The Arizona sentinel. [volume] (Arizona City [Yuma], Yuma County, A.T. [Ariz.]) 1872-1911, 1889-07-20
ALL ABOUT ORGANS.
How a Pipe Instrument Differs From the
So-CaIIed Cottage Variety.

So-CaIIed Cottage Variety.
The pipe organ is wind Instrument
having great number of pipes of diff
ferent lengths and sizes, from which
sounds are produced by the admission
of compressed air conveyed to them
along various channels from bellows.
The entrance of this air is determined
by keys and stops moved by the per-
former. The structural parts of an
organ are: l, the apparatus for collect
ing and distributing the wind; 2, the
mechanism controlling the keys and
stops, and 8. the pipes. The wind
having been collected and compressed is
carried to the different divisions of the
organ by means of wooden tubes called
wind trunks, and is received into the
wind chests. The upper board of a
wind chest is something like a chess
board with a pipe set above each
square. Each row of pipes from right
to left is controlled by a stop, within
reach of the performer, and each row
from front to back is controlled by a
key. No pipe can speak until the
drawing of a stop frees the holes at the
bottom of the pipes, and key being
struck allows a supply of wind to rush
in under the pipes. Pipes are made of
both metal and of wood and are di-
vided with respect to the manner in
which they are made, into fue pipes
and reed pipes. Flue pipes are such as
have an oblong opening, called the
mouth, at the junction of the body
with the foot of the pipe, and are made
to sound by the wind first passing
through narrow issure called a
hue or wind-way. Reed or tongue
pipes are those which are made to
sound through the medium of mouth
piece, similar to that of clarionet, fur
nished with an elastic plate of metal.
Flue pipes depend upon their length
for the quality of their sound, and reed
pipes upon the size of the mOuth-piece
and the vibrations of the tongue. The
cottage organ belongs to the class of
reed instruments in which the tones
are due to vibrations impaired to a
body Of air in tube, throat or cham
Der, by means of the pulsations of
thin lamina or tongue of wood or met
al, which has one end fixed and the
other lying over or within the aperture.
The pulsations are created by driving
through the aperture current of air.
Technically speaking, this lamina is
called a reed. In reed organs the tones
are produced by free reeds caused to
vibrate by bellows and played by a
keyboard. There is an air-chamber in
the instrument which is partially eX-
hausted during performance which
causes a pressure on the part of the
outer air to enter. As the keys are
touched a corresponding valve is
made to open in each register, and all
the reeds are thus uncovered, and
caused by the entering air to sound. In
any reed the rapidity of vibration, and
hence the pitch. depends on several
particulars, chiefly the length and
weight of the reed and its relative
thickness at the two ends. If the reed
is thick at the free end and thin at the
fixed its tone is deep; if the reverse, it
has an acute tone. Modern improve
ments have made the reed organ capa-
BILE of producing such variety and COM
pass of sound that its music is very
fine, under the manipulations Of skill
cd performer Chicago Inter-Ocean.