A comprehensive dictionary of organ stops - Allen Organ Studio of ...

DICTIONARY OF ORGAN STOPS. 127
much employed by the best English builders, since they are apt to render
the tone coarse and blatant. The maximum degree of power desirable can
be obtained with wide closed reeds. The reeds used by German builders
generally open out to greater breadth at the bottom than English ones.
Inverted reeds with the opening running in the reverse direction, i.e., wide
at the top and tapering at the bottom, have been experimentally tried by
German builders and by Mr. Hope-Jones. No very definite results were
arrived at. The general theory anent the generation of tone in reed
pipes is that the sound is produced by the periodic admission—by the
vibrating tongue—of puffs or impulses of wind into the shallot, and thence
into the pipe. Mr. Hermann Smith, a well-known authority on these
matters, stigmatizes this theory as false, or, at any rate, inadequate. The
initial source of tone, he asserts, " is the note emitted by the vibration
of the tongue itself, the puffs (so-called) being the fuller definition of
the suction due to confining the affected air in a tube.'' " Resonance," he
further adds, " means sympathy aiding the original force." The scope of
this work will not admit of further exposition of Mr. Hermann Smith's
most fascinating theories, suffice to say that he advances many weighty
reasons for adhesion to his belief.
The use of the epithets "open" and "closed," as applied to the
shallots, must not engender confusion with those relating to the treatment
of the pipes. Reed pipes are generally left open at the top. Occasionally,
however, they are closed with a metal lid or a corked wooden cap, the
necessary openings or vents being cut in the side of the pipe. They are
then known as capped or covered, rarely as stopped pipes. An illustration
of a capped reed may be seen under Oboe. The practice of capping full-
scaled chorus reed work has a pernicious influence on the tone, rendering
it thin and devoid of carrying power, often even smothered in effect.
Capping also imparts a peculiar hollow quality of tone, never quite absent
even from chorus reeds so treated. The practice was strongly condemned
by the late Mr. Willis. It is, in effect, a mere makeshift attempt to evade
the real difficulty of successful reed-voicing—the art of securing refinement
of tone by the treatment of the tongue. It is needless to resort to
capping to exclude dirt from reed pipes. This end may be achieved by
the process, generally in use, known as "hooding" or "bonneting,'' viz., of
turning over the top of the pipes to a horizontal position. As an alter-
native process Mr. J. W. Whiteley (in the fine organ voiced by him for
Messrs. Beale & Thynne at Battersea Polytechnic) and Mr. John H. Compton
(at Emmanuel Church, Leicester) have employed with eminently satis-
factory results a mesh of fine silk gauze inserted in the pipes. It does not
impede the emission of tone, and effectually excludes dirt of a harmful
character. Whilst treating of this subject it may parenthetically be remarked
that dust is as liable to enter at the foot of organ pipes as at the