Talk:Organ console

Origin of Choir name

The article states:

The name "Choir" is a corruption of "Chair", as this division initially came from the practice of placing a smaller, self-contained, organ at the rear of the organist's bench.

There are no sources to verify this etymology. A quick search found [1] which indicates that there are multiple possible etymologies and doesn't indicate which one is believed to be correct. [2] agrees that "choir" (as the name of an organ division) is a corruption of "chair", but doesn't exactly support the reasoning for why it was called a "chair" organ. --Bigpeteb (talk) 17:16, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

My organ teacher has said that the reason behind the name of this particular division is because the stops are intended to accompany a choir. Merriam-Webster confirms this:

choir organ noun Definition of choir organ

a division of a pipe organ designed for accompanying singing

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/choir%20organ

QuarterNotes (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:16, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

From Grove Music:

The keyboard and chest secondary to the Great organ are correctly called Chair organ if the chest has its own case, separate from the main organ and placed behind the organist’s back or chair. In England, all known second manuals were of this kind until 1631 when the Chirk Castle organ had both chests placed within the one case. Most later secondary chests were also like this, their sound discreet enough for choral accompaniment; hence the term ‘Choir organ’

https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.05364

24.20.36.157 (talk) 18:17, 28 January 2021 (UTC)