full interview_kent tritle_5.mp3
Speaker 1 [00:00:00] You know, our theory is about art and science and creativity and how they intersect in the world. And when we first started on this project, one of the things we felt from the outset that was pre-organized was really the boost of child for art, science, technology.
Kent Tritle [00:00:23] Pipe organ is an amazing creation. You know, in the Baroque and medieval periods, it was right up there with the town clock, in terms of being the height of technology in town. People were very, very interested in all the variety of sounds that you might get from an instrument here.
Speaker 3 [00:00:46] Or...
Kent Tritle [00:00:48] Or The short pipes, the long pipes, all of it added up to a lot of interest.
Speaker 1 [00:00:59] What exactly is a procedure, not so much how it works, but what does it mean culturally and musically and technologically?
Kent Tritle [00:01:13] You know, the pipe organ goes way back. Pipe organ goes back to the ancient Greco-Roman times. I remember being in Aquinum outside of Budapest and seeing these sarcophagi. We were in pursuit of seeing one of the first earliest known organs, which had been in a fire station that burned, and they had reconstructed this organ with little lead pipes from Roman times. And we could see that was a really interesting organ. It would have sounded like... Just very, very light and high. On the sarcophagi, though, I saw this wonderful note that said, here lies my wife. She was a wonderful organist. And I realized that organ went back much further in our culture and in our time than many of us think. It has been such an important part of what we do. We know that organs were playing in the arenas in Rome when the Christians were martyred. On the other hand, organ became an instrument of choice, more from the medieval period in the school of Notre Dame, where they found that by having a wind source and pumping air through pipes, we could have something that would complement the vocal sound that was coming from the chorus or the choir or the gorgorian chant singers. So over time, organs became more, what's better than one pipe, two pipes, more pipes, 12 pipes. We have this instrument that has... Evoked in its way the human voice first and later additional instruments, trumpets, flutes, all kinds of things. As this has evolved, of course the technology of the instrument has evolved from a pipe sitting on a bellows to many pipes to actually finding that if the pipes are there, and we don't just pump air through, but what if we put a stop underneath that air? This is an Oregon stop. And we pull that stop out. With little sliders? Later, what if we figure out a way to make those sliders operate from keys? What if we have more keys? What if you have more pipes and away you go? And of course, today we have historical instruments like this, which are more representative of the way organs were built and managed in the 18th century, right up to instruments that have all the bells and whistles of own time. Still wind, still pipes. But perhaps buttons that we can push that bring on all these stops. So the organ and technology have been very, very important throughout history, and organ continues to be a cutting-edge instrument in terms of technology.
Speaker 4 [00:04:04] Mike? Mike, are we? I can hear you normally. Yeah, that's alright. I wouldn't mind closing these windows to try to find out.
Kent Tritle [00:04:15] We can retry any of these, you know, to go on, that's kind of, that question is so many, so many things, technology, this culture, what's the pipe organ, let me take a broader Thank you.
Speaker 4 [00:04:29] Yeah, I think we need to vote.
Kent Tritle [00:04:33] Let me do a much broader take on the pipe organ.
Speaker 4 [00:04:35] I always ask, I always think about if I never heard of this instrument if I was from some other country, I don't want you to say Yeah, we don't need all of it.
Kent Tritle [00:04:48] Yeah. Yep. Yep Got it.
Speaker 4 [00:04:54] I just don't want you to put that in the video.
Kent Tritle [00:04:56] You know that's good exactly exactly and you guys wanted to recheck stuff or are we still
Speaker 3 [00:05:05] Let's keep going.
Kent Tritle [00:05:06] Let me know, okay? Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 [00:05:16] Phone number is right there.
Kent Tritle [00:05:20] Yeah, I'll come at this another way. I'd love to do that. Sorry. It's all kind of just a whole other way. And I need I need to also restate the premise. Okay, so we'll pause while we get things. It is the beauty of digital, right?
Speaker 3 [00:06:00] If you don't want to hear.
Speaker 4 [00:06:01] Oh my lord.
Kent Tritle [00:06:06] Really, really lovely.
Speaker 4 [00:06:08] Okay. Do you want me to appear back in the park? Thank you. What's that? It's a negative film. Yeah, it's not a light film. Oh, I'm sorry. Gotcha. Okay. We're good to go. We can give them some questions. Yeah, sure. Perfect.
Speaker 1 [00:06:28] Right What is the pipe working on? I don't know any...
Kent Tritle [00:06:37] So what is a pipe organ? This is a type organ. Some are small, some are large. A pipe organ is an instrument, a musical instrument that has pipes, literally cylindrical objects that are quite like a recorder that you might play or a flute that you may play. There's air that flows through. Whether we work a bellows in the old fashioned way and have that air kind of come through the pipes. Or whether we have something more new-fangled like this, where we have lots of pipes of all sizes from the very low to the very high. There are all kinds of pipes, large and small, that are put into a box. And under the box there are what we call bellows, which we do like it's a fireplace. They fill with air, and they make it so that when we depress a key, if we unstop the airflow, we have sound. So, a pipe organ... Is this amazing kind of creation that goes way back and comes way forward to our own time and further with an incredible array of sound. We can have really suave, simple... And then we can have BOLD And as a pipe organist, which I am, the thrill is to have all of that color at your fingertips.
Speaker 1 [00:08:30] So why are pipe-up organs so iconic?
Kent Tritle [00:08:36] Pipe organs, of course, go way back in history and are known to have been the technological cutting edge right next to the town clock back in medieval villages and Renaissance villages and on further. Why is the organ so iconic? I think the organ is iconic, especially because it uses wind. The organ is a wind instrument, like a flute, like an oboe, a trumpet for that matter. There's wind so there's breath. And breath, of course, is what we have as human animals. So the breath coming through the sound, I think, evokes an emotional response. And therefore, whether in great public settings like the Roman arenas or in churches or synagogues or concert halls, the organ has always had a way of evoking kind of an emotional response from the listener. On so, so many different levels and I think it comes to that element of breath. Hmm So the organ is a vocal... So the organ is able to evoke a wide variety of emotions, everything from tremendous sadness to tremendous joy. Even pump organs, we've seen them in America. My grandfather told a story of trading off a colt, a little young horse, for a pump organ. Traveled fifteen miles in a bobsled, picked up the pump organ, traded off the colt, came home and he always cried when his mother played it. Now, that doesn't mean she was playing sad songs, but it evoked that sense and that emotion from him. I think that whether it's something as simple as this
Speaker 4 [00:10:42] Earthwaves.
Kent Tritle [00:10:53] And he, if we do something that's quite different, we pull on the trumpet. We have a joyous fanfare. So I think everything in the human spectrum from abject sorrow to utter delight can be portrayed through the music that the pipe organ is capable of bringing to us.
Speaker 1 [00:11:23] What is it about breath? We have a story about fingers full of cheese.
Kent Tritle [00:11:31] Yes, I know them.
Speaker 1 [00:11:33] Talk about.
Speaker 4 [00:11:36] Did I? I don't know if you're fine with that.
Kent Tritle [00:11:38] Great Ah, thank you. You have room full of teeth. So you have them on another episode.
Speaker 1 [00:11:53] You just said that the organ uses a kind of breath, and there's other people who talk about breathing and heart. So, would you give us a little breath on the breath?
Kent Tritle [00:12:11] When we play the organ, we hear the sound move through the pipe. This is one pipe. There's a stream of air. Let's imagine that is one person with a breath coming out. Let's image that we add another person. Now we have two streams of air, and they set off vibrations. Air sets, air in motion sets off vibrations that are these tones that we have. Let's add another personal. There's three. But what if we add this? Four, five, six, and we combine them. Perhaps these are six columns of air set in motion. Let's add this. Seven eight nine one two three four five six let's go ahead and flesh that out maybe we have a choir hear the liveness of the sound, we hear the interaction of the tones working together, and we hear air flowing through the sound. And air in turn sets the room alive with vibrations. This is what breath is. This is why chanting is such a wonderful, wonderful thing to feel in the body.
Speaker 1 [00:13:38] What does it feel like when you're sitting in a majestic space with a majestic organ? What is the emotion of...
Kent Tritle [00:13:53] When I come to an organ in a space like this, which has, you can hear the sound has a liveness and a quality to it. The roof is wooden and the, let me do it a different way, or just come back to that.
Speaker 4 [00:14:11] Yeah, she doesn't want to. Sorry. You don't want that. This space is not part of it.
Kent Tritle [00:14:17] It's not part of, so they will never see that.
Speaker 4 [00:14:19] Thank you.
Kent Tritle [00:14:21] Yeah! Ah, okay. So when I come to an instrument, especially one in a space that is nice for the instrument, the first thing that I do is I sample the smaller sounds. I want to hear the flutes. I want hear what we call the principles. I want to hear them in combination. What is amazing is that when an instrument, a pipe organ, has been very specially crafted by the master craftsmen who make and build pipe organs, the majesty of the instrument is really breathtaking. And that to me evokes a sense of being larger than this body that I'm sitting in and being a part of something cosmic. It's really amazing.
Speaker 1 [00:16:00] So you play the organ in a variety of venues. You play in the Divine. You play at the Central. You play concert solo at the Concrete. Is it a different experience playing the religious music to giving a concert, say, at David Geffen Hall?
Kent Tritle [00:16:24] The experience of playing music, for me, on the instrument is ultimately about communication. It's the same as a singer who sings opera or sings a spiritual or sings oratorio. They're probably the same person, the same voice, but making a different connection because of what they're communicating through. For me, when I'm playing at a concert hall or whether I'm in a church or practicing on my own, the idea of... Communicating and figuring out how to connect with an instrument and say something is always actually the same.
Speaker 1 [00:17:06] What do you hear from people who come out of one of your concerts other than It Was Beautiful, did they tell you how they feel?
Kent Tritle [00:17:19] I find that when people listen to the organ and really have a chance to give their ear and their spirit to, for example, an organ recital, they will experience again, oops, that's exactly what I didn't want to do, not again, gotcha. So where I'm going is that there's so many different emotions that can be evoked and there's something for everybody. When I play an organ recital, whether it's in a church or in a concert hall, I find that there is a unique thing that happens. Every individual listening picks up something that's different, something that is different from what the next person. For some, the softest music was the most important thing that they needed to hear or they wanted to hear. It spoke to them in a way that they need it on that day. To others, it might be the very fast music that... I know, for me, as a teenager, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted perpetual motion, and that's what spoke to me about the organ as an instrument. So there's so many different ways that the organ speaks to people. And it's been amazing in my experience to see how deeply moved people can be when they listen to organ music.
