Touring the largest organ in the world
An evening pause: Specifically, this tour takes us from the bottom to the top of the largest pipe, and then shows us what comes out when you play it.
Hat tip Judd Clark, who provides this additional information:
Constructed between May 1929 and December 1932, the Main Auditorium Organ is the “Poseidon”, built by the Midmer-Losh Organ Company, and is the world’s largest pipe organ. Also included in this organ are pipes operating on 100 inches of pressure, the Grand Ophicleide being the loudest and also most famous. The instrument has an estimated 33,113 pipes and requires approximately 600 horsepower (450 kW) of blowers to operate.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Judd-
Interesting find!
Metallica– Organ Cover
“E nien´altro importa”
[Nothing Else Matters]
Steffen Schlandt 2021
https://youtu.be/EEJ8-nTj8Ws
8:19
Heavy metal bands back in the day could “turn it up to 11” but even they weren’t playing with 600hp!
Here’s a demonstration of the partially restored Boardwalk Hall organ.
(reminds me of the scene in “Return of the Jedi” when standing in the partially complete second Deathstar, The Emperor tells Luke “Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational battlestation!”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUmdKax2248
BTW, funny this should get posted now.
Just a few days ago a vid of organist Anna Lapwood explaining how a pipe organ works popped up on my computer and reignited my interest in the instrument. So I came across info on the Boardwalk Hall organ and wondered about it’s current state.
Liked the treatment of the Metallica song in the vid you posted Wayne.
To hear a contrast/combo of modern electronic “power” music and an old school hall shaking instrument, check out the following.
(It was a spur of the moment thing to invite the organ/organist to join the closing piece. Bet the audience was shocked to hear the grandeur of the pipe organ kick in).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMEdqx3MdZA
Mitch-
Great stuff!
Question: How were these massive organs powered, before electric?
I’m going to drop this in here…
“Caruso”
Luciano Pavarotti [ 12 October 1935 – 6 September 2007]
&
Jeff Beck (24 June 1944 – 10 January 2023)
->audio only
https://youtu.be/RQYVnY-C4_c
5:43
Mitch–
“Now Witness the Firepower of this fully Armed and Operational Battle Station!”
https://youtu.be/g7-tskP0OzI
0:08
wayne,
According to this, it started with water pressure in pipes, and moved on to bellows:
“With the exception of water organs, playing the organ before the invention of motors required at least one person to operate the bellows. When signaled by the organist, a calcant would operate a set of bellows, supplying the organ with wind.[65] Because calcants were expensive, organists would usually practise on other instruments such as the clavichord or harpsichord.[66] By the mid-19th-century bellows were also being operated by water engines,[67] steam engines or gasoline engines.[68][69][70] Starting in the 1860s bellows were gradually replaced by rotating turbines which were later directly connected to electrical motors.[71] This made it possible for organists to practice regularly on the organ. Most organs, both new and historic, have electric blowers, although some can still be operated manually.[72] The wind supplied is stored in one or more regulators to maintain a constant pressure in the windchests until the action allows it to flow into the pipes.[73]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_organ
Andi-
thanks for those factoids.
Roman Replica Hydraulus Organ
https://youtu.be/VesLeVMK5aE
1:56
The Mormons have a big Organ also;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Lake_Tabernacle_organ
The Simpsons in church, singing “In the Garden of Eden” by I Ron Butterfly… on the Organ.
https://youtu.be/ulDC1w1ydLI
(Can’t believe I beat Wayne to it)
By the way Wayne, there’s of shortage of drugs for ADHD kids… Adderall has skyrocketed, it’s used doubling in the last two years and now there’s a shortage for everyone.
Road accidents have climbed as people are attempting to drive without their medications.
And the bombshell broke yesterday that the covalent authorized drug is causing strokes… nearly fell out of my chair when I saw it on national news and heard it on the radio. Normally such people would be blacklisted and fired for not saying that it’s a conspiracy theory! but the dam is breaking. They’re starting to admit that the clot shot kills people.
A portable pipe organ, made with stuff you may already have lying around.
https://macprovideo.com/article/audio-hardware/this-mini-paper-balloon-powered-pipe-organ-will-blow-you-away
This may be of interest
https://www.pipedreams.org/
Max–
Great Simpson clip! (I’ve only seen maybe 10 years of the Simpson, so there’s a lot I’ve missed.)
Reference the shortage of speed:
see:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/12/02/2022-26351/established-aggregate-production-quotas-for-schedule-i-and-ii-controlled-substances-and-assessment
Everyone should be aware that the DEA sets yearly production quotas for ALL Scheduled drugs, the big ones being speed and opiate pain killers. (What could possibly go wrong with that scheme?)
