Tony Newnham

Apologies for the blank post - I must have clicked in the wrong place! What I was going to say is that I would (and do) complain about clergy who come to worship unprepared. Regarding the last post about listening to voluntaries - I would love to - but in practice the congregation are moving about and leaving far too quickly for that to be really practical (we all know the problem) - and the closing prayer is in the form of a dismassal. Maybe you should suggest playing a voluntary as "an offering to the Lord" during the service. The Minister does have responsibilities to his or her flock beyond the end of the service - and that's often when issues are raised by people, so we need to be available. Every Blessing Tony

Hi I'm not going to attempt to list hymns - the "top" hymns are the ones that are theologically sound and that fit the theme of the service and say what needs saying. For example, for Good Friday (a joint service with the local Anglican church) we are singing a mix of traditional and contemporary:- Come and See My Lord, You Wore no Royal Crown My Song is Love Unknown O Sacred Head No Scenes of Stately Majesty (Graham Kendrick - a very interesting worship song inspired by images of Princess Daiana's funeral - well worth looking at tghe words if nothing else - they are available on the web.) How Deep the Father's Love for Us These are interspersed with readings from John 18 & 19 - plus an opening prayer and the Lord's Prayer and probably a collect - and finish in silence. Every Blessing Tony

Hi I hope so! Indeed, I think that you owe it to yourself and your congregation to be better prepared! We are talking about the worship of Almighty God. I refer you to my earlier posts in this thread. Every Blessing Tony

Hi I hear that St. Mary's is virtually already closed - certainly it will be one of the first to go - so if you're so inclined, act NOW! (I might be able to help with a recording if something can be arranged). The Bradford Catholic Deanary are planning to close 12 churches, if the current proposals are accepted next month - and cut from 20 parishes to 10, so there may well be a few more organs looking for homes over the next few years. Every Blessing Tony

Hi Anything that retains a GG-compass pedal board! I know of one (but I wouldn't want to play large scale Bach on it (a 4-stop chamber organ) and I've seen another. Thaxted Parish Church? the 3-manual Lincoln organ has, IIRC, a pedalboard descending to FF. Every Blessing Tony

Hi Playing up an octave really doesn't work if you want to be anything like authentic in registration! Even the basic "Diapasons" (i.e. Open Diap + Stopped Diap) isn't available at 16ft on many organs. Thankfully GG compass is increasingly being retained (and appears on the odd new build) - and why a short-compass swell? There's no reason why later repertoire can't be played on a GG compass organ - so why limit the options in a new build? I suspect that there may well have been a handful of full-compass GG swell organs (St. George's Hall, Liverpool in it's first incarnation is a distinct possibility - no time to check today). Every Blessing Tony

Hi Soory Nigel - a 61 note C-c4 compass does NOT allow you to play everything! It excludes a lot of the early English repertoire that needs a keyboard descending to GG. Every Blessing Tony

Hi I met David Wyld a couple of weeks ago - the firm is very much in business - if we can raise the funds they will be restoring our organ in the church here. David is a member of this list - or why not e-mail him direct? Every Blesisng Tony

Hi Peter I may have it somewhere on VHS - but bear in mind that a copy of a VHS will be pretty poor (and I don't think the audio track will be Nicam either - it depends how long ago I recorded it!). E-mail me off line if you want me to have a look and see what I've got - I won't have time before the weekend I don't think). Every Blessing Tony

Hi I think the reason is simply that it was the only place it woujld go once the pipe Nave division was removed. The building certainly needs a Nave division for congregational singing - the funeral that I played for there last year, the (digital) Nave section was out of use (I think the faults have now been rectified), and with a congregation about 3/4 filling the centre part of the Nave, I needed Great piston 6 (out of 8) - at least to get the hymns under way (and Swell 7) - and I'm told that the volume was about right (I was advised by the deputy organist, so I didn't expect any problems). The Purcell trumpet worked well as a solo stop on introducing the hymn "Thine be the Glory". Every Blessing Tony

Hi I've not seen the church you mention - but I have seen a number of Congregational churches (mainly in the South) and the only one that isn't relatively plain is Folkestone. By their nature, Congregationally-governed churches vary greatly (no hierarchy to dictate how thngs should be!) so I'm not suprised that some are very Anglican - but the fact remains that most are "preaching houses" with a central pulpit, and the organ often centre front. Every Blessing Tony

Hi St. Mary Magdalen organ has been saved - see the NPOR entry. Every Blessing Tony

Hi Not guilty! I know nothing of this organ - and someone else did the last NPOR update. Also, the picture looks like a an Anglican or Catholic church, not a URC (but that's generallities, not specific! Every Blessing Tony

Hi There are plenty of redundant organs around in the UK at present! And likely to be more - our local Roman Catholic Diocese have just announced plans to close about 12 churches in the Bradford district (some to be replaced with new buildings) and reduce the current 20 parishes to 10. Every Blessing Tony

Hi I doubt it - and it's already been done (IIRC as a chorus to a song) - many years ago. But be careful about complaints of repition - in a few weeks time many churches will use the hymn "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" - just count how many times that text uses the word "Hallelujah"! (and rightly so). Every Blessing Tony P.S. I'm not getting into discussions about the truth of the resurrection on this list - I just pray that God will reveal Himself to those who doubt.

