John Brombaugh
John Burlin Brombaugh (born March 1, 1937) is an American pipe organ builder known for his historically oriented tracker action pipe organs. Personal life and early training Born in Dayton, Ohio, Brombaugh (related to the Brumbaugh families) first heard a Hammond organ while in the fourth grade and was “mesmerized” by the combination of organ and electronics, a combination that would shape his career. Brombaugh has degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati (EE, 1960) and Cornell University (MS-EE, 1963) specializing in the field of acoustics, in particular musical acoustics. After college graduation, Brombaugh worked as a development engineer for the Baldwin Piano Company. His charge "was to develop a method to produce electronic chiff and to design an artificial reverberation system". For the former, he extensively studied the construction of organ pipes, while the latter included ideas pioneered in the Hammond organ. Brombaugh also secured seven patents with the Baldwin Organ Company. As a lifelong lover of classical music, especially as he heard ancient European organs on recordings – e.g. E. Power Biggs' The Art of the Organ and Helmut Walcha's of J.S. Bach's music on the Schnitger organ in Cappel – he became an apprentice under the two leading American tracker action pipe organ builders, Fritz Noack (1964–1966) and Charles Fisk (1966–1967) and then served as a journeyman (Geselle) with the Rudolph von Beckerath firm in Hamburg in 1967–68 to complete his training, especially in making reed pipes. While in Hamburg, Brombaugh used every opportunity to study the many historic organs in northwest Germany and the adjacent Netherlands. In June 1968, he established his own firm, John Brombaugh & Co., in the farmlands west of Germantown, Ohio, his hometown; this sole proprietorship eventually became a partnership including George Taylor, John Boody, Herman Greunke, and others. In 1977, the partnership dissolved in a friendly way when Brombaugh moved his firm to Eugene, Oregon under the new name, John Brombaugh & Associates, Inc., that continued until completing its final instrument in summer 2005. He built 66 organs that are located in 23 states, Canada, Sweden, and Japan, and was a teacher to many upcoming younger builders, including Bruce Shull, Michael Bigelow, Charles Ruggles, Paul Fritts, Munetaka Yokota, Bruce Fowkes, Trent Buhr, Karl Nelson, David Petty, and Aaron Reichert. A grant from the Ford Foundation in spring 1971 enabled Brombaugh to do intense study of about 100 historic organs in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy, and he has continued his studies at all possible times since. Organ building style The majority of Brombaugh organs are tuned in a "Well temperament". This enables them to play music composed in any key but, compared with Equal Temperament, favors the central keys used in most organ literature of all periods. Since its introduction in 1978, the "Bach" temperament by Herbert Anton Kellner has become Brombaugh's standard tuning, though several of his organs are tuned in 1/4 Syntonic comma Meantone where their primary intention is for historically oriented performance of