A New Organ Stop for Producing Slurred Notes.
Year: 1896

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
A New Organ Stop for Producing Slurred Notes.
1, JOHN TREADWAY HANSON Architect of 54 Gloucester Crescent Regent's
Park N.W. London do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as
follows:-
1 use ordinary stopped organ pipes, the stopping is, however, effected by means
of a movable piston attached to a piston-rod, airtight & moving freely within the
pipe thus producing the different notes of which about one octave can be obtained
from each pipe. Each note requires a different pressure of wind which I provide
as follows. At the foot of each pipe is a small air-tight wind chest of only a few
inches capacity. The foot of the pipe is fastened into this chest, the pipes
being placed in a row each being provided with its separate wind-chest. At the
opposite end to the attachment of the pipe is a small pallet, or a slide, admitting
wind, in more or less quantity, according to how it is more or less opened, to the
pipe.
The wind is admitted to this series of wind-chests through a larger wind-chest
communicating with each and itself connected with the general wind of the organ.
This larger chest has a valve and pallet by means of which this stop can be made
to speak or not at will. By means of a lever-action this latter pallet will only
open when any note of the slur-stop" is being sounded.
The way in which this is effected will be described later on. All the pallets
will be worked in the ordinary way by means of a wire pull working through a
felted hole in the chest. If slides are used they will be worked in the ordinary
way by means of levers. The pipes will be placed vertically, so that the pistons
will descend in the pipes by reason of their own weight.
is
The pipes will be placed in a long box without a lid. The piston-rods, which
are adjustable as to their length, will all be fixed into one cross-piece which moves
smoothly in a groove length-wise in the long box. By means of levers, the
fulcrums of which are adjustable, the pallets, or slides, in the small wind-chest at
the foot of each pipe will be, more or less gradually, opened as the cross-piece
moves in its groove-thus giving more and more pressure of wind as the pipe
shortened by the descent of the piston. As the cross-piece passes certain points in
the groove the wind will, by means of a lever, be shut off from one pipe and
transferred to the next as each pipe has produced the last note of which it is
capable. The whole apparatus is connected with the organ by means of a draw-
stop, which may preferably be in the form of a balanced key in connection with
one of the manuals. There are two ways provided of using this stop by which
different effects can be obtained.
The first way is by means of levers, or of a pulley, lifting the cross-piece and
its attached piston-rods and worked by a pedal which, on being pressed by the
performer, and so depressed to various degrees, so places the piston in a pipe as to
give a note of the pitch required-the transition from one note to another being a
"slur." To indicate to the performer where the note he requires may be, a small
pointer, connected with the cross-piece & moving with it by means of a pulley-line,
moves up and down in his view. This pointer moves smoothly in front of a scale
where all the notes the stop is capable of producing are clearly marked. By these

page_text: means intervals, not capable, hitherto, of being produced on any keyed instrument,
may be played, such as major & minor semitones double sharps and flats and
others.
The second way of playing on the stop is as follows. It may however be noted
that either of these ways may be used alternately by the performer according to
the effect he desires to obtain.
The cross-piece, moving in its groove and between the sides of the long-box,
will pass regularly at certain points as certain notes are sounded. At these points
a slot is cut transversely in each side of the box down to the level of the top of the
cross piece. In the top of the cross-piece is a projecting point of metal. Moving
freely up and down in the slots is a tongue of metal.
Each of these tongues is kept, normally, by means of a spring, clear of the point
of metal in the cross-piece, but, on being lowered, of course stops the cross-piece at
that point.
These metal tongues are lowered by pressing the keys of the manual on which
the stop is placed, the action being identical with that ordinarily used by organ
builders need not here be described. As the piston falls by its own weight,
shortening the pipe and so raising it in pitch, it is evident that any upward passage
of music can be played by stopping its descent at one point after another as
desired.
In raising it (the piston) to play a passage from high to low pitch the following
means are used.
An ordinary pneumatic action is so applied as to raise the cross-piece. It will
preferably consist of bellows opening against a lever and so raising it. A point of
metal has been described in the cross-piece. Working freely on this as a fulcrnin
is a small lever of two equal arms, which, whatever the position of the cross-piece
in its groove may be, will reach under the whole series of metal tongues. This
lever is connected with the bellows of the pneumatic action in such a manner that
on being depressed at one end (i.e. on one arm) it admits the wind to them and on
being depressed on the other it lets it escape. As the fulcrum of this small lever
moves with the cross-piece, and the tongue of metal depresses it when put down
either above or below the note last sounded, it is evident that any upward progression
of the scale must always depress one (and the same), arm of the lever, and any
downward progression of the scale must always depress the other arm, thus either
inflating or depleting the bellows of the pneumatic action as may be proper to give
the required movement.
By means of a simple lever action whenever any of the tongues of metal are
pressed down the pallet at the back of the larger wind-chest will be opened thus
allowing a pipe to speak only when a key on the manual is put down.
The whole stop and apparatus may be placed in a separate swell-box controlled
by a swell pedal of its own.
Dated this 12th day of April 1896.
JOHN TREADWAY HANSON.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
A New Organ Stop for Producing Slurred Notes.
I, JOHN TREADWAY HANSON, of 54, Gloucester Crescent, Regent's Park, in
the County of London, Architect, do hereby declare the nature of this invention
and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following statement:—
. This invention relates to improvements in organ pipes and has for its object to
I, JOHN TREADWAY HANSON, of 54, Gloucester Crescent, Regent's Park, in
the County of London, Architect, do hereby declare the nature of this invention
and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following statement:-
. This invention relates to improvements in organ pipes and has for its object to

