Actually you are describing the modern pipe organ. It hasn't changed much in that most basic of descriptions in more than 2,000 years. What I think you may be getting at is the Hydralis, invented around 300 BCE.

The Hydraulis is the first keyboard instrument.

Quite a wide variety of materials are used in organ building. Specifically the pipes are either metal or wood. The metal pipes smaller than approx. 4' are made of alloys of lead and tin. Larger metal pipes are made of zinc as it is stiffer and resists the tendency of large pipes to collapse under their own weight. Copper has been used occasionally for special and decorative purposes. Some builders have experimented with aluminum for large pipes but this is quite rare as is brass for some special purpose reed pipe resonators. Wood is sometimes used instead of zinc for larger pipes but wood is also used for entire ranks with the exception of the very smallest pipes. Aside from the pipework, the bulk of the material is wood. This includes not only solid wood but plywood and composite wood such as medium density fiberboard in modern organs. Leather is used for pneumatic pouches, bellows parts and gaskets. Ivory was once used for keys but synthetics , bone and hardwoods are now substituted. Plastics and plastic composites, steel, bronze, aluminum, cotton, felt, silicon (and the other substances used for solid state electronics), and many other materials are used in the many and diverse parts required for a modern pipe organ.

The Longer tube is the Lower pitched note and the Smaller lengthed one is the Higher Pitched note. The same with any wind instrament.

In general, the foundations stops (Principal, Diapason, Montre) and the flutes are the two main types of stops on most types of organs. For example, the popular "Roller Moller" has two extended ranks; a Principal and a flute which are unified to many different pitches. However, a theater organist might argue that the strings are used more often in that style of playing than are the foundations.

But, I suspect that what you are really asking is what the two main types or organ pipes are. The two main types of pipes are flue (not to be confused with flute) and reed. Flue pipes are simply a whistle with no moving parts. Reed pipes produce sound using a brass tongue not unlike the reeds in a harmonica. Classification of organ pipes break down further much like the taxonomic classification of life forms. For instance flue pipes break down into foundation, flute, string and hybrid. Reeds break down into still more diverse classes.

The hydraulis.

It was thought to have been invented by Ctesibius around 465 B.C.

* thorough knowledge and understanding of music theory. * able to sight read at will - this is usually a standard requirement during an interview and audition ... the interviewer will place a completely unfamiliar hymn in front of you and you are expected to play it as if you had been playing it for 20 years.

* ability to coordinate hands and feet playing simultaneously. * be able to hold a constant tempo for hymns - congregations will slow you down to a crawl, and knowing how to combat that is essential.

* be willing to take much criticism: you play too loud, you play too soft, you play too fast, you play too slow, the hymn keys are too high, the hymn keys are too low, etc. * be an excellent accompanist - takes years of training to accomplish this. * know how to modulate ... some hymns must be transposed (at sight) to accommodate a particular soloist, sometimes with absolutely no advance notice.

Be willing and able to take organ lessons. There are some schools of thought that say that at least six years of piano lessons were to be completed before continuing on to organ lessons. One should study classical organ with a tutor/teacher for at least one year before taking on a church position on this instrument. Some professional organists make it look easy, but they've been playing for 30+ years, too. It's a rewarding career though ... I personally have been in this profession for nearly 50 years and still enjoy it as much now as I did when I started many years ago.

It has changed considerably. Too much to asnwer in this limited space. I suggest reading The Organ its evolution, principals of construction and use by William Leslie Sumner. You may find it in your local library or central branch.

The knobs on the tuba and trumpet are called valves. The knobs on a french horn are often called valves or rotors. You use valve oil on the tuba and trumpet, while you use rotor oil for the french horn.

It wasn't really "invented" it was developed. People are always trying to improve musical instruments. In antiquity, people sought ways to improve on the syrinx or pan pipes which were blown by mouth.

You listed the same thing twice! Did you mean to do that? By the way, it should be "Which of these instruments is larger," not "Which of these instruments is largest."

They are not considered to be the same, though both are close relatives of the piano. A keyboard typically produces sound via an electronic speaker, while an organ produces sound by mechanically moving air through pipes. An organ also has foot pedals to play low notes, which keyboards lack. The organ is usually the much larger instrument of the two.

The lowest note is the G above middle C, and the highest is the A nine notes above that.

This question is too vague. There are thousands and thousands of pipe organs world wide. The first pipe organ? No one knows. The history of the organ goes back to at least 300 BCE and probably much earlier.

The organ I play at an Episcopal (Anglican) church has 2,900 pipes, which is actually just about medium-sized (if there is such a measurement). The smaller theater organs I've played have about 1,000. The smaller church organ down the street has about 2,000.

Technically it is a wind instrument. The pipe organ has often been referred to as "The King of Instruments". It's in a class all by itself ... It was never intended to replace the orchestra or sound like an orchestra, although it contains orchestral like sounding voices.

Sound is produced by pressing a key which opens a valve below the pipes and lets the pressurized air travel upwards through the pipe. Once the key is released, the valve closes and the sound ceases.

It is believed one former operatic singer Fritzi Scheff ( a woman) began this custom for the Brooklyn Dodgers pre-war II. I do not have any further details.

To the present day the biggest Pipe Organ is not in a church or cathedral but in a department store! Yes, Macy's in Philadelphia has the worlds largest Organ with 28,400 plus pipes dispersed through separate rooms on seven different floors. Their is a video of it on You Tube.

One of the characteristics of the theater organ is the tremulant. Also, whilst the prevalent stop on a church pipe organ is the Diapason or Principal, on the theater organ it is the Tibia Clausa, a pure flute tone. Theater organs also have stops not commonly found on church organs such as the Kinura and Post Horn. The strings are usually quite a bit keener and louder as well as typified by the typical Wurlitzer Viol de Orchestra. One commonality is the Vox Humana. However the voicing of theater organs is usually quite different than church organs, particularly if the church organ in question was built after the Organ Reform Movement. A Church organ built during the romantic or orchestral period may make a fairly good imitation of a theater organ simply by turning on the tremulants. However the tremulants of theater organs are usually quite a bit faster and deeper than church organ tremulants. The best bet is to make maximum use of the strings, trems and reeds. Do not be afraid to use the mutations as well. Don't forget that theater organs were highly unified so that many stops played at every conceivable pitch.

Passau Cathedral

The Kilgen (correct spelling) organ company went out of business in 1960.

If you Google "Kilgen" you can find a Wikipedia article, an opus list and a lot of other information, but no Kilgen company website.

59

Short answer: No. Handel played the harpsichord, a predecessor of the piano, and also the organ.

Longer answer (Did Handel ever play a piano, even once?): Not that we know of, but it's possible. Contemporary music historian Charles Burney said that pianos did not arrive in England before the mid-1750s, and Handel had pretty much retired from performing by 1753; but he visited the Continent in 1750-1751, where pianos had been around for a few years. Johann Sebastian Bach, for example, is known to have tried one out before his death in 1750. I can't imagine Handel passed up the opportunity, if he had it!