Pull out All the Stops

I stumbled across this website called pulloutallthestops.org. Pull Out All the Stops is a fundraiser trying to gather 2.3 million Euros to restore a historic pipe organ. 2.3 million Euros is a lot of money. A lot. So I asked the question, what's the big deal with this organ anyway?

Upon further investigation, I discovered it is housed in the Royal Festival Hall in the UK. It is a world renowned performance center. It was built in 1951 but the organ housed inside quickly degraded. It is understandable that someone would want to restore such a stunning instrument. I mean come on, it's pretty dang impressive.

But still, 2.3 million Euros is a lot of money. I'll cut straight to my point; this is a prodigious waste of money.

I love music. It expresses emotions that words do not convey. The cultivation of music is one of mankind's great triumphs. This does not justify blowing a couple mil on a dubiously-historic, obsolete musical instrument. A pipe organ does humanity no good. It may make us feel happy for a short while, but that's only the microscopic fraction of us who hear it. And the even smaller fraction who are educated and 'civil' enough to appreciate it. And the even smaller fraction who remember it. What advantage does a pipe organ have over a $500 Yamaha keyboard? It looks prettier and doesn't require an amp. What advantage does a keyboard have over an organ? Portability, accessibility, diverse range of sounds, ease of maintenance, and so on. So why bother preserving the organ? Historical significance? The exceptional music it makes?

I think it is the elitist, snobbish, Ivory Tower mentality that dominated the Western Classical tradition that it's followers are attempting to preserve. Music belongs to all of us. It unites us, brings out the good in us. Music should be no respecter of persons. The pipe organ is arguably the most impractical, high-maintenance, and utterly obsolete instrument on Earth. By design, it is absurdly exclusive, only available to the highly trained and educated. So no, I will keep my money and maybe buy a $10 CD that would do the world a hundred times the good this useless hunk of metal would.