The choir division of the organ at St. Raphael's Cathedral, Dubuque, Iowa. Wood and metal pipes of a variety of sizes are shown in this photograph.

An organ pipe is one of the tuned resonators that produces the main sound of a pipe organ. Most organ pipes are either long cylindrical metal tubes or elongated wooden boxes of rectangular cross-section. Image File history File linksMetadata StRaphaelsDubOrganSmall. ... Image File history File linksMetadata StRaphaelsDubOrganSmall. ... Downtown Dubuque and the Riverfront Dubuque is a city in Dubuque County, Iowa, United States. ... A resonator is a device or part that vibrates (or oscillates) with waves. ... The organ of Bristol Cathedral, Bristol, England. ...

Organ terminology varies a great deal from period to period, style to style and even from builder to builder. This article gives the most common usages only.

There are two types of organ pipes, classified by the way they are driven:

• Flue pipes -- driven by whistles or fipples. Most organ pipes are flue pipes. Flue pipes are themselves divided into three broad classes:
  • Flute pipes have the purest tones, and are generally the widest.
  • Diapasons are intermediate in tone, and are the basic sound of the pipe organ.
  • String tone pipes have the richest harmonics, and tend to be the narrowest pipes.
• Reed pipes -- driven by a beating reed.

See also Variations in timbre of organ pipes. In a pipe organ, a flue pipe is any pipe that is sounded by a fipple, similar to that in a whistle or a flute a bec, rather than by a beating reed, see reed pipe. ... A fipple mouthpiece uses a narrow windway and a blade-like edge to channel and vibrate air blown into it. ... The word diapason (pronounced ) is another name for the musical interval of the octave, especially in the context of Pythagorean intervals. ... Diagram of typical reed pipe A Reed pipe is a type of pipe found in pipe organs qualified by the use of a vibrating metal strip instead of the simple vibration of air. ... A reed is a thin strip of material which vibrates to make music. ... This article is part of the Pipe Organ Refactor Project. ...

There is another way of dividing pipes into two broad classes:

• Open pipes are open-ended. An open pipe producing middle C is about two feet in length.
• Stopped pipes, also known as closed or gedackt (from the German for covered) are closed at the end opposite the reed or the fipple. A closed pipe is almost exactly half the length of an open pipe sounding the same note.

Stopped pipes are used for two main reasons: In music, the term middle C refers to the note C located between the staves of the grand staff, quoted as C4 in note-octave form. ... Gedackt (also spelled gedeckt) is the name of a family of stops in pipe organ building. ...

• They tend to be gentler and sweeter in tone. Some builders even go so far as to refer to any stopped flue pipe as a flute.
• Stopped pipes for deep bass notes that would otherwise be difficult to fit into the organ chamber are more easily accommodated, and also cheaper to build. In some organs, the bass notes of an otherwise open rank of pipes are stopped for this reason alone.

See also

• Pipe organ for more detailed information.
• List of pipe organ stops for a list of some names of different voices of pipes.
• Organ Pipe Cactus
• Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument