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Lindeman: Thank goodness when they built the house, they built 10-foot ceilings in the basement; that really helps when you build pipe organs because then you have lots of extra height for pipes.Actually, the basement of this rural Renville County home looks like any other, until Lindeman opens the heavy door that leads to the pipes. About half of the organ's pipes are in this room. There are more two floors above. In all, there are 40 ranks of pipes in this house, that means somewhere in the area of 2,500. It's meant a bit of remodeling.
Lindeman: There used to be a wall over here, but the organ didn't play loud enough because the hole in the floor wasn't very large. So I took my sledgehammer and knocked the wall out and put twice as many pipes down here. And you can see, there's more room for pipes.The console - or keyboard - for the organ dominates Myron's living room. He sits on an elevated bench, facing four rows of keys, flanked by dozens of switches that control his wind-powered instrument.
MPR: Do you have plans to expand it?
Lindeman: Oh, there's always plans to expand it.
Lindeman: No, not really. She really hasn't objected, as long as I keep the pipes in these rooms, it doesn't bother her, she doesn't care; the only thing is she has to go in the kitchen once in a while and shut the door. It gets too loud in here.When he's not playing or working on his organ, the 55-year-old Lindeman farms 240 acres of corn and soybeans. He says the organ doesn't require much maintenance. Tuning it once in awhile and cleaning dead flies out of the pipes is enough.
Lindeman: I guess it's the sound, you can always pick out a pipe organ versus an electronic organ. It seems like the sound is a real sound. Each pipe is a musical instrument even though it plays on note, I guess it's a live sound.Renville County's farmer-organist, Myron Lindeman.