This past week I was at a Pipe Organ Encounter: Technical (POET) event.
The regular Pipe Organ Encounter (POE) is an event for younger people who have little or no experience playing the organ to have the opportunity to receive lessons and see many different organs in a weeks time. The POE Technical is for organists to get a chance to see the inside of the instruments, learn how they are constructed, and get hand-on experience working with organs.
For the event, a group of 18 (including myself) stayed at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA (except for a few commuters, who still reported to PLU at the beginning of the day) and spent a great deal of time seeing instruments all around the area.
The two organ builders that we visited were Paul Fritts of Paul Fritts and Company Organ Builders, and Martin Pasi of Pasi Organ Builders. These are, by all means, the two finest organ builders in the United States. They both build organs using historical methods. The goal is not to replicate historic organs, but to return to older and true methods of organ building that have been in existence for centuries. Both builders have been getting a lot of notice in Europe as well; and they certainly should, because every instrument they build is of the utmost and exceptional quality. Everything in their instruments is build to absolute perfection to a degree that I have never seen.
Both builders have a preference for wedge shaped bellows. Why? It makes the instrument BREATH! When a sudden demand for air is made, there is slight sag in the supply. This is just like the breath of a singer, or any wind instrument. The effect is magnificent. When not desired, additional “wind stabilizers” can be turned on to make the organ constantly speak absolutely steadily.
All but two of the organs we saw were tracker organs. A tracker organ uses completely mechanical means to operate the entire instrument. The only electrical parts in a tracker are the combination action (to assist the organist in making quick stop changes) and a blower. Most trackers lack a combination action. Many have the ability to manually supply wind (so one could turn off the blower and still have the organ playable… with the assistance of a person to supply the wind).
One of the non-tracker instrument was across the street from the PLU at Trinity Lutheran. The other was a theater organ in Gig Harbor.
I’ve seen, played, and worked on theater organs before. Most of my peers with me in the POET have never seen theater organs or played one. Some never knew what they sounded like. I was quite pleased to see that nearly everyone had an ear-to-ear grin on their faces when they heard the impressive playback of a concert by Jonas Nordwall, which included many of the percussions available in the instrument.
Overall, the event was fantastic. I hope to see more POE events for older students and adults that I can participate in, and I would suggest that others with a similar interest in playing and working on organs check this out.
You can read about Pipe Organ Encounters and the different types of encounters available here:
