"Apart from the personal preference that each organist holds for a particular style and tonal ensemble, centuries of consensus dictate reasonable collections of sounds. These may not be intuitively obvious to the novice, and some are acquired tastes. Most are taught from generation to generation to preserve what we believe to be well suited to various playing situations. "

"Therefore, to specify what individual sounds an organ must have, the primary purpose of the organ must be carefully focused. The only reason to have an organ in church is to lead and support people in worshipping God. The music rendered must be an offering, gladly and freely presented in purity to God Himself. Having said that, it is inconsequential if the music entertains the congregation with sweet and interesting sounds by either the organ or the choir. This, of course, is to be disciplined by good judgment to not offend the congregation's tolerance with meaningless, outrageous noise. Loud needs to be balanced with soft, and dissonance makes sense only in contrast with harmony, elements over which the organist has complete control. "

"The wisdom of many organ builders can be summarized fairly simply: Each stop (a complete set of pipes of one particular tonality) must be musical. The harmonic development must be balanced to faithfully present a common sound at all pitches. The relative power of each stop must be blended with its family. A logical order must prevail to keep the total ensemble cohesive. Some organ builders have many more rules, but eventually they all fit together to assure a reasonable instrument. The organ has to be carefully conceived, produced, and finished to the acoustics and worship style of the congregation to which it is endowed."

No organ is musically tolerable unless care is given to the following parameters:

VOICING -- the distinct identity of each organ tone.

BALANCE -- the musical stability of all pitches in proportion.

BLEND -- the musical embrace of two or more sounds that synergistically create a new tone color; not just the sounding of their individual parts.

TRANSPARENCY -- the musical quality of ensemble that not only contains the totality of all parts being played, but the preservation of the individual parts moving within.

MAJESTY -- the unique musical property of grand organ tone.

RESTRAINT -- the musical quality of dynamic balance within the confines of the desired tonal objective and room acoustics.

"Notice that MUSICAL is the key word that permeates these descriptions. Some say that you can teach music, but you cannot teach musicality. Much organ building can be done by persons with reasonable mechanical skills; it takes a musical person to make an organ sound right. That "rightness" comes with discernment and understanding of how organ sounds work together."

"Two significant developments in organ building have influenced the tone to this day: low wind pressures before electricity and high wind pressures after electricity. The obvious limitations of wind pressure before electricity were over-compensated after huge supplies of wind could be generated with blowers. Pipes on low wind pressure were in the open so they could speak freely. High pressure organs turned out to not be very musical. We can truly say that we have been there and tried that with poor results. The overall consensus today is to expose the pipes "in the open" unless there is an overwhelming reason to enclose them, such as in the Swell Division."

"The first and most fundamental sound of the Dorian ensemble is the Principal. This open, classic pipe tone is the foundation around which the entire organ is built. Unlike a winded pipe organ, the Dorian tone system produces a fine sound without respect to the relative expense of one type of pipe to another. Organ builders often used half-length, stopped pipes for the Diapason 8 to save the cost of the full-length pipe. We have no such limitation. For instance, the cost of a Stopped Diapason and the Open Diapason is the same."

"The second most important sound is the reed. Following the principals with reeds keeps the ensemble "open" and exciting. Pipe organ builders also contained their costs by forming short resonator reeds. As with half-length and stopped flues, we have no reason to limit reed tonality. Where musically practical, full-length reeds will be used."

"Flute tones offer the greatest variety. They come in stopped, full-length, and harmonic forms to generate subtle sounds, full-bodied sounds, earth-shaking sounds, and piercing sounds."

"The string sound is the most luxurious of them all. No attempt at Romantic music is well rendered without a full chorus of string tone. These are not only useful in accompaniment of choirs and soloists but also in rendering organ solo music, particularly when the music conveys programmatic images. These characteristic sounds are represented in all Dorian organs."

F. Richard Burt, Dorian Organs