Transient variation in mechanical action and electric action pipe organs
Alan Woolley · Proceedings of meetings on acoustics · 2013
Control of the transients by the player has often been cited as one of the most important characteristics of mechanical pipe organ actions since their reintroduction towards the middle of the last century. Previous research indicates that players do not vary the way that they move the key to a significant extent, except as the result of starting the finger movement from some distance above the key rather than in contact with it. This does not necessarily lead to an audible difference. There are, however, other factors in pipe organ action design, pipe voicing and the way in which organs are played that may lead to real or apparent transient variation irrespective of the type of action. It is well recorded that it is desirable to stagger the release of a chord starting with the pipes with least wind requirement in order to minimise the effect on the wind chest pressure particularly with traditional pressure regulators remote from the wind chest. This paper investigates some of these mechanisms and compares transient variation on mechanical action organs and electric action organs due to different playing styles.