“DEA determined that the proposed APQs {“aggregate production quotas”] for amphetamine, dexmethylphenidate (Ritalin analogue), methylphenidate (Ritalin), and lisdexamfetamine (amphetamine analogue) are sufficient to supply legitimate medical needs, reserve stocks, and export requirements for 2023.”
“The majority of the manufacturers contacted by DEA and/or FDA have responded that they currently have sufficient quota to meet their contracted production quantities for legitimate patient medical needs. According to DEA’s data, manufacturers have not fully utilized the APQ for amphetamine in support of domestic manufacturing, reserve stocks, and export requirements for the past three calendar years 2020, 2021 and 2022.
–>Based on this trend, DEA has not implemented an increase to the APQ for amphetamine at this time.”
(Thanks Joe Biden.)
On the upside– the Mexican cartels HAVE increased their production of speed, so there’s plenty to go around, you just have to pay cash for it.
Max noted: “By the way Wayne, there’s of shortage of drugs for ADHD kids…”
and wayne responded: “Everyone should be aware that the DEA sets yearly production quotas for ALL Scheduled drugs, the big ones being speed and opiate pain killers. (What could possibly go wrong with that scheme?)”
This is what happens when government takes over a free-market system. Fortunately they have yet to take over the pipe organ industry or the music played by these organs. Yet.
Edward-
(Tangentially– what kind of rain are you getting in your area of Cali?)
HAR– I tried a quick search on “government organ regulation,” and the results were not relevant….
Interestingly– the hydrocodone (Vicodin et al) production quota for 2012 was 79,700 kilograms. In 2013 that jumped to 99,625 kilograms. (Does anyone remember when Obama told people to “just take a pill?” well, Medicaid paid for over 400 million dosage units of Vicodin during the obama administration. How did that turnout? The rest of us don’t get any painkillers, even if you need them.)
In 2021 the quota was 30,821 kilograms. The Cartels filled the void.
If I could address something briefly– I’m sure everyone has seen the news reports of illicit fentanyl and how all the pills are brightly colored, “like candy,” –> that is done expressly for the reason they all look exactly like Mallinckrodt brand morphine tablets. Nobody is trying to sell “candy” colored fentanyl to school children, that’s just not how it works.
wayne,
You asked: (Tangentially) “what kind of rain are you getting in your area of Cali?”
It seems to have been constant since Christmas, but the reality is that we have had daily rains except for three days interspersed throughout this period. As I write this, there is a drizzle. I haven’t kept up on how many inches of rain has fallen, but things have not dried out very well. I don’t think I can ever mow my lawn again without leaving deep tracks in the mud under the grass. One of my doors that has been sticky since the beginning of this recent drought has become free swinging again, but another door that never stuck has started being a little hard to close, meaning that the ground under my house has swelled in both the usual ways and an unusual way. There are interesting sinkholes that have opened up under roads and one railroad so that Amtrak’s Coast Starlight cannot get all the way south to Los Angeles. Two weeks ago there was a flood warning — the first since I moved in — for a creek that is a quarter mile from my house but a mile farther downstream.
I am thinking that the prediction that California would fall into the ocean is finally coming true. If you will excuse me, now, I will swim over to the grocery store. If I can find my water wings.
Edward-
Thanks for that boots-on-the-ground report.
I just hope you folks have sufficient reservoir infra-structure in place to take advantage.
Victor Davis Hansen-
Keynote Address: California at the Crossroads
Kern County Economic Summit (March, 2018)
https://youtu.be/bgmR_5Hi2fw
34:25
I read an article today about Gavin Newsom and the recommendation for dams to be built in California… For years all I’ve heard is in the destroying of the current reservoir dams that they have.
Edward;
John Kerry mentioned that the free market capitalism is over… The monopoly of public private partnership will now be the new system. (A mixture of technocracy and feudalism)
As World Architects Schwab and George Soros failed to show up to WEF citing scheduling conflicts or bad health. Something weird is going on.
The Intermountain west is getting hammered by rain and snow. 40° weather and rain has melted all the snow on the ground locally, but the mountains are boasting record snowfall… Some places as much as 20 and 30 feet.
The great Salt Lake was at a record low due to drought, and excessive mineral extraction as the demand for potassium and magnesium and lithium has gone up.
It’s a foot higher today and still rising. (Most of the lake has causeways that prevent freshwater from entering the lake for municipal use… overflowing)
Thanks for the info Wayne, I’ll tell my daughter. She located a source and did not have to buy from Mexico… In which you take a chance in getting medication laced with fentanyl.
I have a grandson who helped me change the timing chain on a Durango when he was five, Smart as a whip and quick to comprehend… Forced to go on Ritalin because his school teacher couldn’t handle the energy. (he’s fine if he doesn’t have sugar which is the majority of his diet)
Now he’s quit growing, skinny as a rail at 10 years old, stares at a screen all day and he’s shy and emotionally reserved. Always angry. If only….