Talk:Pipe organ/Archive 2

Proposed Project Pipe Organ

I have formally proposed the WikiProject Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Pipe Organ. Please add your name to the interested list and lets see if we can get this off the ground. Mdcollins1984 10:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Now open! MDCollins (talk) 16:44, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Article focuses on large organs too much

Basically its a good article, but you are left with the impression that a typical organ is a 5 manual American/English organ. I think more focus/material on the German/French/Spanish/Danish... mechanical organs would be interesting and fair, both showing baroque and modern work. Also all consoles are the biggies - what about showing a baroque keyboard or some of Bernard Aubertins neo baroque organs? or the work of Carsten Lund (Denmark). Erik Kristiansen--80.164.17.212 21:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Those are good points… I never thought of any of that. I would love to attempt to address some of those issues, but I simply haven't the time to find all the references and change them all… the article is simply too large. Anyone up to it? Or, for that matter, up to making the article shorter? —Cor anglais 16 (talk) 21:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Popular music section

Not to sound like a snob, but shouldn't this section only refer to the use of actual pipe organs in popular music? Mentioning synthesizers and such in passing is fine, but it needs to stay focused on pipe organs. It seems to me that the material on the electronic organ in popular music should be transferred to that article or the organ (music) article instead. There is already a good foundation in both of those articles. If the article needs it, we could flesh out the section with actual pipe organs in popular music before the synthesizer days. Unfortunately that was before my time, so I don't know how frequently it was ever used. It's a big change, so I'd like to see if there is consensus first. --W0lfie 17:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't like the section at all. I think I agree that if it should be kept, it should be elsewhere. That at least would reduce the size of this article, which I feel is slightly too large. I was wondering whether Pipe organ should almost be slimmed down to the construction of just that, without some of the wider issues. I wonder whether Wikipedia:WikiProject Musical Instruments would have a say on this, and what they plan to do with articles? Mdcollins1984 23:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I must agree on all points. I don't like the popular music section here, because it hardly has anything to do with the pipe organ itself. I propose that it be either a section of organ (music) (though this is problematic, given the current structure of that article) or an article by itself: Use of organs in popular music (or something similar), perhaps? Furthermore, it also makes sense to slim the whole article down in size. The subject matter covers so many areas (engineering, physics, acoustics, technique, design, not to mention music) that it might be better to put all of it in separate articles, rather than providing all the information (or even brief summaries?) in this article. I hate to change the article too much, however, since it's already achieved GA status. At any rate, something must be done about the popular music section. —Cor anglais 16 (talk) 22:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Notable Pipe Organs

Another concern I have (other than the section above) is regarding the notable organ list on this page. It seems to me to be an ever growing list of what pertains to be a paragraph on every organ that has it's own article. What do others feel about this?

Mdcollins1984 23:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree in this case as well. I don't know that the section even needs to be here; it could be its own list-style article, like List of organists (or maybe even List of pipe organ stops, though it might be cumbersome). This would slim down the article further. In addition, there could be articles on console organization, case design, diaphones, etc. —Cor anglais 16 (talk) 22:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the notable organs to a semi-sorted List of notable pipe organs page. Slims the article down quite a bit! Mdcollins1984 00:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

External links

I disagree with the drastic removal of external links by Mdcollins1984, in particular "Pipedreams". It is an excellent link with the most comprehensive archived organ music online that I know of. The AGO has given Michael Barone a well-deserved award for Pipedreams – why in the world would you want to delete it?

I've put Pipedreams back in, along with the accurate list of largest pipe organs, which is certainly relevant and important to this subject. Why replace it with a very outdated one? Oriole fan 16:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

O.K., that's fine - I apologise, didn't check them all properly. Thanks for restoring them. Mdcollins1984 10:41, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Very glad to heard that. Thanks for all of the much needed improvements you've made to this Article - my compliments! Oriole fan 13:29, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Organ bloat

The Construction section of this article is bloated and disorganized. I attempted to rectify this by moving the subsections around to put the major subsections in the same order as the summary of the section that appears right under the Construction header.

