Organ (music) facts for kids
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In music, an organ is a special keyboard instrument that makes sound by pushing air through pipes. You often hear them in churches, and sometimes in older movie theatres or cinemas. The person who plays the organ is called an organist.
There are different kinds of organs:
- Pipe organs: These are the oldest type. They sometimes use foot pedals to help make sound.
- Water organs: These are like pipe organs but use flowing water to create sound.
- Mechanical organs: These are powered by a crank. Examples include street organs and barrel organs.
- Electric organs: A newer type that uses an electric motor to move air.
- Electronic organs: The newest type, which uses electronics to copy the sounds of pipe or electric organs.
Contents
Pipe Organs: The King of Instruments
The pipe organ is one of the biggest and most impressive musical instruments. It has been around in its current form since the 1300s. Before the Industrial Revolution, it was considered one of the most complex things humans had ever built, along with the clock.
Pipe organs can be small, with just one keyboard, or huge, with over 10,000 pipes! A large modern organ usually has three or four keyboards (called manuals), each with 61 notes. It also has a pedalboard for the feet, with 32 notes.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart famously called the organ the "King of instruments." Some of the largest organs have pipes that are 64 feet long, making very deep sounds. What's really special about the organ is its ability to go from a very soft whisper to a super powerful, full sound. An organist can hold these sounds for a very long time. For example, the Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia, USA, can sound as powerful as three symphony orchestras playing at once!
Another cool thing about organs is their "polyphony." This means different sets of pipes can play at the same time, and their sounds mix together in the room, not inside the instrument itself. This is different from digital organs, where the sound comes from speakers.
Church Organs: Music for Services
Most organs in places like North America, Europe, and Australia are used in Christian and Reform Jewish religious services. These are called church organs. Organs are great for accompanying singing, whether it's a group of people, a choir, or a solo singer. This is because the organ can play low notes, support the main singing, and add bright sounds above it.
Church services often include solo organ music, not just accompaniment. This music is played at the beginning of the service (a prelude) and at the end (a postlude).
Chamber Organs: For Smaller Spaces
A chamber organ is a small pipe organ. It often has only one keyboard and sometimes no separate pipes for the foot pedals. These organs are made for small rooms, which they can fill with sound. They are usually used for special chamber organ music because they don't have as many different sounds as larger organs. Their sound is very personal and intimate.
Theatre Organs: For Silent Movies
The theatre organ (or cinema organ) was created to play music for silent movies. It was designed to sound like a whole orchestra. Theatre organs have many extra features, like percussion sounds and special effects, to give the organist more options.
{{Image:SoloMarHarp.jpg|thumb|A marimba, part of a theatre organ, in a solo chamber.]] Theatre organs don't take up as much space as regular organs. They use a special technique called "unification" and higher air pressure to make a wider range of sounds and louder volume from fewer pipes. Unification means that instead of having a separate pipe for each key at every pitch, they use fewer pipes and extend their range. For example, a classical organ might have 183 pipes for certain sounds, while a theatre organ might only need 85 pipes for the same sounds.
Other Pipe Organs
The "Bambuso sonoro" is an interesting experimental organ made by Hans van Koolwijk. It has 100 flutes made entirely of bamboo!
Reed Organs: Portable Sounds
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Before electronic organs, the reed organ and harmonium were very common. They made sounds using reeds, similar to a piano accordion. These organs were smaller, cheaper, and easier to move than pipe organs. They were popular in smaller churches and homes. However, they weren't very loud and didn't have a wide range of sounds. They usually had only one or two keyboards, and foot pedals were rare.
Chord Organs: Easy Chords
The chord organ was invented in 1950 by Laurens Hammond. It had special buttons for the left hand that played whole chords, much like an accordion. Other companies also made chord organs.
Electronic Organs: Modern Music Makers
Since the 1930s, electric instruments that don't use pipes have been made to sound like organs. Many churches and musicians bought them because they were much smaller and cheaper than pipe organs. They also brought organ music into homes, dance bands, and other new places. Electronic organs have almost completely replaced reed organs.