Speaker 1 [00:18:42] Does the dynamic change when you add the human...
Kent Tritle [00:18:51] The organ is an amazing instrument in and of itself. When you have organ plus, that can be organ with a string ensemble, organ with trumpet, organ with choir. Everything is enhanced. In my experience, the sum is much greater than the total of the parts.
Speaker 1 [00:19:13] So, lots of people refer to the majestic organ, no matter where the setting is. Is majestic the right descriptor?
Kent Tritle [00:19:24] Organ often called the king of instruments we think Mozart called the organ the king of instruments I think it really is kind of the king of instruments the organ has so much more than a singular sound it has a multiplicity of sounds no other instrument does that a piano's a piano a trumpet's a trumpet and a voice is a voice but the organ has this incredible total that is quite unique. So I must say, I think it's the king of instruments.
Speaker 1 [00:19:58] I'm going to go back for a second to history, so I think it's a quick rip on where this all began and how we got here.
Kent Tritle [00:20:13] Here's a brief history of the organ. We know that the organ existed in Roman times, it was played in the arenas as all kinds of things were happening. These organs were under pressure that was caused by water, by the weight of water. That caused air to go into a bellows and go into these pipes. And there was not an organ like this. It wasn't even a scale like you see here that we have on a piano. But there were loud sounds made in public arenas. This was a deal. And somehow I think that stayed with humanity even as we went into the dark ages. Somewhere around 1100, 1200, there was a start to use organ-like instruments at Notre Dame to support the organum. As people sang chant they learned that they could actually play a drone underneath while someone was That didn't work. Let me try that all again. Sorry. Okay, yeah. So after the Dark Ages, Notre-Dame, Paris, Organa, the birth of polyphonic music, which means more than one voice singing together, we figured out, we humans, that we could have an instrument, create a drone. Which is here. While a voice this drone became more and more complex as time went on. So by the late medieval era and early renaissance we have instruments that look much more like this. These instruments then took advantage or were served by the technological advancements that came over time. They became larger, they became multiple keyboards, they become more complex with larger and smaller pipes, the organ has proceeded into our own age to become, even in the last century, in the century, 19th century, more of an instrument that reflected the orchestra. So the organ has traveled through time with our culture and our humanity to become an instrument that is just uniquely, uniquely capable of doing diverse things.
Speaker 1 [00:23:12] Does that explain why the technology hasn't changed in 100 years? How is it that in this wildly technological age, we have technology?
Kent Tritle [00:23:30] Well, the organ has been able to accept the advances of modern technology so that we might have, and this is an 18th century kind of an instrument, we didn't have this, but we might have a button that we can push to it all of a sudden, too.
Speaker 1 [00:23:45] That
Kent Tritle [00:23:48] that and a push of a button it could all go back in. We have that on modern instruments and yet it is still wind that is serving the instrument and still pipes that speak. So on the one hand the organ is is an instrument of pipes just like a violin is a violin and an electric violin is not going to play like a modern violin or an instrument of Stradivarius. Let me try this a different way. Can you ask that again?
Speaker 1 [00:24:23] The violin analogy is a good one. How is it in this era of tremendous technology forging the states on technology that is a hundred years old.
Kent Tritle [00:24:42] The organ uses technology that's hundreds of years old. There are bellows of some sort, putting air below the pipes that then speak. That will always be the case in the same way that with a piano, the key goes through and you have a. Yeah, oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 [00:25:01] Do what you're-
Kent Tritle [00:25:03] Oh, you know, I'll get it in a little bit, sure. Oh, thank you.
Speaker 3 [00:25:08] I don't know where it is.
Kent Tritle [00:25:10] It's a bottle. Yeah, that's me. Yeah. Sure. Sure
Speaker 4 [00:25:18] I'm going to set it here, and I'm gonna take it from where you finished. Okay, exactly. You don't want this? No, exactly, yeah. The thing about filming TV is that... Okay. Okay.
Kent Tritle [00:25:33] Organ technology history now.
Speaker 4 [00:25:47] You were starting getting there, but are we in fact dealing with a very, the technology, because a lot of organs are built in the same way that they were understood or foreseen. Just take that maybe as a long-winded... Good. All right. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.
Kent Tritle [00:26:15] The organs of old and the organs of new, meaning pipe organs that have actual air, keys and pipes that speak. The technology that underlies all of that really is first of all the breath mechanism and that will always be a constant. What has happened over time is that the business of pulling out stops, activating more sounds, engaging more keyboards, being able to set up a whole combination and So, poom, have another combination appear, and poom have another combination. Over maybe 12 buttons, and then having those 12 buttons multiplied 560 times, this is what technology has done for the organ and for the Organist. We can now program more easily. We can spend more time actually playing music at the console, whereas in the old days we spent most of our time finding the sounds, resetting the sounds and writing down what the sounds were. The technology... Has advanced our musical purposes so that we can do more and more playing of the instrument. One of the things about the organ that's really unique and very different from, let's just say, a piano. When Emmanuel Ax goes to play a concert grand, he has to probably sample the new concert grand and within, you know, not too long he knows what to do with that. When we organists go to another organ, everyone is different. Everyone has been... Styled on historical principles, but it still sounds very different one organ to the next. We spend almost half our time just listening to the sounds and organizing the sounds. That's always been the case with organ, but modern technology has made it much easier for us to do that part of our job.
