Making a pipe organ involves a striking variety of skills. A feeling of community inevitably develops among organ shop workers because each depends upon the work of the others, and each knows that no two completed instruments will ever be exactly alike. In some instances the signatures of all who worked on an instrument will be found inside the organ, indicating the flesh-and-blood involvement of each person from start to finish.

It all begins at the chief organ builder's drawing board, where the location of every pipe must be precisely shown, and each moving part described. It continues with the cabinetmaker who constructs the windsheets ...