From an organ to other sounding objects

The Cuntz positive organ, 1610#

The Cuntz positive organ in the Musical Instrument Museum of Leipzig University is the principal instrument case in the doctoral research. An organ makes the connections between keys, stops, pipework and acoustic response especially tangible.

Ariston, 1882#

The Ariston mechanical musical instrument introduces perforated discs and free reeds. It shifts the focus from a performer’s continuous control to a mechanical information carrier and its execution.

The Landshut Propstglocke, 1767#

The bell provides a contrasting physical system for modal analysis and urban auralization. It tests how the approach transfers beyond keyboard instruments.

What changes between the cases#

These comparisons separate a reusable documentation contract from the physics of each instrument. Identifiers, provenance, rights and exact files transfer across cases. A model for pipe resonance does not transfer unchanged to a free reed or a bell, and a keyboard interaction does not explain a mechanically read disc. Each case therefore needs its own account of geometry, excitation, control and validation.

The wider organ reference set#

The deposited reference objects also include the Silbermann Brüstungspositiv of 1722 and the Welte cinema organ of 1928. Together with the Cuntz instrument, these contribute measured pipes to the VAO-Pipe evaluation. That evaluation concerns passive pressure-acoustic eigenmodes of reconstructed pipe geometry. It should be read alongside the object packages, without treating it as a complete simulation of the instruments’ wind supply, speech or performance.

Compare the evidence behind the experiences#

The Cuntz case joins a sampled digital configuration to a historical organ, with an unresolved register-mapping issue that matters for interpretation. Ariston adds a physical control medium: a hole-recognition result must be separated from the quality of the synthesized performance. The Propstglocke adds a mechanical and propagation model whose material and environmental assumptions shape the sound. These differences explain why a transferable package format still needs object-specific research methods.