The Klais organ in Kyoto: A comparison of the acoustics of the Japanese organ stops to the traditional Japanese instruments

Abstract

The Klais organ in Kyoto is unique among organs of the world in having a section with Japanese organ stops. Although common organ stops are sometimes named shakuhachi in Japan, the Klais organ is the only one that has, besides a French and a German section, a Japanese section containing four specially designed stops imitating the Japanese instruments: shakuhachi, shinobue, sho, and hichiriki. While the shakuhachi and shinobue stops use flue pipes, free-reed pipes are used for the sho and the hichiriki. Sound recordings of single tones were made of these Japanese stops and analyzed regarding the sound spectra and the attack transients, as well as the variation of the fundamental frequency during the attack transient. For comparison, sound recordings of traditional instruments were made at the Geijutsu Deigaku University of Tokyo. The results show that the sound characteristics of the traditional instruments could be imitated quite well. The free-reed pipes work well not only to imitate the free-reed instrument sho, but also to imitate the double-reed hichiriki. This organ is a good example in which the long-neglected free-reed stops are more suitable than the commonly used beating reed stops. [Work supported by DFG.]