Photo: Mark Rich
This photo illustrates the impact the instrument has in the Sanctuary. As you can see, the St. John Organ is placed above the choir, just to the left of the main aisle leading to the Altar. Its beauty is striking in the arrangement of the individual ranks of organ pipes with the wooden 16’ Bourdon pedal pipes and bottom octave of the Great 8’ Principal decoratively placed on each side of the wooden Swell Enclosure. The Pedal 8’ Principal pipes are visible coming up behind the Swell Enclosure. The Great pipe work on the far right side is arranged in two ways to allow for maximum view of the pipes: the front ranks are arranged from left to right with the pipes getting larger and taller and ranks further back reverse directions with pipes getting smaller from left to right. It is said that organ pipes are really frozen sound: the sound of each organ pipe is totally dependant on the shape and size of the organ pipe. St. John has pipes that are open from bottom to top, open at the bottom but closed at the top, reed pipes with trumpet resonators, reed pipes with narrow tube resonators, wooden pipes, metal pipes, large and tall pipes, and short skinny pencil sized pipes.
From this position high and central in the Sanctuary, the organ can most effectively fill and resonate in the acoustically tuned environment. The hard flat surfaces of the Ceiling Clouds permit the splendid acoustic blend and carry the organ sonorities in resonance. The Sanctuary has a 1.5 second reverberation time when it is empty of parishioners.