Excerpt from The Organ Reed: The Voicing and Use of Reed Pipes; The Mechanical Properties of Reed Pipes

OF all the sound producing parts of a pipe organ the Reed has had the least attention paid to its inner working by the scientist, and such information as has hitherto been published in text books on the physical aspect of sound is disappointingly meagre and not invariably correct. For this reason the authors of this little book have ventured to contribute further data on the subject and it is hoped that this may prove of interest to the organ lover. We do not claim to have provided an exhaustive treatise on the properties of the organ reed; indeed it would have been easily possible to double or treble the size of this book by incorporating much addi tional matter relating to the actual tone qualities of reed stops as heard in hundreds of organs, ancient and modern; but for informa tion of this kind the reader can safely be recommended to consult the many excellent treatises that every organ enthusiast should possess, and in which this class of data is lavishly supplied. Our intention has been to cover fresh ground and to give the results of actual experiments conducted both from the scientific and the aesthetic aspect, avoiding the temptation to make statements un supported by practical experience or unverified by scientific test.

It will be observed that what is known as the striking reed has been singled out for almost exclusive attention. There is good reason for this, since the free reed is no longer in favour with the modern organ builder and organist and is only recognized as a substitute for the organ pipe in very exceptional cases. The free reed is of course still employed as a sound producer in the pressure type harmonium and the suction type American Organ but such instruments as these are beyond the scope of this small book which is limited to the class of reed found in the modern pipe organ.

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