The Piano and The Organ

Piano VS Organ

How are they similar?

These music instruments look quite similar, but essentially, they are not.

They both do belong to the Keyboard family because they have keys which the player depresses to produce a sound or a tuned pitch – i.e. the pitches are -  A, B, C, D, E, F, G which is called One Octave. And the keyboard has many octaves across the keyboard.

The keyboard has white and black keys. The player depresses the keys so that pitches can  be produced.

How are they different?

The Piano is a single manual keyboard with a total of 88 keys on it. Its main sound is the Piano sound. (However, in a Digital Piano, or Electronic Piano, other sampled sounds are available, e.g. Strings, Vibraphone, Harpsichord, etc.).

Pianists play the Piano with both hands to produce the music which are written for the piano. The right foot of the pianist depresses the damper pedal, which directly controls the sustain effect, prolonging the sounds of the notes. A virtuosic pianist is capable of making great music with the Piano.

The Organ is a multi – tiered keyboard, meaning that it generally has 2 manuals, i.e. one for the Left Hand and the other, for the Right Hand. To complete the organ, a set of Pedals for Bass sounds are provided for the left foot to play. The right foot controls a volume pedal so that the dynamics between Soft and Loud can be controlled.

In essence, the organ is played with all the limbs actively involved in the music making process.

The original sounds of the organ, obviously, would be the organ sounds, which is basically the Pipe Organ sounds sampled from the magnificent acoustic pipe organs. Then there other sampled sounds from the Theatre Organs, the Drawbar Organs. Apart from just organ sounds, the organ also has a large variety of sampled instrument sounds ranging from Woodwinds, Brass, Strings, Percussion, to name just a few.

With the organ, a very wide genre of music can be played, like Classical organ repertoire, Theatre Organ arrangements, Jazz Organ selections, Organ Pops and definitely, Orchestra works. Essentially, how the organ will sound depends highly on the musicianship skills of the organist.  Knowing the organ well means that the organist must have – good technical skills, wide product knowledge, high level performance skills, and creative arranging skills.