hill, Norman, Beard (???) "The British Organ Today"

	Dom Bedos, "L'Art de Factuer D'Orgue"

	Mark Wicks "The Amatuer Organ Builder"

	Bonavia-Hunt, L. "The Organ Reed"

	Ochse, "The History of Organ Building in the United States"

Plus many others that don't immediately come to mind.

One further point about the Riverside Church (and many others like it).
One wonders if the feeling of inadequacy in the instrument that arose
about the same time as the installation of Acousto-lith tiles is some-
thing more than purely coincidental. I am not sure whether Riverside
suffered this fate (but I seem to remember that it did) but quite a few
large churches in this country were subjected to mis-guided acoustic
absorbtive treatment in the 30's, 40's and 50's, all in the name of
improved speech audibility. Invariable they made the matter worse.

I think we have cluttered net.audio enough with this discussion on
organs. We should return to the more appropriate debate about snake-oil

Dick Pierce