It was raining when we got off the Spadina streetcar at “Knox Church” to go see an organ that ended up being bigger that my whole bedroom which, by the way, isn’t too small. Well, anyway, once we got into the church we all walked down a long hallway leading to the chapel. The organ was gigantic and wonderful.
What I already knew about organs is that there are more or less four keyboards for every one, that they are not the same at all as pianos because pianos are string instruments and organs are wind instruments and that they are usually played in Churches or vampire movies. That’s about it.
Well, what I learned is that an organ is a medieval instrument that can sound like a whole choir or a flute or a bassoon etc. if you pull certain levers. This is what the levers look like…
Also that one of the keyboards is played by your feet (you can also see that in the picture). At the Knox church and at churches that have great big organs in the basement there are lots and lots of metal tubes everywhere and that’s what pushes the air through to make the noises of the pipe organs.
I think that organs are lovely because they make the most wonderful sound, they are beautiful to look at and strangely I like them because they seem like a challenge to learn how to play them.
