Instrument
Manual
The organ's hand-played keyboard.
What it means
A manual is any hand-played keyboard on the organ, as distinct from the pedalboard, which is operated with the feet. Larger organs have several manuals stacked one above another, each linked to different sets of stops.
Musical use
The individual manuals of an organ are usually assigned to different divisions, such as the Great, Swell or Positive, and can be linked by couplers to sound several stops at once. The manual should be distinguished from the pedalboard, used mainly for low bass lines, and from the stop, which determines the actual tone color of a manual, whereas the manual itself denotes only the keyboard.