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

IO DICTIONARY OF ORGAN STOPS.
The action of the beard has not, so far as the author is aware, been
explained in any English published treatise ; he may therefore draw
attention to the fact that it was demonstrated by Cavailld-Coll, as early
as 1840, in his " Etudes Expdrimentales.'' The function of the bridge or
roller is to intercept and check the indraught of air induced by the rapid
flow of wind through the flue or wind-way and up to the upper lip. This
indraught of wind may easily be detected with a lighted cigarette or smoking
taper. By thus checking this, the amplitude of vibration is increased. If
the finger be held so as partly to cover the nozzle of a hose-pipe, the
stream of water issuing therefrom will be deflected and describe an arc
or curve. Similarly—to continue the rough illustration—the wind as it
emerges from the fiue of the pipe curls away from the frein, but by the
return swing of the vibration it is caused to curl round the frein to a
corresponding degree.
The use of beards has entirely revolutionized " string tone " voicing.
Previous to their adoption the use of small-scaled flue pipes with low
mouths in the production of keen string tone had been unsatisfactory,
on account of the disagreeable defect of speech known as " spitting,"
in the process of which the pipes sound a harmonic before the
ground tone, a defect which, moreover, can only in some measure be
.avoided by the equally serious one of causing the pipe to be slightly
hesitating in its speech. The application of a beard to a pipe which
has overblown into its octave will at once restore the ground tone ; hence
both " spitting '' and sluggishness of speech can be remedied by this
means. For an instance of extreme scaling rendered possible by the use
•of beards see Viole d'Orchestre.
It is quite a fallacy to suppose that bearding, apart from details of
•scaling, renders a pipe keen in tone. Dulcianas may be bearded without
their distinctive quality of tone being to the least degree impaired. In
other words, beards may freely be employed for the purpose of securing
ipromptitude of speech. The precise reason for the cavilling statements
sometimes directed at the practice of bearding pipes would seem obscure.
The addition of "side-beards," as ears are named in Germany, is not
regarded as a needless distortion of the pipe, nor would it appear con-
ceivable that a bearded Violone, possessing as it does excellent blending
property and ample body of tone, could be excluded from the category of
" legitimate " organ tone, whatever that somewhat hard-driven catchword
may be held to comprise. Commenting oh the rather fatuous cuokoo-cry
use of the word " legitimate," one inventor of ingenious organ mechanism,
in a letter to the author, expressed his conviction that when it was originally
proposed to substitute for the human lungs bellows to blow the primitive
organ, the change must have met with opposition from the " authorities ''
•of the day as not " legitimate."