Hammond Organs: Jazz and Rock Stars
The Hammond organ was the first really successful electric organ, released in the 1930s. It used spinning metal wheels called "tonewheels" to create its sound. It had special "drawbars" that let the player control the volume of different sounds, creating unique effects. The player could choose volume levels from 0 to 8 for each part of the sound.
The most popular Hammond models were the B-3, C-3, and A-100. They all had the same sound-making parts. The B-3 stood on legs, the C-3 was a church model, and the A-100 had built-in speakers.
Even though they were first made for churches, Hammond organs, especially the B-3, became super popular in jazz (especially soul jazz) and gospel music. Because these styles influenced rock and roll, the Hammond organ became a big part of the rock and roll sound. Famous bands like The Doors, Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, Santana, and Deep Purple used it a lot in the 1960s and 1970s. Its popularity came back around 2000, partly because new "clonewheel organs" were made that were light enough to carry.
Other Electronic Organs
Some electronic organs used electronic parts called "oscillators" instead of mechanical parts to make sound. These were even cheaper and easier to carry than Hammonds. They could also bend pitches.
From the 1940s to the 1970s, small organs were sold that made traditional organ sounds simpler. These were like early versions of modern portable keyboards. They had features like one-touch chords and automatic rhythms. Lowrey was a top maker of these smaller organs.
In the 1960s and 1970s, a simple, portable electronic organ called the combo organ became popular with pop and rock bands. It was a signature sound for bands like The Doors, Led Zeppelin, and Iron Butterfly. The most popular combo organs were made by Farfisa and Vox.
Digital Organs: Computer Sounds
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The invention of the integrated circuit changed electronic keyboard instruments again. Digital organs, sold since the 1970s, use different technologies to create sound. They started with "additive synthesis," then used "sampling technology" (in the 1980s), and later "physical modelling synthesis" (in the 1990s).
"Virtual Pipe Organs" are played using MIDI. They use samples (recordings) of real pipe organs stored on a computer. This is different from digital organs that use special computer chips inside the instrument to make sounds.
With stereo or multi-channel sound systems, virtual organs can sound very much like real pipe organs. For example, to play the very deep notes of a virtual organ, you often need a subwoofer speaker to create the powerful low sounds.
Steam Organ: The Loud Calliope
The calliope is a unique organ that uses pressurized steam instead of air to make sound. It was invented in the United States in the 1800s. Calliopes usually have a very loud and clear sound. They are often used outdoors and many have been built on wheeled platforms, like on old riverboats or at fairs.
Historical Instruments
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A Portative organ
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A Positive organ
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A Regal
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Various Instruments
Reed Organs
- Harmonium or parlor organ: A reed instrument with many sound options and two foot-operated bellows.
- American reed organ: Similar to the harmonium, but it sucks air through the reeds. It can use foot bellows or electricity.
- Melodeon: A reed instrument with an air tank and foot bellows. It was popular in the USA in the mid-1800s.
Squeezeboxes
These are free reed instruments where the sound is made by squeezing bellows.
- Squeezeboxes like the accordion, concertina, and Bandoneón.
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A Piano accordion
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A Chromatic button accordion (Bayan)
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A Diatonic button accordion
Mechanical Organs
- Barrel organ: Made famous by organ grinders. Larger ones sometimes have keyboards for people to play.
- Other types that work on similar ideas:
- Orchestrion, fairground organ (or band organ in the USA), Dutch street organ, and Dance organ. These pipe organs use a "piano roll" or other mechanical ways to play a song instead of a keyboard.
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An Orchestrion from Germany
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A Band organ from the USA
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Images for kids
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An old drawing of an organ from the Utrecht Psalter.
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An organ in St Giles' Cathedral.
See also
In Spanish: Órgano (instrumento musical) para niños