All this came about because I attempted to do major cleanup on the Organ stop article, and ran into a wall: I'd have to write almost everything under the Pipes, Ranks, and Stops subsection at this article to make Organ stop comprehensive. That's silly. So, I went over to Pipe organ and stared at it for a while. After making the edits I detailed above, I thought I'd make a plea that we actively do something about the bloat in this article. The whole article is 63k; the Construction section alone is 40k!

Maybe we should move all of the information in Pipes, Ranks, and Stops, for example, into Organ stop and Organ pipe (then perhaps merge those two articles together). Then we could follow that example with the other sections, (though not completely blindly, of course). That might revoke our good article status for a while, since it would significantly change the nature of the article, but I believe that this kind of action could eventually lead to this article becoming featured at some point in the future. Thoughts, anyone? —Cor anglais 16 (talk) 22:35, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

A brief thought: we should separate the practicalities of organ-building from the organ as a musical instrument. While obviously they will need to cross-refer, it might be best if pipes, ranks, cases, etc. were isolated in an article or group of articles on the mechanics, while tonal styles (including stops) and repertoire made a separate group of articles. Isn't there a Wikiproject on organs? Barnabypage 01:09, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Re:WikiProject - there will be! 5 of us were interested, but nothing has happened yet. Maybe I'll try this week to get a 'homepage' set up (unless anyone else gets there first!). Perhaps this could be done before making any major changes, so we all know what's going on! MDCollins (talk) 10:11, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, this all may have something to do with how my recently-proposed merger of Swell box and Expression pedal plays out... what do you think? —Cor anglais 16 (talk) 12:49, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I've agreed to this. Good point! MDCollins (talk) 13:59, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

The pipeless organ section can also be trimmed and edited - i've now found the electronic organ page, so most information can go there. –MDCollins (talk) 12:02, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I haven't been to this article for a while, and things have certainly changed a bunch. I'm sorry to see so much information tossed from the old version. Regardless of the size, I thought a lot of it was both valid and relevant. I'm intrigued that Theatre Organs now receive a total of one line, with no discussion whatsoever about why and how they are different. And the hybrid pipe/electronic instruments no longer merit any mention whatsoever. I disagree, but I will keep my thoughts to myself and not edit further. I'm sorry to see so much good information thrown out for the sake of brevity. Sometimes a good explanation does take some space, and pipe organs are neither small nor simple if you want to adequately cover the topic. Wood Artist 08:31, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

AIUI, a lot of the information has been moved to other articles rather than dumped entirely. Barnabypage 12:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

GA/FA status

This article was classified as a good article in October of last year (reviewed version). The article has significantly changed since then. Is it necessary for it to be re-reviewed for GA status if we want to move it into the featured article review process? Does anyone think the article is even ready for a FA review? I think it's come a long way in the last few months, and with some more cleanup, FA is a distinct possibility. —Cor anglais 16 05:14, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I think a re-review is a good idea, if not for assurance sake. I think FA is becoming very close, to my mind, some more referencing of the construction section in particular is a must. Perhaps the Cambridge Companion or a basic intro organ book are the best if anyone has any. I'll keep an eye out for something - I must have something somewhere. Just for the basics really. –MDCollins (talk) 16:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Re-think, I don't think GA review is the way to do it unless there is a problem. It seems Peer review is what's required, so I'll go ahead and nom it. Can't do any harm! –MDCollins (talk) 16:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Great... I have the Cambridge Companion; I can reference the Construction section with that, though it certainly wouldn't hurt to have references from multiple (preferably non-Internet?) sources. —Cor anglais 16 17:34, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Peer review came back very much in our favour. I've left my final concerns at WT:PipeOrgan. –MDCollins (talk) 20:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Things to delete?

The "Common uses of pipe organs" section seems to be short. It was taken out of the old lead; however, I feel like it doesn't belong either in its own section or in the lead.

The "See also" section is also quite short and somewhat useless… it contains three lists and a link to Mechanical organ, which doesn't really add anything of value to the information here. I feel bad deleting the section, though… can we flesh it out, or incorporate its links into the article?