Speaker 1 [00:28:03] So does the organ itself rely, the pipe organ rely on ancient technology?
Speaker 4 [00:28:12] They're kind of a base, a basic underlying technology that really has a case.
Kent Tritle [00:28:20] The essential technology that enables a pipe organ to function is ancient. It's really simple. It's wind of a bellows going into a holding chamber and being allowed to escape through a pipe. So regardless of whatever new technological advances we may have, that fundamental element is always going to be true.
Speaker 1 [00:28:47] So a lot of people, a lot people we've talked to talk about how we experience it in sound waves can travel through the air, reach our ears, and we can cry. What is that all about to you?
Kent Tritle [00:29:10] I believe that when sound is created... Evokes a response. The car horn for example or a siren we know what that response is or a baby's cry or a baby's giggle these things really touch us very very deeply when we start to talk about sounds in the middle of the range We're at a high range.
Speaker 3 [00:29:48] You
Kent Tritle [00:29:52] We're in a brash range. Are in a regal range. Every one of those colors evokes a response in our experience. Also in our experiences, whatever is going on with us. We've had a great day, we've had lousy day. We have a new member of the family, we have lost someone. All of these things come together when we hear music. That's one of the great, great things that the organ can channel. Is that connection of human spirit and musical tonality.
Speaker 1 [00:30:39] If you look at a handcrafted painting, you'll see how much is art, and how much science and technology.
Kent Tritle [00:30:55] So how did this instrument get here? This instrument was needed to support hymn singing in a church. That could have been a piano, it could have been anything, but an organ was chosen. Organ builders, the people who make these things, are craftsmen in the Renaissance style, the way that we think of this. There's woodwork, there's cabinetry, galore, or cabinetry or woodwork here in the stops, evidenced in the keys themselves. Every little bit is craftsmanship on such an artistic level. Even the inlay of this music rack. All of that, and I haven't even spoken about the sounds. The sounds are carefully chosen from the traditional families of sounds that we have in the organ. We have the flute.
Speaker 3 [00:31:53] Oh
Kent Tritle [00:31:55] We have the reeds, which are...
Speaker 3 [00:31:58] You
Kent Tritle [00:31:59] trumpets and others we have that particular organ sound which we refer to as principle tone uniquely organ how are we going to put these together and how are we going take one set of pipes of flutes and another set of pipe of flute and create them so they can go together. There's a tremendous amount of science that goes into the exploration or the understanding of pipe scales. How wide is the pipe? What is the material of the pipe, is it zinc, is zinc in tin, is the zinc and tin in lead? If it's a wooden pipe, if it's, if, if the wooden pipe then how is it made? Is it a square pipe? Probably the most wooden pipes are, but is there a stopper at the end and how does the mouth speak? If you think of a flute... This is what lots of those pipes are, but a wooden flute. There's a tremendous amount of art that goes into that. There is a lot of time spent studying organ scale for pipes and organ materials for pipes. Studying organ pipes and scales from way back into the medieval era, the Renaissance era, the Baroque era, the Romantic era, our own era. So there's a tremendously amount of artistry. And craftsmanship that includes a lot of scientific knowledge.
Speaker 1 [00:33:30] But you
Kent Tritle [00:33:37] Mm-hmm. Sure okay An organ is a family of sounds, and that is represented on two different levels. First we have what we might consider the flute family. It's the family, because that's mother, here comes a son. And here comes the grandchild, and they're all together. That's a flute family. There's a principal family. This is a more solid sound, and we can add in another. Principles? Flutes? What about reeds like the oboe? This is how the trumpet sound is made on the organ. It's a reed.
Speaker 3 [00:34:35] AHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Kent Tritle [00:34:37] We're here. We're here! We've just looked at reeds, at flutes, and principles. They're families of sound. However, the way the organ is constructed, each keyboard corresponds to a different section of the instrument. So within this keyboard, we have. We have also the reed, and so we have two families of sounds here. And on this keyboard we have our principles, we have our flutes. And we have our reeds. So this is a completely different section of the organ than that was. And we had there three families of sounds. This is one community, that's another. And the same happens for the pedal. So that as we're looking at these organs, we're actually looking at three different organs that are all put into one. This organ, this organ and that organ. Organs in the best sense have a real personality and the better the craftsman that has built the organ, the more almost human that personality becomes. It's really marvelous over time to see how an organ can age and how voices can pull together to blend and be very unique. This is one of the challenges to the organist is that wherever we go We have to discover the personality of that instrument and then have a dialog with that personality so that we can create the music we need to create.
Speaker 1 [00:36:38] So that's in line with something we said, and that is every organ fits this context. When a new organ is conceived, built, brought into the space. Can you elaborate on that? Every organ is described.
Kent Tritle [00:36:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah. You all right there? Oh yeah, yeah, good old-fashioned paper towel. Yeah, it's great. Let's do that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, is it up there? Yeah. Oh yeah. Beating up there probably, right? Not that. Oh. Thank you. Oh yeah, sure. In the best of circumstances, organs really do unite with their context. There are little box organs, little chamber organs that might have just this much of this keyboard that we use for chamber music. They're portable, they can go around, we can play chamber music or the spring quartet in any place we wish. There are organs like this that suit a church that are just the right size for this building. There are organs with multiple keyboards. And many, many, more organ stops, sounds to draw from that create symphonic effects. And these are generally not in a small room. They'll be in a larger room which befits the context of that organ. It happens that sometimes people miss the context and a big organ in a small room is not especially a pleasant thing to experience. On the other hand, a too small organ in very large room doesn't work so well either. So it's really up to the people who are asking to have an organ and the people create the organ to come to understanding the right context and when it's right, it's magic.
Speaker 4 [00:38:47] Can I just follow up on that? Go ahead. Okay. It goes back to what you were saying before about how you spend a lot of time when you play the organ, you have to get to know it. So just along those lines, maybe say that again when I play the organs. Every time I play it, it's working.
Kent Tritle [00:39:10] To get to know it. Every time I come to a different instrument, whether it's at Westminster Abbey or at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine or this instrument, I have to take some time to get to know the instrument. Why? This context and this instrument in this context is unique in the world. This organ is like no other organ in the specificity and the way that it has been trained for the space that it's in. It's a real miraculous creation when you think about the artisanship and the craftsmanship that goes into creating an instrument like this, or like a grand symphonic instrument in a large cathedral.
Speaker 1 [00:39:53] So we're doing a story, as you know, about the new organ at Old Things Chapel at Trinity Wall Street. Why is it important to have a specialized organ in there?
Kent Tritle [00:40:09] I'm so delighted that All Saints Trinity is having... Let me try that one again. Is there already five minutes to mention Trinity? Okay. I'm thrilled that my friend Avi Stein has been overseeing the organ project at Trinity Church Wall Street and the organ that will go into that chapel will be very specially designed. It'll be just right for that chapel. I know this because I know Avi and his musical person and I also know his intersection with the builders who have made that instrument will be really, really magical. So that instrument would be just the right size. Not too large, not too small. You want it to move you? You want it to soothe you. You don't want it crush you, and you don't have to find it. It'll be just right.
Speaker 1 [00:41:01] Tell us a little bit about Richard.
Speaker 4 [00:41:03] One quick question. They've went through a whole process of trying to both voice that is and try to figure out whether or not that was right. Whether it was acoustically right, whether it was feeling right, and they were moving around and they had people come in
Kent Tritle [00:41:26] Mm-hmm
Speaker 4 [00:41:27] Can you just talk a little bit about that concept?
Kent Tritle [00:41:30] About voicing the answers, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 [00:41:32] What do we see when we see these two guys, Bruce and Avi, moving around in the park with a cap on them? And what are they looking for? What's this for a cap?
Kent Tritle [00:41:43] When an organ comes into the room for the first time, it comes in part by part. You get the skeleton up. You finally get to where you can bring in sets of pipes. As each set of pipes comes in, the organ builder and the resident musician, and perhaps someone we call a voicer, have to work together to find the voice of that organ for that room. That means going through every pipe here. That really sucked let me try that one again sorry i did here we are when an organ comes into a new room and then let me try that again When a new organ comes into a space, there's a tremendous amount of musicality that has to be sourced in that site. Let me do this again. When a New organ comes in to a space such as the chapel at Trinity Church, the skeleton comes in, it is set up. The key action comes in. It is set up. The stop action comes in, it is set up, and certain electrical things like the blowers that run the air. But then the pipes come in, and this is where the magic begins. The builder, craftsman, and voicer, and the musician usually who's on the premises need to go into the room and explore the sound of one pipe. Walk around the room, hear it, turn around, listen, see what it's like. The next bite. Is it too loud? Is it too soft? Does it match? Does it blend? All of that goes through. Whole set of pipes to find the magical blend and balance of that. A room will change when there are people in it and so if you're fortunate and you can use some of the pipes that you have voiced some of the sets of pipes for a small gathering whatever that may be you'll find out if the acoustic has changed and if the sound is right. When we have an that's completely tuned to the room, and that can take... Weeks, if not months, that's where the magic happens.
Speaker 1 [00:44:18] So when Avi and Bruce Foust are walking around the chapel, are they listening for the same thing? Is the organist listening to the same things? The voice are, potentially, the mechanic. It probably is not the right thing. Are they listening to same thing, or are they?
