I'm not talking about the big organ in the Tabernacle, just the smaller ones in the meetinghouses (the bigger ones, anyways.) The one in my ward broke down almost two months ago now and still no sign of it getting fixed - the TBM's sing to an old piano hauled in from the Primary room. No one knows when the organ had last been checked up on, let alone tuned. According to some sites I checked an organ should be looked at every 5 years. Hmmm...

Considering this is a multi-billion dollar cult, can't they cough up some money to get it fixed? Especially since the chorister sounds like a crow when she sings and the organ used to drown her out?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2013 09:11PM by 2humble4u.

Sometimes the organ just gives out and can't be repaired. At that point, a member has been known to donate a new one.

You've got to be joking. DONATE a new organ???

Do they at least get to not pay tithing for the rest of their lives?

2humble4u Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You've got to be joking. DONATE a new organ???
>
> Do they at least get to not pay tithing for the
> rest of their lives?


YES! That is exactly what happened in one of the Wards I attended. The donor was not identified. But their gift was acknowledged. Of course, they pay tithing. These are people who believe very strongly in their religious heritage.

Donate an organ?

Heart or kidney? And how do you 'play' them?

In the local Presbyterian Church not only would a member donate an organ - but a huge pipe organ even! Members had organs in their homes. One family donated the carillon tower for umpteen bells. But mormons are so required to tithe and so forth that they don't often give big items.

Pianos are supposed to be tuned every six months, plus every time they are moved. I am willing to bet that doesn't happen as often as it should. Unless there is a piano tuner in the ward who can be suckered into doing it for free.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2013 09:30PM by forbiddencokedrinker.

I think the pianos at Mormon churches are tuned pretty regularly. But in a church setting every 6 months is not even often enough to keep them sounding good. They are not kept at a constant temperature and humidity so that makes them go out of tune faster.

lol, I wasn't sure which sort of organ we were talking about when I clicked on this thread :P

That piano needs to get looked at and tuned, especially after a move. I bet if you petition the living daylights out of the higher ups then someone will come have a look at the organ. In fact, perhaps you could innocently take a petition sheet around to all the ward members about how desperately the organ needs to be fixed. And maybe you could write a letter to the local newspaper about what a shame it is that the LDS church is unable to even get one of it's ward's organs a maintenance check. Maybe talk about how the church must be seriously ailing if they can't afford it, etc. Then send a copy (anonymously) to whoever is above the bishop. Stab at their cult pride a bit and that might get the ball rolling! In non lds churches with wealthy tithe payers the organ is never out of service for more than a week max. It's a matter of pride to keep things running smoothly.

More than likely they will simply take out the old organ and leave a piano. BTW TSCC is putting in "player" pianos because so few members know how to play a piano. After all, piano lessons cost money and tithing is more important. All twelve of our children do play the piano as does our six-year old grandson (learned at five). Plus most of our children learned other instruments as well. I did not pay tithing.

I can't remember our piano being tuned EVER in our old ward bldg, and the pianist/organist was a good friend who did complain the piano often.

Off-topic, but I was also surprised to find out, from a friend who works at the new Conf. Center, that the pipes in that building are a total facade. The pipes are still in the old bldg, and it takes tens of thousands of electrical and sound wires, from ml size to giant pulley types, to make that "perfect" acoustic sound in the CC during conference. And as for that the pin dropping you hear when the MoTabs practice? It's also faked (or is now, not sure about the past but have heard rumors about it being faked as well from way back when). All that stuff going on with the man behind the curtain....

Many pipe organ installations have fake visible pipes in front in order to present a nice appearance. That may be the case in relation to the Conference Center organ, although some of the visible pipes may be real as well. However, the real pipes are located directly behind the facade. Here are some articles on the construction including a link to the builder - Schoesnstein Company, San Francisco.

Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoenstein_Organ_at_the_Conference_Center

List of stops:
http://www.schoenstein.com/pdfs/139_LDS_Convention_Center_3_50510.pdf

Another list:
http://www.mormontabernaclechoir.org/organs/cc/spec.html

Picture of the console from the builder - Schoenstein Company. Second row under Traditional Americal Style:
http://www.schoenstein.com/console-styles.html

Information from LDS website:
http://elliottrl.tripod.com/cc/

this phrase by 2humbleforu has got to be cannonized in the rfm blooper hall of fame..."I'm not talking about the big organ in the Tabernacle, just the smaller ones in the meetinghouses".