Also, the paragraph at the end of the "Digital (pipeless) organs" section is focused on the inadequacies of the digital 32′ stop. I think no violence would be done if this information weren't present (though the first part of the paragraph, about the use of digital pedal ranks to supplement pipes, should certainly remain)… does this really belong in the article? —Cor anglais 16 04:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Some thoughts on the above:

• Common uses, should be merged with "Classical organ music", as most of the content re: sacred/secular, symphonic music can be turned so it fits in there.
• See also, yep maybe a bit pointless. Could try and incorporate the links, but not sure that they would fit.
• I was looking at that when looking at the reference (which doesn't explain the inadequacies, only the organ spec). Should remove that, and also remove the section header, leaving the brief explanation of digital pipes in the modern bit.

Not got time today to have a go at it though. Shouldn't take long! –MDCollins (talk) 09:37, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I have now addressed these issues. The results, from my POV:

• "Classical organ music" (now "Organ repertoire"… is this okay?) is sort of long-winded and could use some cleanup.
• "See also" is no more, its links having been removed to the proposed infobox.
• "Modern developments" now includes information on digital organs and could use a little copyediting. —Cor anglais 16 02:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of things to delete, I have been bold and deleted the "Pitch" section of this article. The first paragraph had nothing to do with the organ or the article and everything to do instead with pitch. I looked at Pitch (music) and it seemed like everything was there, but to be safe I removed the first paragraph to Organ tuning. The second paragraph was removed to the "Keyboards" section of Organ console. If someone thinks that this was too bold, go ahead and revert. —Cor anglais 16 00:50, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Keyboards/Manuals

quote: "an organ with four keyboards is said to have four manuals". Is it? To my mind four keyboards would mean 3 manuals+pedals, and keyboard is not synonymous with manual.

Any views, or can I change it?

Also, can anyone find a reference/list for the most common manual config? We have a sentence saying 2M+P is the most common, but needs a reference or else should be deleted as we are pushing towards FA.

–MDCollins (talk) 09:01, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Keyboards definitely mean manual keyboards. If occasionally English speakers use keyboards to include the pedalboard, they are incorrect. In Italian, for instance, "tastiera" is manual (from "tasto"), and "pedaliera" is the pedalboard. They would never consider the pedalboard to be one of the "tastieri." Young Kreisler 15:22, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Interesting… I have never come across the terminology of pedalboard included as a "keyboard" (outside of the Pedal keyboard article [the title of which I think I actually proposed, come to think of it]). It would not occur to me that the phrase "four-keyboard organ" would imply a pedalboard included in the number "four," but I have no strong objections either way. It is, after all, a board of keys, albeit large keys not played by the hands. Re. a reference for the 2M+P: I have tried to look; I couldn't find one in the Cambridge Companion, which is the most comprehensive accessible modern reference. A cursory check in the Grove Dictionary also doesn't seem to yield any results. Maybe we have to remove it? —Cor anglais 16 16:47, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not quite what we're looking for, but I did find this potentially-useful statement online in a guide written by a professional organbuilder: "A medium-sized organ might be described as a 2 manual/25 rank organ, meaning that the organ has 25 sets of pipes in a format of two manuals and pedal." (http://www.reynoldsorgans.com/manual.pdf) If we can't find a source for two manuals being the most common configuration, at least this would give the reader an idea of what is typical. Also, maybe we can find a source saying that more than three is unusual, which would also help build up an impression of the typical organ. Barnabypage 17:01, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

For the first item, I've always considered "keyboard" to mean manual keyboard. For the second item, I have the following numbers from die-orgelseite.de: it has 1106 3-manual, and 644 2-manual. But obviously, that doesn't mean much, since there are far more small instruments that aren't in that database. The Fisk opus list on Osiris: 41 of 84 are 2-manual, compared to 27 3-manual. For the Taylor-Boody list, 21 of 33 are 2-manual. For Wolff it's 28 of 40. For Brombaugh it's 23 of 65? are II/P, but they have a lot of I and I/P, too. I don't think it's slam dunk, but it's a pretty good bet that II/P is the most common. --W0lfie 02:15, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I've still had no luck finding a decent citation for the common configuration. I've removed the first issue about manual/keyboard by slightly re-writing the section. –MDCollins (talk) 10:43, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

