Organ work

[vaneramos]

For my first week of work, I'm helping Les tune several church organs in downtown Toronto. But today, the first day, our work involved more than standard tuning. The aluminum footings of four of the largest pipes had buckled slightly under their own weight over the years. The footing is the bottom end, where air is admitted to the pipe, so the change in shape affects tuning and tone. After we lifted the pipes down, Les used a coping saw to remove the damaged footings, then soldered on new ones. My job, meanwhile, was to polish the entire pipe. Then we hoisted them back into place. Each of these was about three or four metres long.

Next we experimented to solve another problem with the same organ: the higher ranks of pipes are so shrill the organist can't stand to play them, and they really are painful to the ear. These pipes are more or less the size of tin whistles. Les removed just the C pipes and made the footings smaller to admit less air and produce softer notes. I spent the last two hours of the day with a lamp in one hand and heat gun in the other, while Les carefully hammered and shaped. He said this kind of work is too painstaking, so most people in his field won't be bothered with it, however the modification produced a much mellower note. If the organist likes the result, Les will take those entire ranks of pipes to his shop for alteration.

The usual organ tuning jobs won't be this interesting, he said; I should take a book along and multi-task, holding down keys while he tinkers. Tomorrow's job will be more like that. The church where we're scheduled to work is one block from Danny's office, so we'll meet him for lunch.

Comments

[wonderboynj.livejournal.com]

I like the thought of you tuning an organ.

Congrats.

*hugs*

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, somehow it is both comical and profound. I am thrilled.
xoxo

[veganbear1970.livejournal.com]

Glad to see that work is going alright:) Was it what you expected?
Have a good lunch with Danny and tell him we said "hello"!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yes, it has been very interesting. Less so today, because I was just holding down one key after another while Les tuned pipes inside the organ, but at least I could read while I was sitting there.

[lichtgespinst.livejournal.com]

sounds like fun. I'm glad the job finally started! thanks for sharing how the work is done! it's quite interesting.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yes, it won't always be so interesting. Today was relatively boring: I just held down one key after another while Les tuned pipes inside the organ. At least I could read while I was sitting there. But it's a somewhat obscure art, and overall I'm fascinated with the work, so will write about it from time to time.

[shawnsyms.livejournal.com]

*hug*

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

*smooch*