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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Crafting Architectural Identity and Common Design Architecture

I took some time when I first set up shop here in Minnesota to develop a design language that I describe here as influenced by the Grand Avenue, Macalester College area of St. Paul, one characterized by early-century, industrial-agricultural affluence. My studio work began to take on that influence which could be described by contrasting dark woods with light, and the use of mechanical joinery apparent in dovetail or box joined constructions.

I then set out to create a structural design architecture that would form the design foundation for a family of cabinet pipe organs. I talk some about that process in the following story linked to here.

https://sway.com/rME5JPhADExnq8s4

Posted September 21, 2021 12:36

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Organically Composed

When long winter falls on Minnesota, all appears bleak and desolate. Summer, however short around here, provides an incredible contrast as nature springs to life.

I began to contrast milk paint colors with different hardwoods as a reasoned form of design language during the interminable winter months of last February and March. A typical summer day now finds nature beautifully alive, where trees and flowers organically combine with University of Minnesota campus architecture. So I thought I would attempt a similar composition with the design of an organ case.

During a now distant fall semester, I spent evenings in a favorite coffee shop solids modeling organ action components using, at that time, a new lower-cost design program. The process was a step forward, and I can now import the completed part library into new work.

After creating a part library, I modeled a complete cabinet organ as a follow-on to the last organ I built as an independent builder. Fast forward to this summer, and I have reimagined that design using a synthesis of hardwoods and milk-painted side and keydesk frames that combine to provide the cabinet with clarity rather than striking contrast. For example, the keydesk frame rendered here in Yellow Rose and the side frames rendered in French Toast organically unite with walnut and white oak hardwoods.

I suggest the following stoplist for this organ, designed to offer both resplendence yet appropriate tonal color for accompaniment.

Flauta 8' (notes 1 - 17 stopped, 18 - 51 open)

Prestant 4' Baß (notes 1 - 17)

Prestant 4' (notes 18 - 51)

Flet 4' (notes 18 - 51, potentially triangular)

Mixtur III

Cornet II (2 2/3' notes 1 - 17, 2 2/3' + 1 3/5' 18-51)

Posted July 2, 2021 16:30

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The Cabinet as Art

A freestanding mechanical action pipe organ can be two things. It should first be a well-defined tonal structure, a unified plenum. Yet, it can be a visual art form, and I often say that I sculpt in sound, wood, and metal. Regarding material, computer renderings prove a valuable tool when visualizing hardwood constructions combined with those finished with milk paint, a statement of visual design I introduced in my last post.

My favorite organ design from past archives, somewhat revised to reflect the new architecture, provides the basis for renderings found here. I decided that I would prototype the use of milk paint colors Granny Smith Green and Mustard. My goal was to add color to the cabinet yet retain its nobility. Southern French organ builders were good at doing this.

It depends on the space that locates the instrument, but Granny Smith Green is out, in my opinion. Still, I would use Mustard on the keydesk frame and Pecan on the side frames if corresponding hardwoods are walnut and African mahogany

It is no trouble to computer render any combination of milk paint color and hardwood based on the design language I wish to illustrate through my work. However, factors not limited to, yet that strongly include opinion determine aesthetic and efficacy.

An example stop list constructed along somewhat different lines than that proposed here follows.

Hohlpfeife 8' (notes 1 - 17)

Flauta 8' (notes 18 - 51)

Viol 8' (notes 18 - 51)

Prestant ßass 4' (notes 1 - 17)

Prestant 4' (notes 18 - 51)

Flet 4' (notes 18 - 51, potentially triangular)

Quint 2 2/3' (notes 1 - 51)

Octav 2' (notes 1 - 51)

Posted June 11, 2021 19:05

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An Arts Space Rendering

I had rendered an organ cabinet design for the reuse project proposed by Milwaukee organ builder John Miller and me when I began to define inherited alpine elements in my design language. The innovative application of milk paint to organ cabinet design is one way I now express that language.

