Little organs
Positives
(The name comes from the Latin word ’ponere’, which means ’to place’)
This is a one-manual organ with a few stops, without pedalboard or a suspended pedal.
They used it as a bass instrument or to support choir singing in churches. In small churches or chapels it replaced the great organ. In secular music they applied it as a solo instrument or along with other instruments. Nowadays the positive has been replaced by portable organs. (Picture 9, 10)
Regals
This is a portable organ. It consists of a narrow chest with the wind bag and the reed pipes. In the front of it you can find the keyboard, behind it there are two wedge- shaped leather bags which are activated by two other persons, not the player. It is placed on a table when you play it.
The so-called Bible regal connected the keyboard and the pipes together in a bag. The bags looked like two halves of a book, and their size were like that of a Bible’s. The name originates from this similarity. They did not use it only in sacred music but in theatres, dance and home music as well.
The simplest regals had one rank of pipes of 8’ pitch. There are further ranks in the 16’ pitch. Here the different ranks can be switched on and off with the help of stops. It is possible to change the harmony by a movable key that hides the regal pipes. This way the player can decide if he wants to play with an open key or with a closed key in order to get a rich or a deep but light tone quality. A further developed variation has one or two ranks of regal pipes and a stopped 4’ and the stop can be divided into a bass and descant (upper) part.
From the 18th century the harmonic tone of the regals did not suit the sound ideal of the period. (Picture 11, 12)