Kent Tritle [00:44:43] I'm an organist, I decide to have an instrument, I want a builder, I'd be very careful about who I choose, I've listened to a lot of instruments and seem to find the, sorry, self-conscious. I'm an organist. If I have an opportunity to build an instrument, then I'm going to look at builders. And I'm gonna look for someone who is building instruments that I feel that I resonate with, musically, artistically, and otherwise. I'm looking for that voice that can unite with my voice to create something that we both agree on and believe in. That's the best of all possible worlds. So, for example, at Trinity Wall Street with Bruce Fawkes and Avi Stein, together Avi has had aspirations for what the sound of the instrument would like to be in his inner ear. Are those the same as the builder, Bruce Fowkes? Not necessarily. He may have other ideas. You know, this particular flute, should it be large or small? We've decided the basic general character before it ever comes into the room, absolutely. But how shall we treat the individual pipes to make it ring in the room? This is where the really amazing collaborative process comes in, in the best of cases, as at Trinity Wall Street, where the musician will speak to the instrument maker about, Hmm, I imagine that that might have been a little bolder. I would like to use that sound in relation to this other sound to create this when I accompany a voice or this when i play a voluntary and the builder might say oh but I wanted it the other way around I was thinking this I've had these conversations when we built an organ at St. Ignatius Loyola and it was fascinating to be involved in that process dialog with those who have created this instrument to come to a single-mindedness in the final result.
Speaker 1 [00:47:04] So, I've landed from another planet, as I often do in real life. Yeah, me too. And I hear a bunch of people standing around, and talking about voicing, voicing. What is voicing? What?
Kent Tritle [00:47:25] This organ is full of pipes. They're objects made of metal or of wood. The metals may be different in terms of what kind of sound we want, whether it's this or this. After that, how do you get to an artistic product? We melt the metal, we roll it out, we cut it, we form a pipe, we create a mouth, we put this thing on a wind chest where the bellows are supplying air, and there's the place where the speech happens. This is where the air hits whatever part of that metal that's going to make it vibrate and create the tone. That tone can be refined almost infinitely. And this is the art of voicing. When we voice a pipe, the pipe is making speech, the air is flowing through, but it's like training a singer. Do you want more of this? Like, you want of this. What kind of sound do you really want to get within the realm of what that pipe can produce? The voicing of pipes then proceeds from a single pipe and how it responds in the room to the complete set, to the next complete set. Fifty-six pipes times one, two, three, four, five, six. How many stops? You're talking about thousands of pipes that get individual voicing to make an instrument come together.
Speaker 1 [00:49:05] So you demonstrated that new technology makes perhaps the job of the organist easier. Is there any possibility that new technologies could actually replace some of the age-old ways of making an organ?
Kent Tritle [00:49:26] Hmm. Age-old ways of making an organ. In the organ shop, of course, there's a tremendous amount of new technology. I think we're using electric tools to cut wood, generally. We're using burners with gas to melt glue or do whatever we need to do. Ancient principle though of the pipe organ there is one immutable thing which will never change and that is that we're talking about a column of air going through a pipe and being set in motion creating a tone This can never be replicated any other way. We do have digital instruments, which are completely electronic, speakers, no pipes. There is no way a digital instrument can set a single column of air in motion. And that is a completely different sonic experience from hearing a real pipe organ.
Speaker 1 [00:50:41] So I'm going to go back to an earlier question. What is it that makes pipe organics so iconic?
Kent Tritle [00:50:50] You know, pipe organs have kind of an iconic status. I think it's for a number of different reasons. We all think of, for example, the phantom of the opera. There we are. Still through films and through other kinds of associations, there's an iconic status that has come from our own 20th century into this time. On the other hand, there is the history of the pipe organ, you know, from age to age. Of course, the pipe organs has been playing, here I have a little bit of a cipher. Cypher is when a pipe speaks on its own. It's like, uh, let's see. This has played now well since the 18th century, or 19th I say, and that has been a part of people's lives and people have remembered that at their graduations or at some family event the organ played, the organ made sound, maybe the organ did. Maybe it played for a wedding or maybe it played for some other incredible event. So the organ has been always a go-to instrument for these great moments in our personal and public lives. And hopefully it will do that for ages to come.
Speaker 1 [00:52:38] Since we're on the subject.
Kent Tritle [00:52:46] Okay. No, that's fine. Sure. Okay. So, go do the same thing again of the organ, oh yeah, right. And so, and the point was the organ over time, why is the organ so iconic? I'll do this. The organ is an iconic instrument ever since it was called the King of Instruments. Some say that was by Mozart himself, that moniker. Organs have been a part of personal and public lives. As long as we can remember. Going way back to the medieval era and forward, organs have played for weddings, for funerals, times that people remember. Organs have been played for graduations. Orgains have been for incredible orchestra concerts where the organ came in and capped the entire orchestra to create an effect that was just unbelievable. Oregon has been very, very much a part of very important public events. Doooooooooooooooo Sorry. Yeah. That's right, that's right. Don't need to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. Okay, yep. Exactly. Exactly. So the organs have been a part of public events and private events for ages and ages. Weddings, funerals, graduations, ball games, horse shows, yes, fashion shows,yes. Organs have been around for a long time and as such they've really gained an iconic status because they've been so prevalent. Our human culture. Hopefully this king of instruments will continue to be an icon as we move through the ages. That kind of fit. Sorry. Please. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 [00:55:12] It's also proving itself as a way of triggering emotion. It isn't just, oh, they did their own graduation.
Kent Tritle [00:55:20] Exactly. Right.
