Leveraged fallout

As the liturgy began today I quickly realized that as I played on the Great with the Swell coupled down, one note, tenor d-sharp, was not coupling. This kind of thing happens occasionally as the "coupler levers" shift slightly and need to be nudged back into place. At the next opportunity I pulled the back off of the console expecting to find just that. Instead, there was simply NO COUPLER LEVER present for that note, just the other 55. Later I gave a thorough look through the console to see if it had somehow fallen out; it was nowhere in sight. This particular mechanism is at the top of the console and below it is another coupler mechanism with 56 more coupler levers just like it except even longer. Below that is a maze of trackers through which I can't quite imagine anything with the mass of this part, falling.

I sent a plea for help to Dave Wigton who services the instrument, and George Bozeman, who rebuilt it in the 1970's. George wrote back almost immediately to say that indeed, these coupler levers DO sometimes fall out and land beyond and below the surrounding action. I presume that this is what happened.

As this note is an important one, and it may take awhile to get a replacement made, I removed an identical coupler lever from a note at the very top of the keyboard and placed in tenor d-sharp position, and bingo, I had a fully working coupler, except for the one very high note.

Another day, another lesson in the mechanisms of the Mighty Hook! The tuning is holding well but the swell Cornopean is beginning to drift on some notes. Soon the temps will call for some touch-up tuning, but not much more than that.

Heat's on!

Today when I entered the church it was obvious that the heat had been turned on even though it wasn't that cold out (or in) and the building is certainly colder than this in the winter with the heat set at our maximum (which is 65). I sure would love to save the energy we're squandering right now to use in the winter months when I have actually seen people walk in the church, check the temperature (too cold) and walk back out.

I also worry about the organ a bit in these sudden temperature/humidity changes and sure enough today a new sticky note turned up during Mass: middle D on the Great stuck down a few times and had to be lifted. Until I caught this we had an interesting non-harmonic tone pedal-point carrying on through the Psalm.

Summer into Fall tuning

Since tuning the all the reeds in late July, they have held well through slightly hotter and slightly cooler weather. We've recently taken another step cooler as fall approaches and the tuning still holds! This past weekend we celebrated our patronal feast and I had occasion to touch a little more full organ stuff and it all sounded great, to me at least. No complaints yet!

Recent high humidity does bring out some ciphers in the swell when coupled, but these apparently date to its 70's rebuilding. When I prepare stops in silence I have to remember to first draw a QUIET swell stop to see if it will cipher, keeping the box closed, NOT doing it during quiet parts of the service. If it is ciphering I work the swell to great coupler on-and-off a couple times and it almost always takes care of it. I must remember that I can't pull on the loud reeds in one pull while we pray! This little issue multiplies when the humidity rises, as it certainly has arisen over this past weekend. I am told that the swell coupler action is closely regulated and if it were loosened so that it never ciphered, the regulation of the playing action would suffer; it's a balance. As I find myself saying to others, when WE are 148 years old we will have a few idiosyncrasies too!