Voicing the Reeds in the Christ Church Organ with Michael Kraft

In this video snippet, Michael Kraft, the president of Fisk Organ Builders, offers a glimpse in the craft of a reed voicer, with your organist in the background asking the dumb questions.

Here’s the context. You may have heard that there are two main categories of organ pipes: flues and reeds. Flues come in a variety of shapes and sizes—stopped and open flutes, strings, and principals—but they all look and sound more or less like big whistles, which is essentially what they are. Reeds, however, are a lot more complicated and harder to get right. They rely on the vibration between a thin brass tongue (the reed) and shallot, which together with the block, wedge, and tuning wire, make up the boot of the pipe. Getting those minute adjustments just right and proportioned with the resonator (the horn end) can be the difference between it sounding like a suave orchestral oboe versus a vuvuzela.