More on this...the article currently states "Most organs have at least one manual and one pedalboard." I think it would be clearer to say "All organs have at least one manual, and most have a pedalboard" - to remove from the naive reader's mind the image of an organ with no manuals at all, or with multiple pedalboards! But do such organs exist? I've never heard of one, though I suppose it's conceivable... Barnabypage 19:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Well spotted. Go ahead and change it! –MDCollins (talk) 00:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The suggested phrasing is much clearer. For what it's worth, I've only ever seen one specification that had a second pedalboard at one console. From what I understand, it had very rudimentary keys. It's apparently common enough to be in IPORE's XML Organ Specification [1]. A few organs have more than one console, each with a pedalboard, so you might say they have "multiple pedalboards" as well. But that's not really what you meant. --W0lfie 15:16, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Re. multiple pedalboards: A couple years ago there was an organ console featured on the cover of one of the European organ journals (Het Orgel, I think) that had two full pedalboards and a swell shoe à cuillère (Franck-style). I believe it was a German romantic organ from the late nineteenth century and rather sophisticated. Nevertheless, this kind of construction is much less common than even the divided pedal coupler, and certainly doesn't merit coverage in the main article. As far as a manual-less organ goes, I've never heard of one outside of the practice pedalboards that were sold in nineteenth-century Europe, but I'm not sure how they were made (or if they even made sound at all). —Cor anglais 16 17:52, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

En chamade

Unless I'm missing it, we don't mention pipes en chamade (i.e. horizontal and protruding from the case, especially common in the Spanish style). Would this be better under Pipes or Casing? Barnabypage 13:52, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

En chamade pipes are almost always (maybe even by definition) part of the façade, so they should probably be mentioned in the Casing section. I suppose there may be some horizontal trumpets that aren't in the façade, but I'm not sure that they would be called "en chamade" at that point. --W0lfie 18:23, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. I suspect they're probably also common in Latin American organs because of the Spanish/Portuguese influence, but I don't know that for a fact; if anyone does, they might want to modify the reference to "organs of the Iberian peninsula". Barnabypage 18:35, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I found that two of the four Mexican organs on the Osiris Archive have en chamade stops. And I've found a couple of other Latin American organs that have them as well. They generally fall into two categories: regals (Orlos, Viejas/Viejos) and trumpets (Clarín de Batalla/Campaña).-W0lfie 17:48, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

There was a mention under the pipes section but it got removed during the big revision as we didn't know where to put it. Seems ok where it is. –MDCollins (talk) 10:57, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

There's a very good picture of pipes en chamade in the French article. I suppose there might be too many pictures in this article, but perhaps some of them could be brought to the end of the article in a gallery including this one? It's kind of hard to picture without a, well, picture :). It would need to be migrated (something I don't know how to do properly), but here is a link in the meantime: [2]. I also found this engraving (or lithograph or whatever) of Cesar Frank at the organ: [3]. It might be good to show someone at a full organ. Too many suggestions?

Oh, and there is an example of what I meant by the gallery at Trompe l'oeil. --Vlmastra 04:25, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Modern development

Should we make it clearer that the "historically-inspired instruments" we speak of in the mid-C20 are generally inspired by pre-Romantic instruments? At the moment the novice reader of the article could, I think, take away the impression that all organs since the Romantic era are still characterised by Romantic innovations such as higher wind pressure and "greater variations in sound and texture". The subject is a can of worms, I know! Barnabypage 20:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed… I'll attempt to take care of this. By the way, concerning the Machaut quote in the lead: are we absolutely certain Sumner gives Machaut as the source? I have heard that quote many times, always attributed to Mozart; it seems unlikely that someone who died in 1377 would have said that. —Cor anglais 16 03:53, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Yup. Sumner: "...the organ gradually came into its own until by the eleventh century it bega to displace all others [he is talking about instruments in Christian worship], and in the fourteenth century Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-77) refers to the organ as 'de tous instruments le roi', an epithet which has endured". (FWIW, I suspect Machaut may not have meant "king" in the way we now like to use the phrase - he may simply have meant it was the most common instrument in liturgical use.) I suppose a mis-hearing or mis-remembering of "Machaut" as "Mozart" is not entirely implausible. The Concise Oxford Dict. of Music also attributes it to Machaut, though probably draws that attribution from Sumner. And of course, it's perfectly possible that they BOTH said it! Barnabypage 07:21, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Copyedit

