The 43-Note Continuo Architecture is Different: Let Me Explain

I wrote here about my plan, as a design study, to conceptually build a very real church, an organ it didn't ask for, building it from pipes taken from their existing gallery organ built in the mid-industrial era. This design study allows me the opportunity to build out, if only on paper, an example of my 43-note continuo for a space I know well, from material I know well. I was an organist there for eight years. To lay some foundation, I'll be writing about organ nerd-stuff in this post, so even if the organ isn't your thing, please stay with me here.

I developed a 43-note continuo organ architecture as a post-pandemic solution to the cost and sustainability issues associated with the pipe organ, issues that prompt many churches to conclude their instrument is no longer worth continued investment.

I chose 43 notes because I found that a keyboard compass starting at F06 and continuing to B48, with a break between bass and treble at tonal-f, gave almost everything I wanted from an organ built to accompany vocal and instrumental ensembles, yet not one expected by itself to lead the whole congregation in singing hymns, the usual case with traditional workship. Because the dimensions of organ pipes increase logarithmically as one descends the scale, removing the lowest five notes and their corresponding pipes provided the design with an efficient internal layout, avoiding the awkward placement of pipes and components within the case. By doing so, I designed a well-organized internal space to facilitate tuning and maintenance.

I computer-designed my 43-note continuo from the original computer drawings I used to build my previous opus list of cabinet organs and created a scaled-back, artistically rendered design, yet one that accommodates the use of recycled organ pipes with their larger dimensions. Recycled appropriately, pipes from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century retain value in their ability to contribute timbres from eras past. When properly combined with upperwork, they provide the foundation for a diverse yet blended tonal design.

I won't say anything more about the 43-note organ because I've said it best here. Again, don't hesitate to reach out with any questions or comments.

Posted August 10, 2025 11:04

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A Proposal to Innovate: I Found the 43-Note a Home

Earlier this summer, I decided to stop by a church to get a photo of an organ I played for almost eight years but hadn't seen in well over that time. The organ, a gallery installation, had extensive repairs done about twenty years ago to make it playable. However, it wasn't in playing condition when I returned. I felt detached and objective as I saw the instrument again, wondering if it now seemed like a good idea in hindsight to have invested money in its renovation, or to spend further money on repairs or a substantial rebuild. It was an early twentieth-century industrial-era organ with no upperwork on two manuals and pedal, not counting a mixture stop added later, though without producing a cohesive plenum. With a congregation and liturgy far removed from the symphonic-industrial era of pipe organ construction, I employed coupler gymnastics to lead hymns and play improvisations. I had to shake my head at that.

Two years ago, I developed my post-pandemic 43-note continuo concept, one that evolves tradition by recycling old pipework with new to produce a blended, culturally eclectic tonal design, an instrument both cost-sustainable and space-efficient. And by adding a mobile platform, the 43-note became, to some degree, location agnostic. I discuss it in more detail here, asking the reader to consider the organ in the context of a tradition that must evolve to remain relevant.

Well, I got an idea in my head. What if the church I reference here opted to commission a new 43-note frontal organ built from three or four ranks of pipes recycled from their upstairs organ, while adding some upperwork to make the organ more tonally versatile? I drew up the following specification.

Stopped Diapason 8' bass

Stopped Diapason 8' discant

Gamba 8' discant

Flûte triangulaire 4' bass

Principal 4' discant

Melodia 4' discant

Mixture III

If you read the next post down, you'll see that I've essentially done this before.

With that, I plan to conceptually build the church an organ it didn't ask for as a design study, allowing me the opportunity to build out, if only on paper, an example of my 43-note continuo for a space I know well, from material I know well. I have the design tools I need and have already completed much of the work. I only need to translate and modify that work to a new specific use case.

Please come back here from time to time to see progress on this assignment as I build it out. If you have a question or suggestion, feel free to contact me.

