Text: From: linnstaedt@aol.com.geentroep (Robert Linnstaedt) To: rolls@foxtail.com Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 07:29:16 EDT Subject: Chromatic Organ Scales Russell Wattam writes in 000925 MMD: > .... A completely chromatic scale is really a luxury,... but a > non-chromatic scale should certainly not be seen as a detriment.... Russell is quite right in this regard. This also extends to musical instruments which are "hand-played". Many legitimate instruments are diatonic and cannot play many sharps or flats without some sort of device. Concert harps immediately spring to mind. Bugles (without keys or valves) are severely limited in notes, sounding only fundamental, harmonics, and a few "bends"; but this limitation becomes a challenge for genius to devise arresting musical numbers like "Taps," "Reveille," "Charge," etc. One need only consider the "short octave" found in many historic keyboard instruments. In these, the lowest F#, G#, A# might be tuned to C, D, and E; allowing performance of music reaching down to C without having to add C, C#, D, D#, and E to the keyboard. Historic music (which lacked/avoided much of the modern chromaticism) rarely calls for certain pitches, especially in the lowest bass line. (As an aside, I seem to recall reading that there are virtually no hymns written in the key of G-flat or its enharmonic, F-sharp.) The lowest pitches in pipe organs employ the largest and most expensive pipes. Generally speaking, the lowest octave in a chromatic set costs as much as (often more than) the next four octaves of that rank. And when you consider all the space, the fitting, the mitering, and the weight involved in squeezing just one set of 16' pitch pipes (even stopped pipes) into a reasonably sized organ, one realizes the impracticality of designing a whole instrument around pipes that may hardly ever be used! A fully chromatic instrument is foolishly extravagant if it will be played only mechanically. In a mechanical organ, one can simply transpose the music into a key for which the organ has all the right notes. Wasting money for say, a low C# and low G# means one must forgo something more useful. Better to put one's money into the things which count. Oh! and let me add that this is all my own opinion, with some fact tossed in for verisimilitude. ;-) Regards, Robert B. Linnstaedt http://members.aol.com/Linnstaedt/organ.html

See Also:

Source: