I've played on two real pipe organs over a period of time in my life. One bad piece of work, electro-pneumatic, in a local chapel - and a fantastic organ in the local church. The organ was built by Jehmlich orgelbau in 1982. A funny story about the funding of this organ: My father was an organist and played the organ during weddings, services and so on. The old organ was an electric-pneumatic version that had seen better days. At the end, some notes could stick after the key was released, forcing the organist to switch the organ off and on again to release the note. The fundraising was rather slow in the beginning, and the time came for the yearly confirmation. My father played the organ during a ceremony where one of the kids was related to a politician, and the head-organist had told my father to "use" this opportunity to demonstrate the state of the organ. If one of the notes stuck, dad should let it "play" for a while! And sure enough, after a hymn one note continued to speak. For a long time, until dad thought it was enough and switched the organ off. The minister, although not "in" on the incident, commented on this and said something like he "thought the congregation could hear that the organ was in a bad shape" and hoped that a new organ could be bought soon.

Not too long after this, funding was in place. I doubt that the "incident" had much to do with that, but who knows? The Lord works in mysterious ways...

And the new organ was inaugurated in 1982 by the head organist, Mr. Carl Trond Nedberg (1917-2004) - an eager musician who was recognized for his work with the music life in Narvik. He received the medal "Kongens fortjenstmedalje" in silver (King's medal of merit) for his work. Mr. Nedberg taught my father the art of organ playing, and my brother Viggo - who now works as a cantor and am about to take his masters in this area.

Sadly, I did not get the opportunity to study organ under Mr. Nedberg, but I was lucky enough to get the keys to the church at an early age. That way I had access to a big pipe organ and could practice playing the organ. And perhaps one day I too can serve as an organist, following my father and my brother. At least I now have an instrument at home to practice on!

Here's some images of the organ:

The facade (image courtesy of wikimedia)

The left jamb with switches for combinations, couplers and stops. The active stops are indicated with a red LED. The uppermost switch deactivates the selected stop, the lower one activates it. There are two combination banks - U1 and U2. PL is the "tutti", A-F are combinations and the S button is for setting a combination. I intend to copy this system to some degree on my console.

The combination switches underneath the main manual. The foot pistons are also
visible. Couplers to the left, combinations to the right.

A shot of the three manuals, 56 key compass.

The right jamb with power and motor switch. The big red one was used for 3 x 3 chimes during ceremonies. Also note the two dials - they controls the tremolo speed on manual 2 and 3. The range goes from slow to almost theater organ!

The pedal board is straight and concave. I would certainly prefer a radiating, concave one. Oh well - that's what I'm building anyway!

Here's the info as found on the Jehmlich website for Opus 1024:

Information:

(Image courtesy of the Jehmlich website)

I would love to get this organ as a Hauptwerk organ some day. Perhaps I should make a sample set of it? Hmmm...