Hi Peter Talk to the Diocesan Organ Advisor (Richard Hird) - he'll know what's around. Every Blessing Tony

Hi A number of reed organs have been built using Baille Hamilton's ideas. Basically, they are a pressure reed organ - but often on a somewhat higher pressure than normal - with wooden resonators for each reed - taking some of the reed-organ "edge" off of the tone. I recently recorded a Gregorian reed organ before it returned from the reed-organ museum at Saltaire to the church that had disposed of it in favour of an electronic some 15 years ago. These instruments were built by Aeolian using the Baille Hamilton patents. They are relatively rare, simply because of the cost of the resonators and the additional size. The Rushworth & Dreaper "Appolo" reed organs used similar principals. There is one of those at Saltaire - I'm not sure if there are any Vocalian's in the collection at present - there are also some in private ownership. Every Blessing Tony

Hi Who was the original builder, and have there been any changes prior to Nicholson's work? The current stop list looks typical of the 1970's - grafting mutations onto organs that were never desinged to have them - and I find that they rarely work really well. Is there scope for re-siting the organ at the West End - or at least in a more open position? To my mind, over-large organs are storing up trouble for the future when they next need restoring. Is there actually enoguh space to add anything and still maintain access for tuning and maintenance? Every Blessing Tony

Hi Definitely fact - can you really believe that intelligent men and women would be prepared to be martyred for a myth? Is it really believable that an experienced Roamn execution squad would make such a basic mistake? Even just reading the New Testament carefully indicates the truth of the resurrection - Jospehus (Jewish historian) mentions it. Every Blessing Tony

Hi You're right on both counts! I'm glad that we don't usually have bells in free churches (I only know of 2 examples in the UK). I have come across one bell-ringing team that attended the service - but that's pretty unusual I gather. Every Blessing Tony

Hi If you really want traditional, there's usually somewhere that it can be found - at least in Anglicanism. Locally, St. Chad's, Manningham (a Keble College foundation) or, a little further afield, Bolton Abbey I gather does a 1662 service. The fact is, though, that most people today find that sort of language foreign, and don't relate well to formal (look at how teaching has changed in schools, etc. - I make no comment as to the rights or wrongs of this - it's a fact that we have to live with). Hence, it follows that more informal styles of worship are likely to be more readily accepted - althoguh even that is changing, with a greater seeking for spirituality - but finding the church irrelevant and boring. Every Blessing Tony

Hi This is all very humerous - but what does it say about the organists' professionalism, involvement in the worship of the church, and general attitude. We're quick enough to complain about noise during voluntaries and lack of support and interest in church music - but are some organists really any better than the clergy they complain about? I can be blunt too! Every Blessing Tony

Hi A real problem - I have a recording somewhere of our valedictory service from Bible COllege - at the start of the evening, the piano and organ were almost in tune (close enough for what we were doing) BUT it was in the long, hot summer of 1977 - inadequate ventilation in the church, and a full house - the pitch of the organ rose by something approaching 1/2 a semitone before the closing hymn! The results were pretty painful. At Rye Baptist Church, the organ was significantly sharp to A=440, so couldn't be used with other instruments - especially woodwinds. I sometimes used organ sounds derived from a synthesiser to get round the problem - far from ideal. Here I'm more fortunate - the pitch of the organ has been changed at some time (and tunimg slides fitted) which is a shame as regards historicity - but it does mean that the organ's basic pitch is A=440 - and heating our small building is OK, so we regularly use organ & piano (and guitar - and sometimes other instruments). We will not be considering returning the organ to it's original pitch (even if we could discover what it was) in the restoration that the church have just given the go-ahead for. Althogu, as someone said on this list, digital pianos can be retuned very easily, they are still no match for a decent real piano in either sound, nor most importantly, in action response. EVery Blessing Tony

Hi Lead free solder is already available for electronics use (I have a sample somewhere in the "workshop" - but as I understand it, existing equipment is exempt (and probably will be in the other legislation - there's still plenty of lead water pipe about - including the feed from the street into this building). The lead free solder, I understand, has a slightly higher melting point - which might have implications for use in pipe-making, but that's about all. I've not seen anything other than on this site about a total ban on lead, so I can't comment further on that. Every Blessing Tony