[Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

Greetings, all!

I'm trying to find data on medieval-ish Pipe Organs, the ancient Hydraulos / Water Organs, and related instruments. Web-searching seems to produce general descriptions. But I'm looking at data in the more GURPS-y style: variant items with cost, size/mass and typical sound volume.

I realise that e.g. church organs were probably not sold on the open market, but a price in GURP$ for the purposes of calculating crafting time/effort/etc. would be just as useful.

Thanks in advance!

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

The requirement for a large volume of a pressurized fluid mean that prior to the invention of electric pumps, these are pieces of architecture - you need a big somewhat airtight room pumped up by large bellows, water towers or something like that. Though if you are installing a new organ, you may be able to use the wind chest for the old one.

Church organs usually involved several master craftsmen (the architect, instrument maker, and the smith who did the pipes were not usually the same person), the construction and metalworking labor forces, and months of work. If you didn't have too many people on the pipes, it might be several years before they are all delivered and installed. If you aren't in a hurry and don't demand too much quality you might get away with under $100,000.

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

Per the Association of Organ Builders, a new organ built today (and thus using approximate GURPS dollars) starts at $850,000 for the very smallest pipe organ built new. Given the rest of your post about the difficulties of making them in the past, I can't imagine it would be less.

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

I don't know, I suspect something called the Association of Organ Builders isn't going to turn out anything less than good, or possibly fine quality work. If you subcontract your pipes to the local auto body shops and cut them from plumbing supplies, they'll be cheaper.

But my point is the native scale of the project is "nice building", not a "nice piece of furniture" scale one a lot of musical instruments would be.

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

Most musical instruments aren't that big. Even a tenor sax, a set of bagpipes, or a sitar is more the scale of a big hand tool or a piece of luggage.

Bill Stoddard

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

Yeah, I remember that the smallest organs are one-handed instruments, with the other hand pumping the air.

Though the whole question is inspired by the musing about what sorts of organs a clichéd fantasy overlord can afford after being deprived from his prior mega-wealth (i.e. how much wealth he has to reestablish in order to get what sort/size of organ).

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

Well, if he's a necromancer, he already has access to vital organs...

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

I'm pretty sure the OP was asking about the sort of ones you install in a wall

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

Actually I'm interested in the full list, if it turns out to be known. The one installed in a wall is the ideal to strive for, but surely our evil overlord will have to get by with what's available before restoring his former glory.

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

Yes, of course. I was responding only to malloyd's comparison of that size to the size you treat as furniture (orchestral harps, grand pianos, timpani, and so on), which leaves out what I think is the predominant size.

Bill Stoddard

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

Smaller pipe organs, like say bagpipes as someone mentioned earlier, would use the same pricing as normal instruments

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

Local TL? Magic available or not? And is the evil overlord cheesy enough to go for the Melnibone [1] option?
__________________
Craig
(currently running a grand tour of Yrth)

[1] As in Elric; IIRC, his sister was fond of playing a keyboard that was connected to the amplified screams of a few dozen carefully tortured prisoners...

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

I'd rather start with the generic per-TL values of Low-Tech, and account for magical ways to ease the construction after that.

[OT]Melnibone option?
 

This is the second time I've seen a reference to this meme. Do you recall the source? I don't remember it from Moorcock's stories, but it has been a while since I've read them.

Re: [OT]Melnibone option?
 

It was in the earliest one in the sequence I believe. I think it was Elric of Melnibone, but I haven't read those stories in quite a while. They are just too depressing, and for somebody with chronic depression, much too dangerous.

I'm sure if you looked up Elric on Wikipedia it would give you the stories and perhaps a synopsis of each.

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

As for the $850,000 value, that is in today's dollars. I think the GURPS standard is 1970 which would lower the price by about three.

And yes, several people have made some quite impressive pipe organs with PVC pipe. I would have to use a computer to do this as my musical incompetence is impressive. (I have written a few songs and was trying to get them transcribed by a friend. He'd get a few notes, then have be highly frustrated because I'd restart the song in a different key and I couldn't hear the difference.)

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

It's US$ at the time of publication of the 4e Basic set, in 2004. $100 then is about $125 now, depending on how you measure it: there's a sensible website about that here.

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

NO! A GURPS dollar is set at the cost of a loaf of bread. Of course how that actually translates into real world money is up for graps, where I live I've seen bread priced from AUD $2-5

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

How big is a "loaf" actually?

Here in Denmark, I can buy 800 grams of high-fibre, 33% wholegrain, pre-sliced bread, for 10-12 Danish kroner, in discount shops, or in other shops for a few percent more if I'm willing to compromise slightly on the fibres (6.5% instead of 8%).

That's wheat bread. I don't go for rye bread, because I seem to get a mild stomach irritation, but I'm pretty sure you can buy black bread for rather less than 12.5 DKK/kg. Probably even pre-sliced.

Re: [OT]Melnibone option?
 

Near the beginning of Elric of Melnibone, it mentions "music slaves" who have been trained (and modified) to sing one perfect note each, and whose efforts are goaded by their masters through the infliction of pain. I don't believe any more detail than that was given. Is that the part you mean?

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

One meal's worth of course.

Seriously, who cares? No price list is accurate enough it matters. Real world prices for identical items can easily vary by a factor of 2 depending on where you check them - my local grocery runs a buy one get one free deal on some brand or other of bread more weeks than not. People who insist on calculating these sorts of things to 2 or 3 decimal places are fooling themselves with imaginary precision.

Re: [OT]Melnibone option?
 

That is what I recall as well. Music produces through the torture of slaves. I do not recall the torture being described as being controlled in detail via some kind of organ keyboard system or the like.

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

It's true that going for excessive precision is silly.

On the other hand, it is a distinctive feature of the iron age and medieval periods that food was scarce, and that those of the huge lower class were keenly aware of starvation as something that might happen to them (again). Therefore, taking an interest in the cost and availability of staple foods is priper.

Re: [Low-Tech] Musical Instruments: Water & Pipe Organ?
 

In those kinds of situations the buying power of grain tends to vary widely, with value highest just before harvest when the previous harvest was poor, and lowest just after a good harvest. I don't think that anything in the GURPS economic model should be taken too seriously ... there are academic books (and Harn Manor!) for people who want consistency and historical accuracy.