page_text: provide means whereby so-called slurred notes may be obtained from organ pipes
similar to those obtained on string instruments.
According to my invention in lieu of the ordinary fixed stoppers of organ pipes
I employ movable stoppers in the form of pistons designed to slide in the said pipes
so as to produce continuous slurred notes. The piston rod (or rods in the case of
two or more pipes) is (or are) secured to a cross head arranged to move in suitable
guides and operated by suitable means preferably by air pressure as hereinafter
more particularly described. The variation in the quantity of air admitted into
the pipe corresponding to the position of the piston in the said pipe is effected by
suitable valves or the like which are controlled by the movement of the cross head
to which the piston rod is attached.
To enable my invention to be fully understood I will describe it by reference to
the accompanying drawing, in which :-
Figure 1 is a sectional elevation of apparatus constructed according to my
invention:
Figure 2 is a vertical section of the same on the line 2-2 Figure 1:
Figure 3 is a transverse section on the line 3-3 Figure 1; and,
Figure 4 is a diagrammatic view illustrating suitable means for operating the
cross-head by means of bellows.
a, a¹ are two organ pipes the pipe a being designed to sound notes an octave
lower than those emitted by the pipe a'. These two pipes are inserted at their
lower ends into small wind-chests 6, 61 respectively containing valves c, c¹ of known
construction and hereinafter described. The wind-chests b, are in communication
through passages d, d' with an intermediate chamber e the openings of the said
passages d, d' into the chamber e being controlled by a sliding valve el so arranged
that the chamber e communicates with only one of the chambers b, b' at the same
time as hereinafter described. The chamber e is also in communication with a
wind-chest which is constantly supplied with compressed air the passage f
between the two said chambers being controlled by a pallet normally closing
the said passage under the action of a spring 3 and adapted to be opened by means
of the wire f in the usual manner when it is desired to sound one or other of the
pipes a, a'.
are the stoppers or pistons working in the pipes a, a respectively
and h, h' are the rods attached to the same, the said rods being, as clearly shewn
in Figures 1 and 2; secured at their upper ends to the cross-head i which works
in guides i, secured to the frame-work A of the apparatus. This cross-head is,
as above described, caused to slide in the guides j, j preferably by means of air
pressure and its movement is communicated to the pistons g, g' in the pipes a, a
directly through the medium of the piston rods h, and also to the valves c, cl as
follows, Cords k, k are attached at their two ends to the said cross-head and pass
over pulleys 1, l, m, m mounted on the frame A of the machine so that when the cross-
head moves the pulleys 1, are rotated in one or the other direction. Secured to
the pulleys l, I are two pulleys 1, 1° to the periphery of each of which one end of
a cord o is attached the other ends of the said cords being securel to spring
rods p, p. The rods p, p are connected at their other ends to the valves or sliding
cylinders c, c' in the wind-chests b, b' which cylinders are provided with triangular-
shaped slots q, q' and slide upon cylinders r, fixed in position in the said wind-
chests b, b', and also having triangular slots s, s', the apices of the two triangular
slots of each pair of cylinders being opposed to one another, as clearly shewa in
Figure 1 of the drawing. The sliding cylinders are normally held in their
lowermost positions, that is to say, in the position of the sliding cylinder c¹ in
Figure 1, by means of the springs p', pl on the rods p, p. With this construction
it will be obvious that when the cross-head is caused to move downwards in the
guides, j, the cords o are unwound from the pulleys, thereby allowing the
springs p', p to force down the rods p, p so that the sliding cylinder e descends on
the cylinder r and brings the two slots q and s opposite one another so as to allow
air to pass from the cylinder into the wind-chest 6 and so into the organ pipe a

