I acquired a Kawai DX1900 drawbar organ (three manuals, two octaves of pedal board, 144kg+26kg+16kg—not a dinky little thing) in December 2022 and have greatly enjoyed playing and learning about that type of instrument (though I’ve been away from home since July 2023, and am really looking forward to getting back to it). My pianos were neglected! But I’ve found it has helped my piano playing a lot too, and most notably I depend on the sustain pedal much less than I did, in a few short months.

I’ve never had the opportunity to play a pipe organ, and other sorts don’t tend to lean into stop banks that you can rapidly swap between so much, and this drawbar organ doesn’t have that kind of thing at all—changing mid-piece is much more impractical, and so done much less. All up, I’m confident it’s an easier instrument to play than a pipe organ, but still with a lot of the same qualities. (But it’s not just an inferior pipe organ—it’s its own thing.)

I’ve found it fascinating what works and what doesn’t: I played a wide variety of things, my expectation of how well a piece will transfer has not always been correct, in one direction or the other.

Anyway, pianos and organs are definitely quite different instruments, but there’s also a lot of overlap in the techniques and skills, and playing one will improve significant aspects of your playing of the other.

(Nice three-em dash, BTW. I settled on —⁂— as a divider, but seriously contemplated two-em and three-em dash, which I do still use in other situations.)

That's a beast you've got there! The usual way these change hands is when the owner moves out and leaves the organ behind ;)

The previous owner had got it new for AU$6,000 around 1980—serious cash! I got it for $100 (and then spent about an extra $150–200 on fuel &c. due to living some hundreds of kilometres away), and it had been listed on Gumtree for a couple of months, with only one other bloke having expressed interest (he played and enjoyed it, but declared himself a Yamaha man). There’s just not much interest in these beauties.

There was a full-on national news article a year or two back about some suburban house somewhere with a pipe organ that was for sale but only for someone who’d appreciate and use it. Pipe organs are part of the house; but these organs, I dunno, I feel that they’re big enough most buyers wouldn’t want to let you leave ’em behind.

Oh look, another interesting one in the Melbourne area now, https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/frankston/keyboards-pianos/c.... Uncommon indeed. Hmm, if it’s still on the market when I get back in March… even if I need to get rid of some furniture to fit it conveniently… drawbar organ, electric organ, upright piano and digital piano quartet? Sigh, really wish I had more space to conveniently fit all this and a grand piano or two. They’re all such different instruments despite seeming similar in some ways that I kinda want ’em all.

I wished I could do my instruments justice. I've re-vamped an older (70's) electronic organ that had super nice keyboards, the electronics were shot so I midified it and then stuck GrandOrgue in it on a little touch screen PC. It sounds way better than the $500 or so that it cost (as good as the sample set ;) ).

Speaking of home pipe organs, the one that’s likely to be best known to HN readers (or of the most interest) belongs to Donald E. Knuth.

> console and pipes are frequently separated by enough distance that the speed of sound plays a role in aural feedback while playing can make playing a pipe organ a challenge

Yes, this can get quite extreme. And then there are churches where some of the organ sounds are purposefully piped to the other side of the building to be injected in different places. That can really add to the delay and the confusion.