A question of scale
Some things in music (as in life) are a question of scale. Not scales; that’s for another time. Today, I was caught up in the question of the “largest instrument”.
For most musicians, you play with a single voice. Or maybe six, if you scratch a guitar. At the high end of the scale, eighty-eight, on the piano, although you aren’t supposed to play them all at the same time. And then there’s the big boy… the pipe organ. I remember arriving at university, where we learned that the department chair had one in his office. Didn’t mean much; one of my high school teachers had a contraption with lots of keys and Leslie speakers. That rocked!
And life continued. I did learn that a pipe organ was a complex affair, but again the scale wasn’t clear. Until this evening. A short documentary on the construction of the new instrument for the OSM, by Casavant & Frères. A name worth remembering.
Start in the foundry, where the alloy is poured. A secret formula, probably. Beyond my means, with only a kitchen range and some pots. Anyhow, the alloy is transformed into sheets of metal, which are then formed into tubes of various sizes and technical specs. Lots of tubes… in the case of the new OSM instrument, the narrator mentioned 6,489 distinct pipes. Each one tuned by hand.
Such a project requires years, and a team of dedicated artisans. No idea how one gets into such a line of work. All to say that the instruments are world-class, and numerous. Again, a question of scale.