page_text: the area of the outlet for the air from the cylinder increasing with the downward
movement of the sliding cylinder c on account of the gradual overlapping of the
slots q and r. By this means the quantity of air supplied increases gradually with
the descent of the piston in the pipe, that is to say, increases with the rise in the
pitch of the note.
As only one of the pipes is to be sounded at a time the slide el is employed for
putting only one of the cylinders or into communication with the wind-chest f
at a time in the manner above described. The said slide el is operated by the
movement of the cross-head i by means of a pivoted lever having two arms
against which the cross-head strikes in its downward and upward movement, the
motion of the said lever being communicated to a pivoted three-armed lever e
one arm of which is connected to the said slide e¹ and the other two arms to the
'lever by rods e, e as clearly shewn in Figure 1.
The cord o operating the valve e' is made slack, as shewn, so that during the
first part of the downward motion of the cross-head i, the cord is simply wound
upon the pulley and does not raise the cylinder e until the cylinder e has arrived
at its outermost position when the cylinder el is raised to admit air in gradually
increasing volume into the wind-chest 6 and so into the organ pipe al which is then
sounded, the slide el having been moved into the requisite position by the contact
of the cross-head i with the lever . As the effective or operative stroke of the
piston g in the pipe a' is not so long as that of the piston y in the pipe a and as the
cylinder has the same length of stroke as the cylinder e it follows that the cord of
connected with the cylinder c¹ must be wound on the pulley more quickly than
the cordo is wound on the pulley and to this end I make the said pulley of
greater diameter than the pulley .
It will be obvious that to obtain a particular note from one of the organ pipes.
the piston must be stopped in the proper position for giving the said note. To
this end I provide a number of cross-bars or tongues t,t pivoted at one end to one
of the guides j, j at points on the said guide corresponding to the positions of the
cross-head for the various semi-tones. These cross-bars t t are normally held by
springs t, out of engagement with a lever or bar w, pivoted to the cross-head i
so that the said bar can normally pass under them. Each of the said cross-bars t
is connected by a wire or the like with a key of the corresponding note on the key
board of the organ so that when the said key is depressed the corresponding cross-
bart is also pulled downwards thereby causing a spring projection upon its under-
-side to drop upon the upper face of the lever u so as to cause the said lever to rock
on its fulcrum and to come to rest when a pin 2 on the cross-head i strikes against
the depressed cross-bar t, that is to say, when the piston is in the proper position
for sounding the note corresponding to the key depressed. It will be obvious,
therefore, that to produce a slurred note from one note to another it will be
necessary to bring the cross-head to rest at the proper position for the first note to
be sounded by means of its key and then to depress the key corresponding to the
second note by which means the said cross-head is freed from the first cross-bar aud
allowed to slide to the next where it is brought to rest the note emitted by the
pipe being obviously a transition from one to the other of the notes corresponding
to the keys depressed.
To operate the cross-head I advantageously employ the following device. The
-cross-head is connected with a double bellows e, el (Figure 4) by cords, so th
it is moved in one direction or the other according to which of the bellows v, or
is inflated. Each of the two bellows t, and y is in connection, by passages u.
with a wind-chest constantly supplied with air under pressure. The openings of
the passages 2 into the wind-chest are controlled by slide valves ', connecte.
to the two ends of a rocking bar jointed at its fulcrum to the end of a hollow
rod w. In connection with this hollow rod w I provide a rod w¹ which can slide
-but cannot turn therein and which is jointed to the bar u at its fulcrum. By
this means it will be obvious that when the bar moves with the cross-head i
the rod to alides in and out in the hollow bar we according as the said cross-head

page_text: approaches or recedes from its central position, and it will also be obvious that
when the bar a rocks on its fulcrum the rods w and w¹ are rotated so as to rotate
the bar and thereby raise one of the slides 2 an lower the other to allow
air to pass into one of the bellows and not into the other. Eich of the slides o
is provided with an orifice which when raised (that is to say when communi-
cation between the bellows and wind-chest is cut off) comes into alignment with an
orifice in the said bellows so that the air can escape from the latter and allow it
to collapse.
In lieu of the arrangement of bar u and cross-bars t, t for controlling the
movement of the cross-head I may employ a cord connected to the said cross-
head and fixed to a pedal in such a manner that when the pedal is depressed
the cross-head is raised and when pressure is removed from the pedal the cross-
head drops by its own weight. In this case a pointer connected to the cord is
employed which works upon a dial or the like to indicate the position of the
cross-head so that the latter can be brought to rest in any desired position.
I may also use my cross-bars t, t to arrest the movement of the cross-head when
the latter is operated by a pedal as above described and in this case it is
advantageous to employ the pointer and dial.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is :-
1. The combination with an organ pipe of a movable stopper consisting of a
piston adapted to slide in the said organ pipe and being provided with means
whereby it can be brought to rest in any desired position, substantially as, and
for the purpose, hereinbefore described.
2. The combination with an organ pipe of a piston, piston rod, cross-head and
means for operating the said crosshead whereby it can be brought to rest at any
desired point in its path, substantially as and for the purpose specified.
3. The combination with an organ pipe having a movable stopper of means
whereby the supply of air to the pipe is regulated to accord with the position of
the stopper in the pipe, substantially as herein before described.
4. The combination and arrangement of parts forming the improved apparatus
for producing slurred notes in organ pipes, herein before described and illustrated in
the accompanying drawing.
Dated this 15th day of Webruary 1907
G. F. REDFERN & Co.,
4, South Street, Finsbury, London, Agents for the Applicant.