Pipe Organ Tidbits

Praised as the “King of the Instruments”, the origin of the pipe organ goes back thousands of years to Greco-Roman times, when it was often used as an instrument to evoke solemnity in royal ceremonies and to entertain guests in sports events, and was also regarded as a significant musical element in western heraldry. Aside from the long history, the powerful appeal of the pipe organ comes with its structural complexity, physical magnificence, as well as a full range of registers, showcasing the variation of timbres comparable to an orchestra. With the significant development of polyphonic music in Notre-Dame de Paris during the 12th century, the pipe organ has also become the designated instrument that indivisible with the sacred music. It is worth mentioning that organ was used to provide live music accompaniment for silent films in cinemas and theatres before the 1930s. Being the oldest keyboard instrument of the history, the pipe organ was evolved from panpipes primitively made with graduated length of bamboos in which sound is produced by the vibration of an air-stream blowing. It was not until the emergence of the keyboard that the pipe organ gradually developed into the largest scale of aerophone nowadays.