Talk:Organ (music)/Archive 2

Pipe organ vs Organ (music)
There is a huge unnecessary overlap between the two now. I put a "merge" notice on both, lacking a better one. Of course, these should be two separate articles, but the content must be carefully divided between the two, otherwise the divergence/duplication will progress. Mikkalai 18:46, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Done. Still far from perfect, but they don't overlap that much now, and should be easier to develop further. contrapuncti 10:57, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * I notice that both are flagged to be merged. This seems totally unjustified to me. IMO pipe organ, organ (music) and electronic organ are all good topics for separate articles. Andrewa 09:41, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A few suggestions to clean up this article
First of all, what does the uncertainty principle have to do with anything here? From the opening sentences:

"...tradeoff between time and frequency localization is embodied in the well known Heisenberg uncertainty relation (i.e. time and frequency as canonical conjugate variables)."

In my opinion this is (A) misleading and not really correct in this context and (B) jargonistic, since this is not a mathematics topic. Also, what's up with the large caption boxes on this page? I think someone with Wikipedia experience should go "clean it up" a little bit aesthetics-wise. Other than those rather minor points, this is an interesting and complete article.

As regards the temporal and frequency localization of the organ compared with the piano, I think the effect alluded to results from macroscopic physical issues: the spatially distributed nature of a pipe organ's pipes, resulting in different path lengths for its sounds; the delay between the application of wind to the pipe and when the pipe actually "speaks," etc. Also, I'm not sure it can be said that the piano is less frequency-localized than the organ--many characteristic organ timbres are the result of a very rich harmonic (or even non-harmonically-related) spectrum. What IS true is that the organ (as with the harpsichord) has limited dynamic flexibility compared with many other instruments, and as mentioned, its sound is produced by continuous oscillations.

There...my whining is finished! -Carl Willis

this article is seriously bad
Given the size of its repertory, the rich history of the instrument, and its powerful social and ideological function in christendom, the article is way too short. It's poorly written and structured. The picture at the top is of poor quality (scanned?).

It needs a lot of work.

Tony 07:47, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Function of the "Church" organ
> "The church organ was developed originally for congregational singing, and is still found in many houses of worship. Accompaniment of human voices, whether a congregation, a choir or a cantor or soloist is the primary purpose of the church organ, and it is highly developed to be suitable for this task."

Regarding this statement. Yes, the organ as it is commonly found in churches does exist for the purpose of accompaniment. However, its purpose is broader than that. Many congregations (and organists!) regard the prelude and postlude as integral parts of the service; to this end, the organ exists as a solo instrument. There are also many times at which some brief pieces may be played exclusively by the organ (i.e., the offertory, during communion, etc.). So, to say that the "primary purpose" of the organ in worship is to accompany singing limits the instrument, and does not adequately describe it's real use in traditional and modern church services.