The only recurring objection in the ongoing FAC review (despite the fact that only one person is reviewing the article) seems to be the prose. The reviewer keeps admonishing us to arrange for a copyedit from a reliable copyeditor. I've searched the classical music featured articles (there aren't many) and have not been able to find a copyeditor who hasn't left Wikipedia. Maybe we should add the article to the League of Copyeditors' queue? I'll be out of town until July 16, so I'm not really available to do much for a few days, but I wanted to check with the project before calling in the League of Copyeditors. —Cor anglais 16 16:57, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I can do a lot of it - I am a professional copy editor in the real world with, obviously enough, an interest in the pipe organ. (Incidentally, I didn't know about WP:LOCE until just now - and really don't need another displacement activity!) However, I'm not terribly au fait with the finest points of WP:MOS, so even if I give it a general stylistic clean-up, it might still be an idea to bring in someone from the League to address those issues. I wouldn't, unfortunately, be able to do it until the first half of next week, but do let me know if you think that would be useful. Barnabypage 19:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I certainly think it would be useful! Bringing in a league person wouldn't hurt either. I've been trying to improve my prose with Tony's guide at User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a; maybe these suggestions would help with conformity to the MOS? —Cor anglais 16 20:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I've now completed the copy-edit for general sense and style, so now would be a good time to bring in someone from LOCE to address the finer technical points... Barnabypage 20:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Merger from Extension organ

I proposed this merger because Extension organ seems to me to be unnecessary. Everything that is necessary to say about extension, borrowing, and unification is already said in this article. —Cor anglais 16 05:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Fine. By the way, did Barnaby ever give us the promised copy-edit? –MDCollins (talk) 08:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I rather like the discussion about how extension is used in different types of organs. To get all of that information into the Pipe Organ article would be challenging. What if we merge it into the Unification section of the Organ Stop article instead? --W0lfie 17:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

True, true - we did spend ages trimming the article. I'm not entirely sure whether it would unbalance the 'stop' article also. Just had another thought, instead of a page about the Extension organ, it could be renamed/reworked as something else (can't think now) that deals with Extension/techniques rather than instruments, then can be a subpage of both Pipe organ and Organ stop. Something like Organ stop extension, only better? –MDCollins (talk) 22:04, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I've merged it mostly with organ stop for now. –MDCollins (talk) 12:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I like that idea… maybe it is worth keeping in one of those capacities. Re.: the copyedit of Pipe organ by Barnabypage, I don't think it ever happened. I was considering posting Pipe organ at the League of Copyeditors and seeing if something happens that way. —Cor anglais 16 01:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me about that - unfortunately the day job has been intruding on my Wiki time lately. ;) However, I have now done a general copy-edit/clarification job on roughly the first third of the article (up to Keyboards) and will try to finish it over the weekend... Barnabypage 15:48, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Couple of points arising from the ongoing copy-edit

1. I'm concerned about the para beginning "The visual arrangement of pipes in the façade", not least because we haven't defined "mouth" anywhere, and because I think readers unfamiliar with the subject will have a hard time visualising the three kinds of pipe movement in the facade. Could we use pictures of all three, or would that be over-egging the pudding?

Might be - perhaps a sub-article?

Agreed—is probably too much for this article. It's certainly material for a sub-article (Organ case#Façade or something similar, perhaps?). —Cor anglais 16 17:56, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I've commented out for now. Certainly too much for this page.–MDCollins (talk) 12:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

2. We don't, to my surprise, mention the term "chamber organ" anywhere (although it redirects to Organ (music)). We should at least define it, and clarify that it has nothing to do with organ chambers. Has anyone got a good, concise, attributable definition? Barnabypage 20:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm looking for one. Would you go so far to say that a continuo organ is synonymous with a chamber organ? (Not that I've got a def for that either...) –MDCollins (talk) 21:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

My take on it would be that "chamber" in this context is akin to its use in chamber music -- i.e., a chamber organ is a relatively small organ designed to be used in a small, secular, space. For example, if one were to commission a one-manual 8'4'2' with a single oedal 16' for use in your own home, or in a music academy, that would be a chamber organ to my mind. The same organ in a church would be...just a small church organ. Barnabypage 00:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd call an organ in the home a small organ! You mean like this? What about the 8'4'2' pedal-less organs used in cathedrals for accompanying choirs? this size? Are they all under the same name? –MDCollins (talk) 23:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

SOED defines a chamber organ as being a positive organ, or an organ for domestic use developed from the positive organ. In turn it defines a positive organ as "a movable church organ which has to be placed on a stand or on the floor for playing" (a slightly odd definition, I thought, because obviously it has to be placed somewhere if it's movable). Barnabypage 13:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Also: before you get to stuck into the history, when you get to that long screed/waffle about the Iberian instruments (Renaissance and Baroque), just consider reverting it all. It was written by User:Juggernaught w and is certainly not in keeping with the style of the article. Had it been there when Cor and myself trimmed the article it would probably have gone. –MDCollins (talk) 21:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Something to change post copyedit

Hi, not sure how far you have got, so thought I'd put this here for you to check and replace (referenced!) when you're done.

How about we replace 'this' paragraph:

By the late medieval period, pipe organs were installed as permanent fixtures in buildings. At this time there were no sophisticated stop controls: the organist could either play on a single 8′ Principal stop or on the entire tonal resources of the organ (called the Blockwerk). In some cases, the Blockwerk comprised a very large number of ranks ranging from 16′ pitch all the way through 1′ pitch and higher.

With

In 1361, the first documented 'permanent' organ was installed in Halberstadt, Germany. The chromatic keyboard, such as we see today, was used for the first time; the organ had three manuals and a pedalboard, although the keys were wider than on modern instruments. The organ had 20 bellows worked by 10 men, and the wind pressure was so strong that the player had to use the full power of his arm to hold down a key. It had no stop controls; each manual controlled several ranks at multiple pitches, called the Blockwerk. This organ is commemorated in the performance of John Cage's Organ²/ASLSP, due to take 639 years.

Feel free to copyedit. Just thought this organ was important in the history. –MDCollins (talk) 21:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I haven't reached that section yet, but of course I'll incorporate this. (The whole thing about bellows-blowing fascinates me...how did they practise before electricity? Is that why Bach had so many children?!) Barnabypage 00:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

A couple more points

(a) I've done some fairly extensive rewriting on the Repertoire section to avoid the long direct quotations.

(b) I think it might be worth pointing out that (with the obvious exception of Bach) few composers who have contributed extensively to the organ literature are household names, and similarly few of the household-name composers have written much for organ - i.e. the repertoire is to some extent dominated by 'organ specialists'. Do we have a reference we could cite in this respect? Barnabypage 20:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Any movement with this? –MDCollins (talk) 12:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

(c) Are the section headings ok? It looks like we could use a Construction heading, with the subs: Pipes, Wind system, Action, Stops, Keyboards etc.; rather than Keyboards being a sub-section of Stops (for example). Perhaps main headers of Construction, History+Development and Repertoire. –MDCollins (talk) 20:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes - that would add clarity. Barnabypage 13:01, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought we used to have a Construction heading. It would be nice to move Keyboards under Console, but it will be hard extricate the physical aspect from the pipe-controlling aspect, which might need to stay in the Stop heading. Similarly, I thought about moving the bit about swell boxes into the Casing section, but then you'd have to put the swell-pedal in the Console section, thus separating two very interconnected thoughts (expression enclosure, expression pedal) with a whole bunch of unrelated stuff. --W0lfie 17:02, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I've given this my tweak now, I'll request a read through from the WP:LOCE although Barnaby has done most of this legwork. I've reorganised the sections again - does it all follow through ok? The visual layout of the pics has been doctored too. I'm happy with it. –MDCollins (talk) 12:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Classical music

Its not just classical music that is played on a pipe organ, film scores can be played, pop music as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.145.242.49 (talk) 14:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Day of the Organ

