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Your Questions... Answered
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HOW MANY PIPES DOES THE MIDMER-LOSH ORGAN HAVE?
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Although there are tales of stops/ranks being left out of the organ, they're untrue. Everything is present, all 449 ranks and 337 stops (314 voices and 23 percussions – seven melodic, 16 non-melodic). The only remaining question is how many pipes some of the ranks have.
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The official total number of pipes is 33,112 but the actual number is unknown. ACCHOS President Stephen D. Smith has comprehensively surveyed the instrument and investigated all the available evidence about pipe numbers. He concluded that the figure was 33,114 but thinks this is unlikely to be 100% accurate and has recently revised it to 33,116 – having noted that the Echo organ's Violone Celeste goes down to FF, not GG as stated in the contract.
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The number of pipes in the instrument's contract, when signed, was 29,524 but that figure rose – as stops were added during construction – to 32,205. An early description of the instrument adds up to 33,111 pipes and a thesis on it lists 32,928 – a figue that's probably attributable to City Organist Arthur Scott Brook. Volume One of David Junchen's Encyclopedia of the American Theatre Organ states 32,967 pipes.
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Smith points out that the number is somewhere between 29,092 and 33,893. These figures are based on a very minimal interpretation of the scheme (i.e. with no 73 or 85-note chests – which, in fact, do exist) and a somewhat grand interpretation of it (e.g. all celestes going down to the CC note – which we know is not the case). Both schemes are unrealistic but they give an idea of what the outer limits must be. The bottom line is this: Regardless of which of the ten figures listed here you choose to believe, the one thing they all prove is that the instrument has more pipes than any other organ.
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Further reading: Appendix A of the book Atlantic City's Musical Masterpiece (for details, click here) deals with this subject in considerable detail.
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To return to the previous page, click here.
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ATLANTIC CITY CONVENTION HALL ORGAN SOCIETY, INC.
1009 BAY RIDGE AVENUE PMB 108, ANNAPOLIS, MD 21403, U.S.A.
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