page_title: Farrand & Votey Organ Company
section_title: Reed organ construction
hierarchical_section_title: Farrand & Votey Organ Company / Reed organ construction
caption_attribution_description: English: Old organ pump pedals from a nineteenth century pump organ
context_page_description: Farrand & Votey Organ Company was a nineteenth-century manufacturer of pianos, reed and pipe organs, and player pianos located in Detroit, Michigan. It evolved from William R. Farrand and Edwin S. Votey, hence the name of Farrand & Votey. The company is the development of the old Detroit Reed Organ Company that was originally bought out in 1881. The Farrand & Votey Organ Company produced 7,200 instruments a year by 1889. The company made huge organs on special order contracts. In 1891 the company built a monumental 2,700 pipe organ for the Detroit's First Presbyterian Church. In 1893 it built a huge organ for the Chicago World's Fair, where it was played in recitals by world-renowned organists. In 1897 it built the nation's largest pipe organ. The company dissolved in 1897 and split up into two separate companies of the owners, each making their own style of organs.
context_section_description: The old original Farrand & Votey reed organs were a mechanical instrument where the organist had to push the foot pedals alternately to make the organ work. There were two pedals just above floor level below the keyboard as they sat at the organ. They were a foot long by a half a foot wide each and located a few inches apart. The organist's feet rested on these two pedals and operated the organ with them. The pumping technique was to push one pedal down at a time and alternate between them on the pushing. When one pedal was depressed, the other one was not. When one pedal had been pushed down flat and level the other was up at about a 45 degree angle. The lowered pedal was then released by the organist's foot while the alternate pedal was depressed all the way down. The organist then had a pumping action with the two feet pushing down the pedals alternating between the two.
  When the foot pedals were pumped with the alternating action then the organ's two bellows passed compressed air over a set of reeds. The vibrating reeds then produced the sound. The pitch or the particular tone the reed made was dependent on the design shape of that particular reed. This type of organ was commonly called a "pump organ" because the organist used a lot of energy working the foot pedals in a pumping action. No matter what an organist called the organ it technically was still a reed organ. The organist could control and vary the sound volume of the organ by how hard they operated these foot pedals. There several brass reeds used to create the sound of the organ.
caption: Pump organ pedals
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