cipher, cypher [ˈsaɪfə] (Music / Instruments) A defect in an organ resulting in the continuous sounding of a pipe, the key of which has not been depressed Yikes! When I came to teach an organ lesson on the Beckerath both last week and this, we were plagued with ciphers on at least six different notes.… Read More Uh-oh: Organ ciphers!
I am on vacation in California, unfortunately recovering from food poisoning (not from Carl’s cooking!) and I got an email message from John Renke: Hi Kathy, What are those two little levers in the picture? John Ah, this is a gadget on the Beckerath organ that even long-time organists don’t know about! These are adjustable… Read More Adjustable tremulants
All along our 500 km journey, our host, Hans-Ulrich Erbslöh, kept phoning the office at St. Ludwig’s in Munich to see if we could see the organ there. Apparently it being Monday, it was both the pastor’s and the organist’s day off, but the secretary kept trying to reach them. By the time we reached… Read More St. Ludwig’s, Munich
There’s been a blog post about the organ that has been recently shared among those in the pipe organ community, and is well worth the lengthy read. I’m confident it would be interesting to readers of this blog so you can read the article in its entirety by clicking here. The author debunks the popular notion… Read More Bring back the organ
For the last couple of days, we have hosted Hans-Ulrich Erbsloeh and his wife, Christiane from Hamburg, Germany. We were trying to remember how many times Hans has visited Hawaii, and figured it was well over ten times. You see, Hans’ first visit was as the “apprentice” for organbuilder Rudolf von Beckerath when the LCH… Read More Memories of “The Boss”
I went to the church yesterday to teach an organ lesson and lo and behold, we found that a key was stuck down. “Oh, that’s no big deal! It just means a spring has sprung!” was what I said. According to Christoph Wolff, one of the respected Bach scholars today, Johann Sebastian Bach had a… Read More A spring has sprung!