It all began in the fall of 1992, in my final year of university. For lack of a better arts elective to take, I decided to take Music 111. I had absolutely no background in music at the time, and sometimes even had trouble telling whether two consecutive notes were ascending or descending. Nevertheless, I bravely decided to take the course.
As the course progressed, I discovered that some of this stuff was actually logical, and also kind of fun. I found myself using the piano room just to play around. I never cared much for attempting to play sheet music, but the idea of hitting keys and getting a sound that was sometimes harmonious was strangely appealing.
With my nonexistent music abilities, and my limited budget, I couldn’t justify buying myself a little Casio synthesizer or something like that. The only way I could justify owning a musical instrument was if I actually BUILT it.
I am very fortunate that my dad has a very large and wonderful woodworking shop. When I went home for christmas that year, I started experimenting with pipes. That christmas was particularly busy for me, as I also built two tables, because the house I was renting with friends was a little bit under-furnished.
I used to tune, repair and rebuild Pipe Organs for about 12 years before the owner of the company decided to retire. And I figured I didn’t see a big enough demand to pay the bills and raise a family on. The design he comes up with, though rudimary, was very intersting and looks like it’ll work pretty good. Though a few years down the road he may find wear and tear taking a toll on it. If he had checked online, he could of found most the parts online, sometimes cheap as organs are torn out of churches and other places. I did think it interesting that he made the easiest of the pipe styles, the bourdon. A Swell would have up to a 128 foot tall bourdon pipes. In fact I rememebr seeing ones I could easily slide down if I wasn’t careful. After the 1996 Loma Prieta Earthquake we where quite busy fixing broken pipes and I had to stand at the top of these and look them over for damage.
Tags: DIY, Furniture, Interesting, Music, Tutorial
