Aeolian-Skinner Organ at ASU

Carol and I go to Arizona State University every summer to take some high school students to study Mars with the Mars Student Imaging Project (MSIP). While Carol and the students work at the Mars Space Flight Facility with the scientists, I sneak over to the Music building where I borrowed the keys to the practice organs. The most recent organ that they acquired is an Aeolian-Skinner that was originally build in 1937 for the chapel of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia. The organ is in a practice room which is only slightly larger than the organ, so the pictures that I took cannot show you the entire organ because the camera's field of view is too small.

The organ console located underneath the swell shade.

The organ console with stoptabs. Here is the stoplist:
Pedal
Bourdon 16'
Diapason 8'
Flute 8'
Viola 4'
Flute 4'

Swell
Viola 8'
Gedackt 8'
Viola 4'
Flute 4'
Nazard 2 2/3
Piccolo 2'
Tremolo - Not Functional

Great
Diapason 8'
Viola 8'
Gedackt 8'
Octave 4'
Viola 4'
Flute 4'
Nazard 2 2/3'
Fifteenth 2'

The plaque on the side of the organ where I got this information.

I will post post pictures of the other practice organs on my organ crawl in the ASU music building later.

Memorial Day To-Do-List

Things that were still wrong with my organ before Memorial Day:

- Swell Pedal doesn't work
- Electrical popping sounds in the pedal keys (when amplified)
- Loud electrical cracking sounds in the Low F and F# of the pedal keys
- Diaopason reeds sound, but not through the amplifier
- 1 note from each of the Flute, Viola, and Diaopason reeds do not sound at all

After the Memorial Day weekend, I have gotten rid of both of the pedalboard problems, and got the Diaopasons working. So all I need to do is figure out how to get the Swell pedal to work and to fix the 3 notes. But those will be problems for a future date.

The pedalboard problems were easy to fix. I gave the contact switches a very good cleaning and now there are no minor popping sounds anymore. The really loud cracks on the low F and F# was repaired by an earlier technician by wrapping electrical tape around the contact switch. They had fallen off over the years, so I replaced them.

The Diaopasons were trickier because I really did not know what was wrong with them. I knew that the reeds were physically sounding in the organ (you can actually hear the reeds vibrate in these old organs), but the amplified sound was not getting past the pre-amp on the organ. I thought it might be an old wax paper capacitor that these organs had back in 1945. I saw some of them in the back of the organ and I just knew that that was the problem. However, when I took a closer look at the wax paper capacitor I saw that it's electrical leads were cut and that a newer capacitor was routed around the old wax paper one. I checked all the capacitors and resistors that I could see and they had all been replaced. I went back and looked at the schematics of the electrical system (which was tricky because I don't know much about electrical schematics) I figured out where all the wires were going and which wire did what job.

Eventually I traced the wiring from the electrical pickups (little microphones detecting the reeds vibrations) and traced their signals all the way to the pre amp. It was at the pre amp that I found all the signals from all the reeds fed into the pre amp through one single 5 pin plug. Each of the pins of the plug carried the signal of a different rank of reeds: Pedal, Flutes, Violas, Celeste, and Diaopasans. I physically touched the plug and noticed that it was loose. So I unplugged it and noticed that the pin assembly in the plug was loose from the rest of the plug. I pushed it back together, plugged it back into the pre amp, and all of a sudden the Diaopasons were working!!! It was all because of a loose plug. Thank goodness I had not started cutting capacitors out of the back of the organ!!!!!

It is really nice having another entire rank of reeds to play with. I am experimenting with different stop combinations to make different sounds. Soon I will have a new video up on YouTube with the sounds of all the different stops of my organ and some of their combinations. It was a good Memorial Day weekend!!

Toccata in D Minor & Other Music

My students (I teach World Geography in high school) ask me if I can play the spooky Halloween music when they find out that I can play the organ. It seems as if Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D Minor is mandatory for any organist. So I decided to look at the sheet music on the Werner Icking Music Archive. I found out that it is not all that difficult (at least the beginning is not all that difficult). So now I can not play the first two measures (sort of), so when my students ask me I can say that I am working on it.

I am also finally learning how to play hymns on the organ. I learned "Silent Night" for Christmas, and am working on "O Sacred Head Now Wounded" for Lent. I am also working on "Amazing Grace," which I found out is even easier.