Posted August 7, 2025 19:04

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Reuse and Repurpose

My workshop is located in a building that is part of the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association. Each spring, NEMAA hosts an open studio art tour known as Art-A-Whirl. The largest concentration of activity is found at the Northrup King Building. It struck me during an Art-A-Whirl at the Northrup King Building how many artists reuse old material in their new work. That led me to reflect on the first organ I built as an independent pipe organ builder.

The organ came about when I was asked if I would be interested in what was left of an early twentieth-century pipe organ that was removed from a church in northern Illinois and stored in a basement. What I found worthwhile in that material was three sets of pipes that could be used to make a late-baroque cabinet organ if revoiced and added to by new pipe ranks that would provide the new organ with a complete and well-rounded set of tonal resources.

I set about designing a one-manual mechanical action cabinet organ built around a specification that included the three older sets of pipes along with two new sets that completed a unified tonal plenum based on the late baroque style common to southern German organ building of that period. The new organ design included a new slider windchest, new wind supply, new casework of solid walnut, and a new mechanical action to directly connect each key to its corresponding pipe valve, all produced by me in my workshop.

I contracted out the keyboard and metal pipes to respective firms, who did work in reproducing early organ material to stay true to the historical nature of the instrument. Carvings were done by a local artisan whose regular business was furniture refinishing.

I would not have built an organ using older material had it not been available for free. However, organs have been built this way for centuries. Obviously, though, many artisans use older artifacts in their work, basing much of it on the principle of reuse and repurposing.

Posted August 4, 2025 19:49

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A Passion for Milk Paint

I solids modeled the triangular organ pipes shown here in Barn Red, another milk paint color offered by the Real Milk Paint Company. Earlier this year, I saw pipe organ restoration work associated with a mid-nineteenth-century instrument posted on social media when milk paint was making the social media rounds through posts by woodworkers building things like period-correct Windsor chairs.

Some of the internal organ assemblies and larger wood pipes under restoration were painted darker red. I thought about painting the larger pipes I hang off the back of an organ case with red milk paint. There began my passion for milk paint.

I first learned to build tri-pipes about three years ago after seeing a set belonging to the Northrop organ. Building taught me much about them. I would accidentally discover a harmonic variant before considering how an early-twentieth-century pipe shop might have determined scales for an entire set. The practical use of hemispherical mouth geometry was another find, but one that requires later discussion in somewhat greater depth.

The tri-pipe construction seems to have no real tonal benefit. Their main advantage is that they nest efficiently and in doing so free up toeboard space for additional ranks where space is at a premium.

Posted August 4, 2025 18:21

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Changing Times and Sustainability

Youngblood Lumber, which suddenly closed after serving the area for generations, was a major source of hardwood lumber to the artisan community in Minneapolis. Another independent business important to me also closed just prior to the pandemic. I was interviewed for an article that appeared in the campus newspaper. You can read it here.

Youngblood Lumber's closing is important to me as an organ builder. It might not be so obvious why closing an independently owned bike shop is equally important unless you read the article linked above. We in the organ community know that the pipe organ has had its own sustainability issue for some time. My experience with the 1802 Tannenberg organ at Hebron Lutheran Church in Madison, Virginia, let me see an approach to sustainable design through the work of a builder living through the constraints of frontier colonial America. I believe the work of Tannenberg is applicable to my work today.

Posted August 27, 2022 11:06

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Ducroquet

A few years out of college, I traveled to Saint Paul to visit the organs at House of Hope Presbyterian Church on Summit Avenue, especially the large Fisk tracker that occupies the rear balcony. Of course, the 1878 Merklin upfront is well known too. I found myself captivated, though, by the 1852 Ducroquet located in the Assembly Room, a one-manual tracker action Romantic-era French pipe organ, an intimate-sounding transition instrument built with beautiful reeds and well-voiced flues.

