Faulty joints and a creaky voice come with being eighty-years-old, even when the eighty-year-old in question is a pipe organ.

That's why the Wesley Methodist Church on Church Street decided to completely overhaul their 84-year-old Casavant Frères pipe organ.

A team of eight from R.A. Colby Co. in Tennessee and Walker Technical Company in Pennsylvania have been working on the pipe organ for several weeks.

The Royal Gazette recently met with Larry Hawkins of Walker Technical Company during a brief lull in restoration work.

"The Wesley Methodist church pipe organ has had bits and pieces of work done to it over the years, but this has been the organ's first major restoration," said Mr. Hawkins.

He said this organ is special because it has had little fiddling with over the years.

"People haven't gone in to change it into something that it isn't," said Mr. Hawkins. "A lot of organs on the island have had things added to them so that the character of the sound has been changed.

"This organ was built to such high standards that it hasn't been changed very much."

He said in the 1950s and 1960s many church pipe organs weren't so lucky and were adjusted because of The Organ Reform Movement.

"Some people had the idea that a real organ should be of the type that Bach knew," said Mr. Hawkins. "Organs from the late 18th century were considered to be the best instruments. In the 1800s the romantic organ came into being exemplified by the French organ."

After that there were two competing schools or organ thought, classic and romantic. The Wesley pipe organ is built in the romantic style.

"The classic style tends to be brighter and more brittle sounding," said Mr. Hawkins.

He said during the restoration the organ is being expanded, but with the same character it has always had.

"Most organs have been expanded to accommodate the baroque style and to make them jack of all trades," he said. "Many times it doesn't work very well. Certain types of pipe organ sounds fit together well, and others don't."

Mr. Hawkins praised the workmanship of the organ.

"Casavant Frères based in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada is still very much in operation," said Mr. Hawkins. "This was their first organ in Bermuda.

"At that time most of the organs here were made by companies in England. Casavant Frères wanted to show that a North American company could contribute. They did a lot of organs and their work is very good. They are one of the finest companies today."

The restoration of the organ involves building control systems which will allow the organ to be hooked up to other electronic devices.

All of the interior is new, and the display pipework has been restored and repaired. "Many of the pipes had dings and dents from over the years," he said.

The restoration also includes adding to it features like digital voices.

"We build digital voices for pipe organs of the highest quality," said Mr. Hawkins. "They are the same sounds that the pipe organ would provide if it was physically expanded.

"To add these voices mechanically would require a lot more pipes added to the organ."

A single new pipe can cost thousands of dollars, and there are thousands of pipes of varying sizes in a pipe organ.

In the 1950s a medium pipe organ would cost a church around $50,000. Now the same pipe organ would cost anywhere from $400,000 to a million dollars.

Mr. Hawkins is in charge of tonal finishing. After the restoration work is done, he adjusts the pipes so the sound blends together and also suits the room the organ is in.

Sadly, many churches are choosing to rip out rather than restore their pipe organs. Instead, they are replacing their organs with boom boxes and stereo systems.

"There has been a movement to provide contemporary music in church," said Mr. Hawkins. "I think an organ should provide music that is uplifting and not something that you hear every day. That said, there is contemporary organ music out there."

Mr. Hawkins can play the organ, but doesn't get much of a chance to practice anymore.

He "walked" into the profession almost accidentally.

"I was supposed to be a computer engineer," he said. "I got a part time job while I was in college.

"I was just holding the keys for someone who tuned pipe organs."

He became hooked on pipe organs, which was lucky because when he graduated there weren't many jobs in electronics.

"The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had just completed the Apollo project and was laying people off," he said. "I had the opportunity to do installation work with an Italian pipe company."

Mr. Hawkins studied under famed New York City organist and organ voicer Allan Van Zoeren.

"This is something you can't really go to school to study," he said. "You have to attach yourself to someone in the trade.

"I became assistant to Allan Van Zoeren. Although many people in the trade are reluctant to give away their secrets, his secret calling was to teach.

"If you asked him a question he would stop what he was doing and explain in great detail. He himself had learned through experimentation. I was lucky in that I had a mentor."

There are not many people today who do what Mr. Hawkins does. He said that there are around 250 to 300 people worldwide who are experienced at pipe voicing and tonal finishing.

"Tuning an organ is fairly easy," he said. "There is a collar on the top of each flue pipe that you slide up and down to bring it into tune. What can be tough is tuning it quickly and accurately.

"A medium size organ could have 2,000 to 3,000 pipes from pencil size on upwards so it can take quite a while to tune them."

Mr. Hawkins said his company doesn't have a lot of business outside of the United States but he did recently work on a pipe organ in a restored church in Odessa, Ukraine.

After communism the community decided to restore the church built around 1900. It became the Evangelical Presbyterian Church or Odessa.

"During communism it was being used as a puppet theatre. A stage had been added and it had been painted completely black inside," said Mr. Hawkins. "But they have restored it to just the way it was before."

Mr. Hawkins said he loves his job.

"It is an odd field, but satisfying," he said. "People don't get to be millionaires in this business, but you do get a lot of nice memories."