Residence organ

A residence organ (also known variously as a house, box, cabinet, choir, continuo, home, practice, trunk, or chamber organ) is a musical organ installed in a personal home. Strictly speaking, the names residence and house organ are the most correct, the others being types of organs that can physically be used as residence organs, but that are not restricted to use solely in that context, and can also be used in, say, small churches, theatres, and so forth. A portative organ or a positive organ (which are also, but imprecisely, known as box, trunk, and cabinet organs) can be used in a residential setting, but the notion of a residence organ strictly embodies a permanence of place that is belied by the notion of portability embodied by the portatives and positives. Similarly, a chamber organ (also known imprecisely as a cabinet, desk, or bureau organ) is in general a small organ for a room, but not necessarily for a room of someone's home.

The overlap of definitions parallels an overlap of uses. Residence organs can be used as practice organs, for practice at home by a professional organist, or as home instruments for amateur organists. Their use can be traced as far back as the 16th century where Henry VIII of England owned more than a dozen residence organs, as did many members of his nobility.

In construction, they are generally less elaborate than church organs, being constricted by the relative paucity of space for the mechanisms in a residence as opposed to a church, theatre, or other larger building. They commonly have no pedals, a few stops, and a single manual. They are also generally less ornate than other kinds of organs, having plainer façades as the major effort in their construction goes towards miniaturization of the mechanism and achieving a church organ sound with domestic acoustics.

Various construction techniques are employed in pursuit of the latter goal. The lengthy pipework of the low registers in a church organ simply doesn't fit into a home, and so devices such as a quint, a Haskell bass, and a stopped pipe are employed to achieve the same sound but with more compact mechanisms.

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