These renderings reimagine that same cabinet using the milk paint color Pecan for keydesk and side frames. Other frames are constructed of African mahogany and raised panels of plain-sawn red oak.

The rendering below is a social media fan-favorite and features the keydesk frame milk painted with a very historically authentic Granny Smith Green.

John Miller and I are innovative in how we think about the pipe organ. I already wrote a blog entry about using a cabinet organ in an alternative multi-use arts or performance space. Our concept, as rendered here, would make a perfect addition to such a space and open up all sorts of possibilities for programming collaborative performance events.

Posted June 6, 2021 10:35

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Engineering and Art

Organ building is equal parts art and engineering. Pipe organ key action design combines both. Mechanical key action connects each key with a corresponding pipe valve through direct linkages that provide the musician with closer control over how and when wind enters the pipe. These linkages are sometimes referred to as trackers, so you will also see and hear this type of action referred to as tracker action.

The benefit to the musician of key action type is often debated but true. For some larger instruments, mechanical action is not possible. For my cabinet organs, it is playable, reliable, and easy to maintain. It is sustainable and pragmatic.

The renderings here show a splayed key action design example repurposed from one that I developed for an organ I built where I wanted the instrument to have the feel of a larger organ. A proficient mechanical key action design facilitates communication between the musician and his or her instrument.

Posted June 6, 2021 09:53

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Common Platform Design

A product platform is an engineering design concept used to produce a family of derivatives. More often associated with the automotive industry, the idea finds itself in the organs of the eighteenth-century German organ builder Gottfried Silbermann who built parish organs along similar lines as evidenced, for instance, by his instruments at Großhartmannsdorf, Forchheim, and Rötha.

I often thought that the third organ I built for the pastor of a church I knew well should provide the basis for similar instruments built from its design. I revised that organ here using its archived design object library and solids model design work from the redesign concept of my first organ conforming to my artist statement.

Copel 8' (notes 1 - 17)

Principal 8' (notes 18 - 51)

Flauta 8' (notes 18 - 51)

Prestant ßass 4' (notes 1 - 17)

Prestant 4' (notes 18 - 51)

Flet 4' (notes 18 - 51, potentially triangular)

Mixtur III

Posted June 6, 2021 09:39

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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 June 3, 2021 20:16

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Milk Paint and Tapered Leg Stands

Posted June 1, 2021 14:32

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Deconstructing Skinner Finds Tannenberg: Work, Life, Tools

People incorporate tools in their lives to accomplish tasks that are often determined and constrained by the culture in with they live and work. I wrote a digital story a few years ago that dived deeper into this subject from my perspective as a studio woodworker and project designer. You can find a link to it below.

https://sway.office.com/oQ_jdf0CZgHJ33es

Ernest M. Skinner and David Tannenberg could not have been more different in their respective approaches to pipe organ design as one lived and worked in a world far different from the other. Tannenberg did not journal his thoughts, ideas, or design concepts, but Skinner did. He authored a book titled "The Modern Organ", and in it he explains his path to develop the organ into a viable substitute for the symphony orchestra. He enlarged pipe scales, increased wind pressures, applied extensive voicing technique, electrified the key action, gave the stop action combination pistons that one could preset, all to make an instrument played by one individual capable of simulating the sounds and dynamic contrast of the symphony orchestra.

I remember thinking as I read Skinner's book that if one deconstructed his improvements, one would arrive at the comparatively primitive work of baroque organ builder Tannenberg. Tannenberg too was influenced by the socio-economic culture and ethos of this time. Both men worked to design and build tools that were needed by those who used and experienced them. To understand what motivated the work of Tannenberg, I began to look at his time and his religious community the Moravians, in an attempt to synthesize a set of major design themes that I could apply to the design of a new instrument.

When you begin to understand the time in which he worked, the methods he employed, and the elegant solutions he developed to provide an instrument that ideally served its task, the work of David Tannenberg seems anything but primitive as I found when I researched and played his organ built in 1802 at Hebron Lutheran Church in Madison, Virginia this summer.

Posted May 24, 2021 19:34

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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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