I also heard "The Queen's Funeral March" by Henry Purcell on YouTube. Music composed for the funeral of Queen Mary II. This piece is short and just a series of chords, so I almost have that down as well. In a week or two, I should be able to put them up on YouTube so you can hear how this music sounds on the WurliTzer.

Working on d' Organ, all the Liv' Long Day

The picture is of the pedal mechanism inside my organ. My organ has two pedals. The right pedal is the Crescendo pedal that works just fine, the left pedal is the Swell pedal that doesn't work at all. The difference is that the Swell pedal is a volume pedal, whereas the Crescendo pedal turns more stops on or off. I have been working on the inside of my organ to try to see how to fix the Swell pedal and some other problems that I have with my organ.

I bought the technical manual for my WurliTzer organ. Every now and then I open it up and do some exploring. It looks like somebody has come in to maintain the organ, but the fixes they did are not what the manual recommends. For example someone "fixed" a popping sound in one of the pedal notes by wrapping a connector with electricians tape so that the only contact being made was a physical contact, not an electrical one. This stopped an electrical popping sound that was made whenever those two pedals were played. Well the tape fell off of one of the contacts, so it sounded like gunfire when I played those notes. Well I checked the manual and I turned a screw on the pedal contact system and adjusted the contacts so this won't happen in the future. Sometimes it helps to read the instructions!!

I also found out what was not wrong with the Swell Pedal and a couple of missing notes on my flute stops. I still don't know what is really wrong with these systems, but at least I know what is NOT wrong!

I check everything about the Swell Pedal (see picture) in the manual and everything seems to be fine with the Swell Pedal mechanism, it seems to me that the reason why the swell pedal does not work is because there is something wrong with the system once it gets into the Pre-Amp in my organ. I have decided that I am Not going to take my Pre-Amp apart until after my dad comes down next time. He knows a lot more about electronics in the 1945 era.

I have figured out that the missing note on the flute section has to be with a magnet in the windchest that opens a little door that allows air to flow into the reed. I have eliminated all the other possibilities. I have yet to start working on the magnet assemblies.

I still don't know what is wrong with my diapasons yet. I can hear the reeds sound in the organ, but they are not getting amplified. Maybe the signal is getting lost before it gets to the Pre-Amp, or maybe it is getting lost once inside the Pre-Amp.

I also have done a general cleaning of the insides of the organ. I used to have about 17 keys on the swell manual that would stick once you depressed them, but now they work fine because my wife showed me how to clean the connections. I had some problems with little pops when I played the pedal notes, but most of those problems went away after I cleaned all the dust bunnies out of the pedal contacts inside the organ.

There is always more work to be done on an organ like this, but it is fascinating to see how it all fits together sometimes.

Behringer Mixer

Here is a picture of the Behringer mixer that my WurliTzer is plugged into before it goes into my home amplifier. It has a special effects module built in and I use it to provide reverb for the organ. The mixer can control the length of the reverberation by 1/5th of a second.

I can also use it to add a tremolo sound effect to the organ, but it is more of a Leslie effect instead of classical church organ tremulant. I can always learn some Theater Organ Music.

Organ Stoplist

Pedal	Great
Major Bass 16'	Bourdon 16'
Dolce Gedeckt 16'	Viola 16'
Octave Bass 8'	Open Diapason 8' - NF*
Diapason 8' – NF*	Flute 8'
Violon Cello 8'	Flauto Dolce 8'
Flute 4'	Viola 8'
	Dulciana 8'
Swell	Celeste 8'
Bourdon 16'	Octave 4' - NF*
Stopped Flute 8'	Flute 4'
Flauto Dolce 8'	Violina 4'
Viola 8'	Twelfth 2 2/3'
Dulciana 8'	Fifteenth 2'
Voix Celeste 8'	String Mixture II RKS.
Stopped Flute 4'	Chimes - NF**
Violina 4'	Echo to Main - NF**
Flute Twelfth 2 2/3'	Echo on Main Off - NF**
Flautina 2'
Oboe 8'	5 Factory Presets
Tremulant - NF**	Swell Pedal - NF
	Crescendo Pedal

* Not Functional - Reed sounds, associated pickup or capacity does not

** Not Functional - Function performed outside of existing console, therefore not operative