The pipe organ at Hollywood Presbyterian Church has been undergoing some repairs. It still needs some more, but some of the most important ones have been completed. This more-or-less coincided with the 25 anniversary of Dr. Kimo Smith’s joining the church staff.
When I joined the Music & Worship Committee three years ago, I’d felt that in addition to the organ repairs, it was important that we make an opportunity for Kimo to have a concert. He is an excellent musician, and ought to have an occasion to show that off outside the requirements of the worship service.
So, it was a pleasure for me (now that I’ve rotated off the committe – for now) that Kimo’s anniversary concert occurred yesterday. It was Kick-Off Sunday at the church, the start of the new year of activities. (Everyone calls him “Kimo” by the way, not Dr. Smith. He has that friendly, accessible nature.)
He made an excellent election of pieces for his concert. Including the famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Bach — that ominous sounding thing that gets used for scary movies (and, as he noted, the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland). It was nice to hear that piece, played live, so that you can feel the deep, powerful vibrations from the Big Pipes, and to hear it all the way through.
He also selected – for fun, he said – three preludes based on traditional German choruses, that were arranged by a modern German composer, in jazz variations. He played through each basic chorus, with standard stops (that is, the selection of which types of pipes), and then the jazz arrangement. It was a delightful brain-stretcher to have sacred music presented in a jazz form.
(These pictures were taken with my cell phone camera, so they’re not the greatest quality)
He took the time to introduce and explain each set of pieces he would play. This would also give him a chance to stand up and stretch after each bit of exercise. My mother was an organist, and I was well aware of the kind of work-out he was getting. The concert ran a bit over an hour, and he was playing for most of that time. The instrument at Hollywood Pres has three hand keyboards, plus a full pedalboard. So in addition to the coordination needed in moving his hands from keyboard to keyboard (the multiple keyboards allows for different arrangements of stops, which makes for different sounds, as the pipes vary in shape and materials, imitating the sounds of different orchestral instruments – flutes, brass, reeds). But an organist is also playing similar keys with his feet, which sound the biggest pipes in a pipe organ (16 feet long, for instance, all vibrating with sound).
He stood there in his suit, wiping his brow with a handkerchief occasionally, looking very dapper. But I knew the amount of work involved.
This following (blurry) shot of the “front” pipes of the Hollywood Pres organ —
The pipes you see here are just one stop. Well, two, actually, as the pipes that are arranged horizontally in the middle up there (not sure if it is clear), with the open bell at their ends belong to a different stop than the tall straight tubular ones. These here are arranged for looks, although their narrow lower ends are all seated in their wind-boxes, where the air is brought to each pipe. And each pipe is just one note for one stop.
In the chamber behind them – in large separate “boxes” to keep their sounds more clearly separate from each other are the rest of the ranks of pipes. All the white tabs on the two side panels of the organ console are for the various stops – so you can see just how many sets of pipes are involved in an instrument of this size. (Briefly – a LOT.)
I come by all this information, not just because my mother was an organist. One summer, when we were still living in Michigan, my father bought a pipe organ (from a church that was getting a new instrument) for my mother. His intention was to assemble at least part of the organ in our house, for Mom to have and play. A good portion of the summer was spent moving the pipes from their old home in the church in a Detroit suburb to our house in Jackson. The ranks and ranks of pipes took up residence in the basement and the garage. They were fascinating — the wooden, squared off reed pipes, and the metal tubular flute pipes. You could pick up one pipe and blow into it — and then you discovered just how much wind it took to sound the organ pipes! (Meaning, a lot.)
That experience has made me extra conscious of just how special an excellent organist is, especially one who knows and understands the pipe organ.