It reminds me of a joke I used to tell as a kid, the most embarrassing lines in T.V. history...(leave it to beaver) "Ward, don't you think you were a little hard on the Beaver last night?" lol

Remember you made the covenant " ...everything with which the lard has blessed you." Don't even ask which one, just let them have it. It will be restored in the resurrection.

I was thinking of how often my mormon friends are getting serviced....not often enough would be my guess.

Hmmm... Organ servicing - I would definitely volunteer for that duty. Where is the sign-up sheet?

I service my organ at least four times a week. Sadly, most of it is self service, but everyone once in a while, I get outside help.

They are almost all electric. Even old pipe ones are now electric and they leave the pipes for looks.

(Read the above with no context.)

Not the one in Westminister Presbyterian. The difference in sound is astounding.

I believe small organs get maintained far more often out of the church than in it.

BKP taught that organ maintenance was of the devil and should be avoided

in the early church days the organs of the leadership were given lots of care and maintenance. It was considered a privilege for women to care and maintain the organs, a good organ maintainer could save her whole family in the CK.

just another sign of how the church has fallen away from its roots...

You win the thread.

Aw crap, I was hoping this was another masturbation thread!

Well, ok then the same answer applies to both topics - not nearly enuf!

Really, what does it matter anymore? The LDS church has taken its tradition of music and 4-part harmony and flushed it away over the decades. Good hymns have been replaced with poorly-written crap extolling pedophiles and adulterers. Members have lost the energy or the wherewithal to sing well. LDS so-called "music" is among the most laughable things in Mormonism.

I am an organ donor.

It says so on my Calif DL.

My organ(s) get very little tuning these days.

My organ(s) could use some cleaning...

B Y

There are very few wards in my area that have a pipe organ. The church was to cheap to maintain them and so they just tore most of them out and put in electronic ones. I was lucky enough to attend church at a building that had one in the last ward I attended. The two divisions of the organ were out of tune with each other at first but they tuned the front pipes to match the ones in the back. If something broke they had someone out usually that same week to fix it. But the ward that we shared the building with was probably the wealthiest ward in the whole town so maybe that had something to do with it.

Tsk tsk. How this thread has degenerated.

/end fake lecture

The last stake I was in was militant about organ and piano maintenance, since there were a number of professional musicians in leadership positions. The organ in our building always sounded good, and stake center organ was a high-end instrument (can't remember what maker). The pianos were ancient, but they were tuned twice a year and were never moved under pain of death or dismemberment. We had five or six pianos in every building. Now that I think about, I'm willing to bet that they were either purchased by or donated by wealthy, musical members.

As for other organ maintenance, I am more than willing to do my own but also get by with a little help from my friends.

Did you hear about the streaker in the tabernacle?

They caught him by the organ...

he he he he ... streaking was popular when i was in high school in the mid 70s...

In the 50s my father started the church pipe organ maintenance business in the western states--to save his professional ass due to a falling out with members of the music department. He made his living at this until the mid 60s when the GAs shut down the purchase of pipe organs. Too expensive, and we were poor most of my youth. I helped him tune MANY organs in the area, including those of protestant, catholic, and move the Masonic organ from the old south temple location. Organs like pianos were supposed to be tuned Spring & Fall because of thermal drift. But just like pianos, it is a dying art and instrument, and local people don't want to spend the money on it unless they have deep pockets and a stake presidency that cares about music. How do they get maintained? The same way that toilets do. They call a professional only when they have the money and the problem is severe enough to allocate the pennies.

Any ward or stake I have lived in have not serviced their organs or pianos unless those who play them begged them to tune/repair them. Our stake removed a perfectly good organ about six years ago and replaced it with a new $85,000(ish) model that stake centers were getting that year. The replacement was done as part of a replacement schedule, needed or not, what a waste. I was a ward organist and not told about the change. It was an adventure in aggravation trying to figure out a new fangled electronic system that Sunday morning. That was also the time I was learning about the church and I was not a happy camper about the whole thing. In fact I was extremely pissed.

(and girls!)