the.com/pipe organ
A building-sized instrument that is basically wind, plumbing, and ego in perfect harmony.
means A keyboard instrument that makes sound by forcing air through ranks of pitched pipes, each pipe tuned to sound a single note.
from From 'pipe,' a tube — going back to Latin 'pipare,' meaning to chirp or peep, the sound a reed or small tube makes when air moves through it — plus 'organ,' from Greek 'organon,' simply 'tool' or 'instrument,' the same root that gives us 'organ' for a body part that does a job. The device itself traces to ancient Greece, where the hydraulis used water pressure to push air through pipes; later builders swapped in bellows, and over centuries the instrument grew from a modest set of pipes into the room-filling, cathedral-dwarfing machines we picture today.
- largest instrument
- some have over 30,000 individual pipes
- power source
- air forced through pipes, not strings or hammers
- biggest ones
- can be louder than a full orchestra
- longevity
- some organs still play after 500 years