WATER ORGAN ANIMATION
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- čas přidán 6. 09. 2024
- An animation showing for the first time the operation of the oldest pipe organ in history, called the Hydraulis, It was invented in the 3th century BC in Alexandria by a greek engineer by the name of Ktesibios. This water-powered organ became very popular in the Mediterranean world and was played in palaces and amphitheatres. After a thousand years it became extinct in the 9th century AD due to an action of the Byzantine emperor. A smaller and cheaper version, the PNEUMATIKON, was made of wood and had hand operated bellows.
A more elaborate version of this animation is published as "HYDRAULIS 2" in july 2020. In preparation is "The Medieval Organ" and "The Musical Scale" and its relation to the hydraulis.
More info about the hydraulis on my website after the revision of the current text.
www.robvanhaar...
That's very interesting. They used the hydraulic system to stabilise the air pressure being used to feed the sound pipes. Simple, but genius. If you were to supply the sound pipes directly from the pumps, you'd get air pressure fluctuations every time air was pushed out of the cylinders into the body of the organ.
You are absolutely right. It took the organ builders in Western Europe about 800 years to develop a mechanical system with bellows just as good.
There's nothing wrong with that and can be used for tremolo effect. Also it's actually not an issue as long as your slaves pump properly in sync. The main issue is didn't have as powerful a sound when they went to straight air.
This is insane.
Imagine using structured water from a Sacred spring underneath a church… that would be bliss
This is a Uilleann bagpipe, but using a water column instead of muscles to keep the pressure constant, and whistles instead of reeds to generate the sound.
thank you for this video! i heard mention of a water organ in passing and went to look up how they worked, but couldn't find a very good explanation anywhere. this video scratched that itch perfectly!
So it's an air organ powered by water pressure!
That's right!
I was going to say, this is a Uilleann bagpipe, but using a water column instead of muscles to keep the pressure constant, and whistles instead of reeds to generate the sound.
Looks kind of like a cylinder in a gas or steam engine. How many steps is it away from a boiler with heated water sending pressure the other way and moving the piston back and forth and motorizing the levers? Were they aware of this back then and just lacked the materials necessary to deal with the pressure/heat?
around 1st century AD there already existed a sort of a steam engine called Aeolipile. there are no records of it being put to practical use though. perhaps slave or animal labor was so abundant in rome at that time that there was no sense of prospective advantage in such invention. one of the hypothetical reasons on why chinese civilization stagnated was its constant surplus of human labor which resulted in little opennes to technological innovation. perhaps a parallel phenomenon took place in rome.
anyway, implications of such an invention being put to actual use in roman times would be profound. rome was already great at infrastructure, so after creating a steam engine they could come up with railroad which could introduce another level of governance, economic progress and warfare.
It would be a very long time after the Romans until steel could be made in large enough amounts (if tat all) to create a pressure vessel. They may have recognized the ability of heat to create pressure, but getting a piston to return where it came from would be difficult, and blacksmithing a piston to fit in a chamber would be impossible. The Romans also did not have access to coal except very late in their existence and only in the distant colony of England.
@@cheetoman23 they could make finer mechanisms by filing or through the use of a primitive Lathe. Proof of this is the antikythera mechanism.
@@tfist apparently the guy who made the aeolipile also designed a device which could open doors. From what I understand vapor is generated in a chamber and flows through a pipe to another chamber full o water, the water them flows to a bucket which comes down and open the gates. This design would totally work in the place of the pistons of the organ. There is no evidence it was ever built though.
You should ask them
Brilliant.
St Cecilia dragged me here
I'am glad she did.
Thank you for the explanation! 👍🎹🎼
My pleasure. Glad you liked it. I wonder if you looked at the more elaborate version : Hydraulis 2 czcams.com/video/5D-xMANSL1w/video.html
Thank you for the explanation! Very well done!
Thank you for this reaction.
Free reed organs work similar storing some pressure from the foot pedals for consistent sound.
How did they prevent the water from overflowing?
wow
excellent
what kind of seal did the pistons use against the chamber walls?
That's unknown. Probably leather on the pistons and / or grease on the walls. There are no clues in the historical material.
Fascinating
nice explenation! thanks.
Glad you liked it.
so they used water to store wind much like the organs of today have reservoirs with springs and weights?
That's correct. But it took us almost 1000 years to have the wind supply as smooth as the greeks had 2200 years ago!
@@robvanhaarlem6706 dark age rlly screwed us over 😭
tyty
Any acadec people here?
yes send help
ayyy
Water in 1:30
Why not just use bellows.
The Greek made also a cheap version of the extremely expensive HYDRAULIS, named PNEUMATIKON. It was made of wood, where the H. was made of bronze, and was powered by two bellows. It was a small instrument.
@@robvanhaarlem6706 Thank you, I thought there had to be a simpler engineering solution and according to Julius Pollux it seems the more complex system was associated with the size of the instrument, after some searching I found this statement :
"A
complicated water-driven system for air supply was gradually replaced by bellows; nevertheless, the name hydraulis was retained for the organ until the Middle Ages."
😄
You literally did not show how the air movies. LMFAO
He did tho
The guy who made this probably sucks at organ