A positive organ (also positiv organ, positif organ, portable organ, chair organ, or simply positive, positiv, positif, or chair) (from the Latin verb ''ponere'', "to place") is a small, usually one-manual,

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...

that is built to be more or less mobile. It was common in sacred and secular music between the 10th and the 18th centuries, in chapels and small churches, as a chamber organ and for the

basso continuo Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing th ...

in ensemble works. The smallest common kind of positive, hardly higher than the keyboard, is called chest or box organ and is especially popular nowadays for basso continuo work; positives for more independent use tend to be higher. From the Middle Ages through Renaissance and

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

the instrument came in many different forms, including processional and tabletop organs that have profited relatively less from the renewed popularity the type in general has enjoyed from the

Orgelbewegung The Organ Reform Movement or ''Orgelbewegung'' (also called the Organ Revival Movement) was a mid-20th-century trend in pipe organ building, originating in Germany. The movement was most influential in the United States in the 1930s through 1970s, ...

onwards.

History

A well-known instance of an early positive or portable organ of the 4th century occurs on the obelisk erected to the memory of Theodosius I on his death in AD 395. Among the illuminated manuscripts of the British Museum there are many miniatures representing interesting varieties of the portable organ of the Middle Ages, including Add. MS. 29902 (fol. 6), Add. MS. 27695b (fol. 13), and

Cotton MS. Tiberius This is an incomplete list of some of the manuscripts from the Cotton library that today form the Cotton collection of the British Library. Some manuscripts were destroyed or damaged in a fire at Ashburnham House in 1731, and a few are kept in othe ...

A VII. fol. 104d., all of the 14th century, and Add. MS. 28962 and Add. MS. 17280, both of the 15th century. In the Renaissance and

periods, positive organs were used at many kinds of civil and religious functions. They were used in the homes and chapels of the rich, at banquets and court events, in choirs and music schools, and in the small orchestras of Jacopo Peri and

Claudio Monteverdi Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (baptized 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered ...

at the dawn of the musical drama or opera.

Construction

Casing

Many positives, both of the box and 'cupboard' types, can be divided into upper and lower parts to be more easily moved. The lower part then usually contains the bellows, blower and/or treadle, and perhaps a few of the largest pipes. Wheels, casters or a custom-made hand truck are other aids to mobility, which have become vastly more common in modern times. File:Amiralitetskyrkan choir organ.jpg, Positive organ in Karlskrona Admiralty Church,

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

File:2013 Orgelkids Doe-orgel pijpen plaatsen.jpg, Children in primary school are assembling a do-organ of

Orgelkids Orgelkids (Dutch, "organkids") is an educational project meant to familiarize and educate children with the pipe organ musical instrument. The project was initiated in the Netherlands in 2009 by Lydia Vroegindeweij and is directed towards cultura ...

File:FolleJournée2009 ABO orguePositif.jpg, Chest, or box, organ used during La Folle Journée, 2009

Stops

Positive organs typically exhibit few stops due to their small size and portable nature; a specification of 8′ stopped, 4′

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

and 2′ principal (diapason) is common. Somewhat larger positives may also have a 2-2/3′ and/or other mutation stop and/or a small

mixture In chemistry, a mixture is a material made up of two or more different chemical substances which are not chemically bonded. A mixture is the physical combination of two or more substances in which the identities are retained and are mixed in the ...

, and some have an 8′

reed stop A reed pipe (also referred to as a ''lingual'' pipe) is an organ pipe that is sounded by a vibrating brass strip known as a ''Reed (music), reed''. Air under pressure (referred to as ''wind'') is directed towards the reed, which vibrates at a ...

(such as a regal). Still larger positives may have a 4′ principal or a second 8′ stop, the latter often treble-only. More complex examples feature a divided keyboard, which allows each stop to be activated separately in the treble and bass portions of the keyboard. This makes it possible to play a melody and an accompaniment simultaneously on different registrations. Most positives have just one manual keyboard and no pedals, but there are examples with a set of pedal pulldowns or even a pedal stop or two, as well as rarer ones with two manuals.One example of a two-manual positive a

accessed October 19, 2010.

Wind supply

Before electricity, positives required either the player or a second person to operate the bellows in order to supply wind to the instrument, but most modern positives include electric blowers for this purpose.

Compass and various

The positive organ differs from the portative organ in that it is larger and is not played while strapped at a right angle to the performer's body. It also has a larger keyboard (typically 49 notes or more in modern examples, often 45 or so notes with a short octave in older ones), while a portative may have as few as 12 or 13 notes. The positive is also not to be confused with the regal, a small keyboard instrument that contains short-length reed pipes. However, since the Orgelbewegung revival of small organs, small positives to be played with both hands have also come to be called 'portatives' in many cases, especially when their pipes are arranged without housing in a

chromatic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, ...

row like in the genuine portative.

Other uses of the term

The Positive is also a traditional department of a large organ, often placed behind the organist's back and more or less the size of a separate positive organ. In England it became known as a ''Chair organ'', later to be corrupted into the ''Choir'' division found on

Romantic Romantic may refer to: Genres and eras * The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries ** Romantic music, of that era ** Romantic poetry, of that era ** Romanticism in science, of that e ...

and many modern organs. Also, since the

, the German term ''Ruckpositiv'' (''Rückpositiv'') can be encountered in English.

References

External links

Picture of a new 2009 positive organ
available for sale or rent by New England Organbuilders of Connecticut

at the Vienna Museum of Art History {{DEFAULTSORT:Positive Organ Keyboard instruments Early musical instruments Organs (music)