Speaker 4 [00:55:29] When I hear him play the organ at Trinity on Sunday. What's going on?
Kent Tritle [00:55:38] Exactly.
Speaker 4 [00:55:39] Way beyond that.
Kent Tritle [00:55:41] Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4 [00:55:44] Around and it's delivering an emotional, incredible, emotional halo that's why it's, you know, it's so interesting to see. Here.
Speaker 3 [00:55:55] Hmm
Kent Tritle [00:55:57] Sure, sure. The organ is a real iconic instrument. And it has been ever since. It was called the King of Instruments. People have reveled in it and written about it. But why? The organ's played at joyous weddings, sorrowful funerals, at wonderful public events, graduation ceremonies, concerts, crownings, ball games, horse shows, fashion shows. The organ has this way of evoking such a connection with human spirit and human emotion that it has been a really valued presence for all of those kinds of gatherings. Yeah, I should just make it short.
Speaker 1 [00:57:01] That's for us, that's for...
Kent Tritle [00:57:06] I just need to wrap it, yeah, I just need to rap it, not do anything. It's just great. I'm like, what the fuck? OK. Exactly. Yeah. Okay, one more, all right, all The organ is such an iconic instrument, known as the king of instruments, kind of has that status. I think that a lot of what organ music has done through the ages and organs as a conveyor of that incredible music, connected with human emotion. Whether this is the joy of a wedding or the majesty of a crowning ceremony or the of a funeral or... Other kinds of public events, playing at a ball game, hearing organ music at graduations and hearing organ at horse shows. Organ has really become a part of the fabric of human life. To add to that, when we think of how organ has brought incredible color to the film industry, Phantom of the Opera, and all of those kinds of things, evoking mystery, evoke dread, the organ is an amazing instrument. Iconic.
Speaker 1 [00:58:31] So we've heard, we're doing a story about a drummer and we have heard and read that drummers are considered singular and they can use all four limbs differently and no other musician does that, but it seems to me that organists do.
Kent Tritle [00:58:54] You know, as imagination, that keyboard became pedal board. And keyboards became more than one keyboard. So let's take a moment. If you look at this pedal board down here, this is actually the first 32 keys at the bottom just made larger so we can play them with our feet.
Speaker 4 [00:59:22] Okay.
Kent Tritle [00:59:25] Yeah, yeah, okay. Okay. If you look at this pedal board below me, there are 32 keys. This much of the keyboard just made larger so that we can play with our feet. People marvel when they see the organist with their shoes on going all over the place and playing scales and arpeggios. The work, you put in your 10,000 hours and you can do that, you know? So we get everything going here, one hand can be here, we sometimes have double pedaling, where we're doing two different voices, one foot's doing one thing and the other's doing the other, most of the time the feet are working together to create a unified something down there. It's pretty fun.
Speaker 1 [01:00:28] And that's the best room full of teeth. You play the most complex instrument in humanity. And they play the simplest human voice.
Kent Tritle [01:00:44] Okay. But yeah, Avery Griffin is a good dear friend, you know, absolutely. When one considers the organ as an instrument that is played by one person, perhaps the antithesis is the glory of choral music, where each person plays a single instrument, their voice, but when they come together there can be just amazing things that happen. The epitome of this can be found in Room Full of Teeth. This is an amazing group where not only have they honed and refined the way that they might do what we would consider normal choral singing, they use a lot of what we call extended techniques. And those extended techniques have gone into percussive sounds and other kinds of sounds that come together for the summation of what they are able to do. So in a sense, the Roomful of Teeth as an ensemble has become its own orchestra by expanding the palette of colors available for the music they make. I love the organ as an instrument because of all the colors that we have and how it can make organ music. Organs though, frequently also, need to and can be instruments that blend with ensembles. And that's a whole other attention to the instrument and it's designed to create an instrument that can do that. When we hear the organ at Trinity Church Wall Street in the chapel, we'll be hearing an organ that not only plays. Solo repertoire but plays with others and very nicely. What we'll hear is a foundation of support that undergirds and creates a color upon which the color of a choral ensemble complements. And so then we have all the breath going through the organ and all the cereal. Or monumental effect.
Speaker 4 [01:03:17] So what's your show about? We always talk about the fight for it. We say, okay, in 1750, it was the most... For a long time, it was the most complicated machine ever. Not just the Cblister machine, but the machine. I mean, maybe there was a theme engine somewhere, but you know, whatever you feel comfortable with saying.
Kent Tritle [01:03:52] The organ, the king of instruments, is actually a marvelous machine. When one looks at all the keys that have to operate and all the parts that have come together, we see that there's really an amazing technological thing going on. And to consider that this was going on in 1750 and 1625 is pretty miraculous. There are clocks that have intermoving parts. From the medieval era where you might see in Venice the puppets come out for epiphany and they bend and they they make motions that was amazing as a town clock the organs held that much awe because of their amazing moving parts. Take it another way.
Speaker 4 [01:04:48] It's good, it's good. I didn't have.
Kent Tritle [01:04:49] I didn't have to go to Venice.
Speaker 4 [01:04:51] In the you know you're asking for something sometimes you have to go to bed right there's I it's like yeah
Speaker 1 [01:05:11] was the epitome of technology that was nothing greater. Something that just laces, you know, just glances in that historical moment.