Last August, as part of a team, I helped remove the Ducroquet. For me, the process of dismantling became a design study in the emerging French Industrial-Romantic era of pipe organ building.

House of Hope Presbyterian Church acquired the Ducroquet from Jean Louis Loriault, who had removed it from a parish church in Aubusson, France. A history of the organ states that it appeared at the Paris Exposition of 1855. C.B. Fisk, Inc. of Gloucester, Massachusetts, restored the instrument before its installation at House of Hope Church.

Posted November 28, 2021 11:25

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The Flûte octaviante triangulaire: Because Now there Really is Such a Thing

I started a project this fall to better understand wood organ pipes made with triangular cross section. I produced a number of triangular shaped pipes last fall after seeing a triangular flute rank up in the pipe chambers at Northrop Auditorium belonging to Aeolian-Skinner Opus 892 located there. Those pipes I made one year ago were my first introduction to building organ pipes with triangular cross section, and I wanted to take on a new project this fall to further investigate the effect of base angle and scale on tonal result.

The triangular cross section may have an actual application if the availability of the first instrument I built becomes a rebuild before relocation. Triangular cross section allows pipes to nest compactly on a windchest. Replacing the rectangular shaped wood Flaut 4' pipes of that organ with those of triangular cross section would free up space on the windchest to address a tonal deficiency by allowing the inclusion of principal scaled stops at 8' and 4' pitch in the treble sharing the first seventeen bass notes with their respective flute counterparts as was sometimes done in the nineteenth century with small instruments. I would only need to retable the windchest, not trivial in and of itself, but still so much material from the original instrument could be used in the rebuild to make cost attractive.

The triangular pipe project I completed this fall has an accidental and potentially significant outcome. I produced a pipe with very narrow scale not really knowing what to expect, and found that it became harmonic effortlessly on lower wind pressure. This needs more investigation because having a harmonic flute available to me that overblows on lower wind pressure would give an additional and useful tone color to include in the design of a small cabinet organ. And its ability to save space makes additional space available to another stop whose inclusion might not otherwise be possible.

I know of no documented example of a harmonic stop whose pipes are made of wood with triangular cross section. Let me therefore introduce you to the Flûte octaviante triangulaire as it might have been named had it come from the shop of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.

A short video demonstrating the harmonic triangular flute and a normal length pipe speaking the same pitch can be found here.

Posted April 9, 2021 08:49

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Alternative Venue Performance Spaces, Active Learning, and Coffee Shop Collaboration

Milwaukee pipe organ builder John Miller and I got together on New Year's Eve day at Five Watt Coffee on Hennepin here in Minneapolis to discuss all things pipe organ and in particular, that which relates to a project we want to launch that repurposes my Op.1 into something that correlates well with our shared idea of an organ placed in an alternative space for collaborative use. It was notable that Five Watt Coffee is a space that combines a coffee shop with an active alt-indie music performance space. One can even find visual art displayed for sale.

I had thought about the merge of pipe organ culture and alt-hipster culture before and wrote about it here after seeing two friends form a collaborative indie-folk group combining dance with music, perform out one night. I also discussed in the same story the possibility of placing a cabinet organ for collaborative use in an alternative performance space like an art gallery. John Miller saw potential in the type of space provided by Five Watt Coffee itself.

I occasionally work with the Product Design major at the University of Minnesota where students are set up in courses to work collaboratively in teams. This method of instruction is referred to as Team Based Learning or alternatively, Active Learning. The performance space John and I see an organ going into is essentially, whether on a college campus or not, an active learning space where a team of musicians get together and perform using our collaborative pipe organ project as a performance hub. And like Five Watt Coffee, the ideal location would be a multi-use performance space where people come together to experience and interact with the art and performance going on around them.

My goal in the new year is to shop our concepts around and seek a project commission that rebuilds Op.1 into a tool for collaborative music performance. The goal is innovative and worth taking time to pursue.

Posted January 11, 2020 09:25

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