October 19, 2008 (I believe) has been selected as the "International Day of the Organ." There is effort underway to promote the organ during 2008 (selected as the "Year of the Organ") and to put on the world's largest organ recital on October 19. I think we should do our best to get Pipe organ to FA status and to get it featured on the homepage on October 19, 2008. Thoughts? —Cor anglais 16 17:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Why not. –MDCollins (talk) 23:53, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Great idea! Count me in. I know I've been MIA for a while, sorry. It looks like we still need some copyediting. My brother (a copyeditor) can probably help with that if I beg him.  :-) Hopefully we can pull it off. --W0lfie (talk) 14:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

My brother said he'd help. I've pointed him to this article and to the MOS. Are there any other good links for him to review to become familiar with the peculiarities of Wiki-copy-editing? --W0lfie (talk) 16:12, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Aye, I'll join. (Hooray for Year of the Organ!) I see several areas for improvement already - for instance, I'd propose replacing the "Baroque", "Romantic", etc. references with specific centuries or dates; articles like piano don't use eras for dates. It's fine for musicians, but our audience is much wider and likely does not have a concrete conception of approximate dates for each era. Portions of the lead are also cumbersome to my ear; there are words & sentences that are not integral. Also, there are redundant sections "References" and "Bibliography", and many more ways we can upgrade the article. —Sesquialtera II (talk) 19:12, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it might be better to introduce terms such as "baroque" and "romantic" with some approximate dates and thereafter use the terms rather than the dates - I fear that otherwise we might end up misleading the reader into believing that the time periods are quite absolute, with talk of "the 19th century organ" and so on. Barnabypage (talk) 14:17, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I realize that I've proposed a contentious issue, but the definitions of "baroque" and "romantic" too are open to interpretation. What bothers me most, perhaps, is the inconsistency throughout the article; for instance, comparing all of the image captions: some specify periods, some specify years, and some omit classification. Clearly we must discuss the differences between the archetypal Baroque and Romantic organs, but I might suggest that we limit precise discussion to the "History" section, and use years for the remaining captions. I'm willing to classify each organ instead, if that's what other editors prefer, but either way we need to have consistency, I think. —Sesquialtera II (talk) 04:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, where specific individual organs are concerned (as in the captions), I couldn't agree more - we should be as precise as possible, giving the actual year of construction if we have that information. It's where general discussion of, e.g., tonal styles is concerned that I think it is more honest to use descriptive terms such as "baroque" etc. rather than giving a false impression of precision through the use of dates. Barnabypage (talk) 13:36, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I am also in agreement regarding precision with image captions and individual organs. I think we should certainly qualify the term "Baroque," for example, in the History section (including a rough date estimate, perhaps with a link to Baroque music or Dates of classical music eras?). If we are specific in the History section, I think it's probably okay to use the term "Baroque" in the article body when not referring to a specific organ for which dates are known. Or, we could bolster the dates of an organ with stylistic descriptions (e.g., "a Baroque-style organ built by Hildebrand in 1737"). —Cor anglais 16 17:56, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the "References" and "Bibliography" sections are not redundant, (WP:CITE) as the Bib section is used for 'further reading' ideas, not necessary those referenced in the article. Anyway, I'm sure all of that will come up in further discussion. I'm going to be absent for a week or two over the festive season, but will be fired up for action in 2008! –MDCollins (talk) 23:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I see; I misinterpreted the meaning of "Bibliography", instead taking the standard meaning of "sources used for research". To avoid this problem for others I'm going to suggest that we use "Further reading", another suggested equivalent heading. Thanks for the link to the policy page. —Sesquialtera II (talk) 04:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

That's fine - it's confused me before too! Well, I'm back...I've literally had a very quick scan through, marking some facts which need citing, adding a few comments here and there which can be addressed in due course. If we all do something similar, marking everything we feel needs attention, we can then get cracking. I see Cor has made a start! –MDCollins (talk) 11:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I just made a couple edits to the lead... "brilliant prose" is eluding me at the moment. More importantly, I found an original builder and a date for the Roskilde organ pictured at the lead, and added the information to the caption. This is one way we could include builders and dates in picture captions across the project. Is the citation necessary? —Cor anglais 16 21:49, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if it's necessary, but it's appreciated. I like reading references, especially when they have nice pictures like that one. --W0lfie (talk) 23:10, 7 January 2008 (UTC)