Kent Tritle [01:05:26] Mm-hmm. Right, right, right.
Speaker 4 [01:05:29] Go on, please.
Kent Tritle [01:05:30] Okay, here we go. Here we go. All right. Here we are. It's important to know that for hundreds of years, 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, the organ was in any town, any village, or any city, the most advanced piece of equipment anywhere.
Speaker 1 [01:05:56] And a little more music, we wanted a slower version.
Kent Tritle [01:06:20] How'd you like it done?
Speaker 4 [01:06:28] You
Kent Tritle [01:07:00] you mean
Speaker 4 [01:07:46] That was pretty thick, I thought it was like 8 or 12 inches. Closer. Fairly joint. Is that? You
Kent Tritle [01:08:39] It was, it was, um, there wasn't a... That wasn't great, that wasn't great, it wasn't great
Speaker 4 [01:08:52] Do you want to hear the metal sound? Thank you.
Kent Tritle [01:09:34] Hey kids, choir, choir kids. Yeah, the greatest thing is you go to these instruments in remote villages in France or Germany and you go around behind the organ and you'll see, you know, it's, you know, Frederico, July 7, 1744, carved his initials in and that's where they either did this or they had the ones that they actually walked on. Which meant you couldn't practice alone.
Speaker 4 [01:10:11] Now
Kent Tritle [01:10:20] Mm-hmm. The most amazing thing to me is to be in a space with an instrument playing it, feel the vibrations coming through, especially in an instrument like this, coming through my own body and hearing the vibrations in the space. It's overwhelming.
Speaker 4 [01:10:58] Basically just tactics up as something that only a pipe worker can deliver to you, and only a type worker can analogize a pipeworker.
Kent Tritle [01:11:11] Right. Well I agree, I mean it's akin, that's where it becomes akin to a symphonic experience.
Speaker 4 [01:11:24] Would you say it becomes a control and it becomes the control?
Kent Tritle [01:11:31] Yeah. The only thing it's akin to is a symphonic experience. That's yeah, okay So organ, space, grand juror. One of the most amazing things about an organ is that when you hear it in a space, the surround sound that you get as the, wait a minute, one of the amazing things about the organ in a place is that, when the sound waves go out from those pipes into the space, it surrounds you, it embraces you, its an amazing feeling. For me, as an organist, I actually can feel the vibrations coming through the instrument. And hear them in the air, it's an extraordinary, extraordinary experience. And the rap is gonna be what? Ah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, sorry. Okay, okay, there we go, there you go, all right. The extraordinary thing about the organ is that when all of these sounds are set in motion, coming through the pipes, and you're in a grand space, the sound embraces you, it surrounds you, you feel the vibrations. When we're playing and hearing it, we're actually feeling the vibrations through the keys and the pedals as well. Or someone sitting in the space may feel it coming up through the floor. The only thing that that's akin to is the sound of a symphony orchestra. All right, car.
Speaker 4 [01:13:23] Why don't we just, if we can, if you can.
Kent Tritle [01:13:25] Yep, there's nothing else like it except this symphony orchestra. There's nothing else like it.
Speaker 4 [01:13:32] There was this very obnoxious movement that's truly great. And I can picture.
Kent Tritle [01:13:46] Got it. Got it One of the astounding things about the organ is all these sounds that are set into motion. They go into the space and the listener feels embraced by the sound as it surrounds. They may even feel supported by the sounds as the seat vibrates underneath. When we play, we get a good deal of that also. Maybe the symphony orchestra can do that, but there's nothing else like it.
Speaker 4 [01:14:20] Did I mug?
Kent Tritle [01:14:20] Did I mug the camera?
Speaker 4 [01:14:21] Thank you very much.
Kent Tritle [01:14:24] I mugged the camera.
Speaker 4 [01:14:25] No, no, it wasn't fast. No, it was fine.
Kent Tritle [01:14:29] OK. But did we get it?
Speaker 4 [01:14:31] Yeah. Yeah. Mic.
Kent Tritle [01:14:44] The original organs were used to celebrate the demolition of Christians by lions. It's really kind of ironic that the organ actually turned around to become an instrument associated with evoking the glory of God. Thus it has through centuries in churches and synagogues.
Speaker 1 [01:15:10] Can we go in Boston?
Kent Tritle [01:15:13] There is an organ at Symphony Hall in Boston. I have not played it. I've not played that organ. No, I think it's an okay organ. It does, it does, I think it does all right, but it's nothing. Yeah.
Speaker 4 [01:15:28] One of our stories is the acoustician who's in love with that hall. This is the way it sounds.
Kent Tritle [01:15:38] The music for Rhine. Yep. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, it's fantastic, yeah, that art of acoustics. Oh my god. Wow.
Speaker 4 [01:15:51] Yeah, yeah, and he's a tremendous acquisition of the time, many, many of his works.
Kent Tritle [01:15:59] Right? I mean, and that's the antithesis of all in a studio where everything is
Speaker 4 [01:16:06] and reproduce the sound that you heard in there as close to it as you can to the whole other arc. Absolutely. That was incredible.
