Oh dear, I fear you have started me on something now.

AFAIK, there are only two 'real' 64 foot organ pipes in the world, one of which is at the Convention Hall, Atlantic City in the USA, and the other in Sydney Town Hall.

As you might imagine, 64 foot pipes are very costly to build, need a lot of space, and require huge amounts of wind to make them speak.

Consequently, all other 64 foot stops in the world (and many 32 foot stops) use what is known as 'Harmonic' or 'Resultant Bass' where a rank of 32 foot (or 16 foot) pipes is installed alongside a second rank which sounds at exactly an octave and a twelfth above the desired pitch. The beat frequency of the second harmonic from the two pipes then sounds at half of the fundamental frequency of the larger pipe (if that makes sense).

(See http://www.organstops.org/r/Resultant.html for a better explanation).

So in answer to your question, you won’t hear many 64 foot pipes being played, (York certainly doesn’t have one) but there are plenty of 32 foot pipes, from which bottom C sounds at just 16 Hz.

If you are interested, you can look up the specifications of most pipe organs on the National Pipe Organ register ( www.npor.org.uk ).

Curently, the two biggest instruments in the UK are at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral with 156 stops, and London’s Royal Albert Hall with 150.

I’m off now to get my anorak.