blog.sinden.org

I completed my first Sudoku puzzle today. It was pretty neat.

It struck me as being fun. But it also struck me as being sort of like registering an organ.

The rules of the game are simple: complete the puzzle so that the numbers 1-9 appear only once in every row, column and 3x3 grid.

This is just like registering an organ by setting up a limited number of pistons and divisionals. This part of the organist's craft often doesn't have much to do with music. It has everything to do with logic. Like Sudoku.

The original Sudokuish registration model seems to be the old Holtkamp switchboard. There, your generals have to be registered so well that their content can also serve the divisionals. (On early combination actions, divisional pistons could not be set independently of their corresponding generals). You might need a really loud sound, but that sound might also have to double as a cornet and accompaniment, and to use that you might have to take off the Great to Pedal coupler.

Tangent: And why is it, exactly, that we have to settle for a limited number of pistons? I mean, if we were able to stick a 60 gig iPod in the organ (for what, $400?) and program it to store the combination action, we would have like a gajillion and a half memory levels.

Wait, if I just hit a divisional piston here, how am I going to get that coupler on? or, how can I register the pedal so that it will balance both this soft sound and this stronger one? or, I want to pull on the Hautbois, but it sounds like a vomiting giraffe, etc.

I am going to assume that a lot of people have stopped reading at this point because either 1) they don't care about Sudoku, or 2) they don't care about organ registration, or 3) they don't care about either, or 4) they were offended by the giraffe comment, or 5) they have suddenly and unexpectedly lost power.

Look, I really like organs and if I want to talk about registering them in relation to a logic puzzle, well, that's what I'm going to do! Deal with it! If you'd rather read a Sudoku blog, well, that option is available to you. If you want to read an organ registration blog I'm afraid you're out of luck.

Sorry, I took kind of a harsh turn there, but maybe I'm a little overworked. I mean, try registering something by Herbert Howells. There's a lot going on. It's like a puzzle, and the possibilities are endless.

I guess the only real difference is, unlike Sudoku, there's more than one "correct" solution.

And no answer key.

Unless you count B-flat.

Elsewhere: I see that the Episcopal Church has redesigned their website. This should make trying to find stuff there a little less like trying to complete a Sudoku puzzle.

Labels: Holtkamp, Howells