THE PINOCCHIO SYNDROME

I’m probably more of a purest than is healthy for me. If I am going to eat something sweet I want sugar and not some chemical that tricks my taste buds into thinking that I am eating sugar. But I make concession out of necessity. When a new bell system was needed at my first assignment the highest quality fake bell system we could find was purchased. It consisted of a control panel, a lot of wires, and four speakers on the roof. There was no clacker hitting mettle anywhere. In fact, since it was solid state, the only striking that took place was the pastor hitting the roof when I gave him the bill.

But even fakery should some pride in its appearance. For the bells to make sense they had to appear as though they were coming from a place that could conceivable have bells. The expanse of the building let you believe (if you tried hard enough) that they could exists somewhere. Yet, the same bell system could be easily installed in a storefront church with the speakers on a flag pole on the front walk. But that would spoil the illusion like finding out the Wizard of Oz was just a befuddled old man hiding behind smoke and amplifiers. “Pay no attention that man behind the curtain. I am the great and powerful Wizard of Oz.” All of a sudden it’s, “So what.”

So last week our music director invited me to a church that is installing a new organ. We know that our beloved organ is heading toward tough times soon and so we thought just to keep an eye out for what other parishes are doing. Here we came to one of the most spectacular organs I have come across in a long time. It was still being installed and tuned but the man working on it was able to put it through its paces a bit for us. The pipe sound was phenomenal. You could hear the wind passing through the pipes. The beauty of a true pipe organ is the quality of the sound – the beginning and end of notes have certain characteristics due to the nature of air passing through the pipes. Electric reproductions often have harsh beginnings and ends of notes. When the chimes were played you could actually hear the mechanics of the bells being struck. But the amazing part of it is that it was a completely electronic organ. No matter how impressive, I have never been awed by “fake” organs but this instrument was a true beauty.

The problem for me was that the speakers for this instrument were in such as space as to leave no impression that there was a large instrument anywhere. The congregation sat almost directly in front of the speakers. It would almost be like having this instrument in your living room. There is no doubt as to the authenticity (or lack thereof) of the instrument.

Now, there are those who could care less about this I know. There are others who would argue that if we can contain the sound of a true pipe organ in a much smaller instrument, then it returns to being authentic. I may have bias because of my upbringing (neither good nor bad - just the way it was) and what I have been exposed to growing up. I came from Luddite family that did not (and in many ways still does not) appreciate the electronic over the mechanical.

That being said, we have as Church at least the goal of authenticity. That is why our documents proclaim the pipe organ as the first instrument of the Church and asks us not to use artificial flowers as far as possible no matter how real they may appear to be. So when there are discussions connected to our art and environment (including architecture) these questions must at least be raised and taken as seriously as possible.