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Development of an innovative organ pipe design method

Deliverables

Twelve instruments (eight historical and four contemporary) pipe organs were investigated in five different regions of Europe. Room acoustical measurements were carried out and the sound of selected pipes was recorded at different locations. The recordings were carried out and the sounds were analyzed by IBP, stationary spectra and attack transients were determined. The results of the in-situ room acoustical measurements and of the analysis of sound recordings were compared to the results of the listening tests and to the historic scaling of the pipes. Such a complex comparative study of the traditional styles of European organ building was never performed to date. The results of the in-situ measurements of historical pipe organs built in different styles are very interesting not only for the organ builder community but also for musicologists and musicians. Therefore, the results will be published in international journals of acoustics, organ building and organology.
The results of the laboratory measurements of contemporary pipe ranks provided by the SME partners of the project was used for the development of the new, scientific scaling method by the RTD partners of the project. However, the results themselves, especially the effects of the voicing steps on the attack and stationary spectrum of the sound, contain important information for organ builders. They can apply this knowledge in their own work for improving the quality of the voicing practice. Therefore, those results of the laboratory measurements, which can be applied immediately in organ building were summarized in an internal report. This report was distributed among the SME partners of the project.
One goal of the project was to establish a ¿dictionary¿ of expressions, which are used by organ builders for describing the stationary sound and attack of pipe sounds. First the organ builders collected the words they apply to characterize the sound quality (timbre and speech) of pipe sound. In the next step they had to find an agreement among themselves concerning the meaning of the expressions used, and they also had to establish a common terminology, which they wanted to use consequently in the project for characterizing pipe sounds. Finally, detailed explanations of each expression were added by the organ experts. The explanations are given in English. The expressions of the dictionary were compared to the results of the objective measurements and listening tests of the pipe sounds in order to find the relations between the measurable objective and subjective properties of pipe sounds and the expressions used by organ builders. The connections and links between the expressions of the dictionary and the measurable properties of pipe sounds are also given in the dictionary. The dictionary will be published in S&T journals.

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