what powered wind-driven ancient pipe organs?

[guitargo25]

like the big cathedral pipe organs from like 1600s or something, now there's a motor that blows air but I think I saw something where like one person raises a weight on a pulley and it slowly drops and turns a gear of a fan or something and that that person needs to always have the weight moving or alternates between two of them or something? I may be wrong. There's also water ones from like ancient rome where one person cranks a handle that moves water through a gear or something. 

I tried searching youtube but gave up.  

[daddymack]

youtube would not have been my first choice....

If you are serious about knowing, maybe try here: https://organhistoricalsociety.org/

Until about a century ago, the compressed air required for organ wind used to be generated by bellows that were operated with the feet. On large instruments, up to 12 people were needed to perform this strenuous task. Bellows were developed in Ancient Egypt.

Before the invention of bellows, early pipe organs relied on water cisterns to control wind pressure. This is why the ancient predecessor of the pipe organ, invented by Ctesibius of Alexandria in the 3rd century B.C., was known as a hydraulis.

 

[Mr.Grumpy]

As a boy, my father had the job of working the bellows for the organist at his rural Catholic school in Pennsylvania. If he let the air pressure get too low, the organist would poke my dad in the ribs with his foot as a 'reminder' to get pumping! Imagine hitting a big chord and it dies out after half a second. Although not technically an "amplified" instrument, these early organs were the first musical instruments to use an outside source of power to make sound, in contrast to every other early instrument that used the musicians' energy - their breath, their bowing, their strumming - to make sound, which limited volume.  The volume wars have been going on since forever. 

Smaller organs had footpedal bellows operated by the organist themselves, these are still fairly common at antique sales, usually in non-working condition, they're called "pump organs." 

 

 

[guitargo25]

thanks, so it's bellows,and before them, water cisterns to control wind pressure.

 

But did I imagine seeing something with like a weighted bag on a pulley slowly dropping that I was assuming was cranking a gear to produce wind?

[daddymack]

4 hours ago, guitargo25 said:

thanks, so it's bellows,and before them, water cisterns to control wind pressure.

 

But did I imagine seeing something with like a weighted bag on a pulley slowly dropping that I was assuming was cranking a gear to produce wind?

if you can find it, post it...I didn't see anything like that for pipe organ power.