SteveBarker77

What works for me, and seems to work with the choirs and congregations I work with, is to leave two beats between verses in a hymn that is in 4/4 (or 2/4 I guess, but I can't think of many of those!). With hymns in 3/4 I make the last chord 4 beats (I complete bar plus beat one of the next) and then leave two beats rest so that the next verse begins on the down beat (assuming that's where it's meant to be, for example in Blaenwern); a whole bar of 3 beats rest seems to long for me, but I remember seeing a TV broadcast from St Georges Chapel Windsor (It could have been the wedding of Prince Edward?) where they seemed to have HUGE gaps between verses of hymns - four beats I think in the 4/4 hymns - I guess local customs prevail in some places! Steve

Depends how brave you're feeling, but the bass should be played with the pedals then you'll have plenty of fingers free to play the other parts, otherwise you'll have to miss one of the middle parts, trying where possible to make sure that you're playing the essential notes of the chords, and not open 5ths! Last Saturday I played three hours of a local church's 24 hour hymn sing - they sang the complete Common Praise. I was playing the from about 470-530... quite a few hymns there that I hadn't come across having been brought up with the New English Hymnal. If you're after the favourites then either Common Praise or New English Hymnal would be fine - although you might pick up a cheap copy of Ancient and Modern New Standard now that it's been replaced; Where they differ, I prefer the NEH harmonies, but I think that's probably just down to my own upbringing! Personally I think that playing hymns properly is one of the most important things that an organist can learn how to do, and should be done very early on, so not unwise at all in my opinion! Steve

I've noticed on here the mention of roofs on organ cases either being added, removed, or altered, and I was wondering what the arguments are for and against? Is the job of the roof to help project the sound out of the front of the instrument rather than up into the ceiling space? Most organs I've come across don't have roofs, but I've noticed that a lot of newer (smaller) instruments appear to have, at least from the pictures I've seen. I'd be interested to read people's thoughts and experience on this. Thanks, Steve

This is very true of so many areas... the original quote from the website said that they were "trying to raise £4,500..." - that implies to me that it won't be easy - and this is just a tiny percentage of what it would cost to restore the pipe organ - perhaps an impossible financial task in the current climate? Having said that, I wouldn't agree with everything that they want to spend the money on - what's the point in having digital reverb on an organ in a church when the singing that it's accompanying has no natural reverb? Steve

I teach in school Monday to Friday, rehearse the choir Wednesday and Friday evenings, spend evenings sorting music lists, attending meetings, playing for mid-week 'specials' etc and playing services Sunday Morning and Evening... sounds like a holiday to me! Where do I apply to?! Steve

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year - I don't post very often but regularly read what those of you who do have to say; it's all very educational. Here's one of my personal highlights from the past year: The Choir of St Stephen's Church, Canterbury singing with the beautiful Manders organ in Chichester Cathedral. It was the first time that I had sung there and the organ seemed perfectly suited to the Quire - there aren't many organs where you can accompany the choir singing Psalm 114 with pretty much full organ for the 'tremble' verse and get away with it! (see the choir website for a recording made during the service). We are hoping to return there sometime soon. Best wishes, Steve

Than you! Yes, that was me - although recorded about five years ago now and looking a little more youthful! We managed to get on it twice, once through singing on Christmas Eve with the Archbishop which we do every year, and again singing for the Christingle Service which is held on Holy Innocents, at which the Cathedral invite one choir (or a group of smaller choirs) from the Diocese to sing. Best wishes, Steve

Thank you for your kind comments (only just back in the swing of things!) - and sorry about the Greensleeves - it was a last minute change to the Order of Service and either I or the Rector didn't proof-read it well enough! We had about a hundred in the congregation for this; St Stephen's is a relatively small church with parts dating back about 1000 years. It's built in a cruciform shape with no side aisles. There were about 30 in the choir. We are fortunate to have a very supportive congregation and Rector regarding the music, and maintain weekly Choral Evensong as well as the Sung Eucharist in the morning. Best wishes, Steve

You can listen to the Carol Service from St Stephen's Church Canterbury and download the order of Service from the choir's website: http://www.churchchoir.org.uk Perhaps if you didn't manage to get to a carol service this year due to the snow, you might like to worship with us. A very Happy Christmas to you all. Steve

At St Stephen's Canterbury we are having our Carol Service on 23rd at 6.30pm. The music is as follows: Choir: Hodie Christus natus est (Plainsong, as in Britten's Ceremony of Carols) Congregation: Unto us a boy is born (CfC1) Choir: The Truth from Above (arr. RVW, CfC2) Congregation: Behold the great Creator makes (NEH) Choir: Adam lay ybounden (Carson Cooman - worth searching out if you fancy a livey change to the Ord next year) Choir: A Virgin unspotted (William Billings) Congregation: O little town of Bethlehem (CfC1) Choir: Angelus ad Virginem (arr. Andrew Carter, Advent for Choirs) Congregation: Long ago, prophets knew (arr. Holst) Choir: Nativity Carol (Rutter) Congregation: What child is this (NEH) Choir: The Lamb (Tavener) Congregation: The First Nowell (CfC1) Choir: Where riches is everlastingly (Bob Chilcott) Congregation: O come, all ye faithful (CfC1 - Willcocks!) Congregation: Hark! the herald angels sing (ditto!) and BWV 729 to finish. Steve

Apparently Tom Jones has volunteered to sing...

Thank you all very much for your replies... I've just ordered the William McVicker edition from usedorganmusic.co.uk so should have it in a few days... then to learn it in time for the wedding! Steve

Thanks - I'd already found that but it seemed to be littered with errors when I read it through on the piano; however, it might be usable with a bit of work against the original score.

Hello! I've been asked to play Elgar P & C no 1 for a wedding in June but I don't have the music at the moment. I found an arrangement by William Stickles on Musicroom.com but was wondering if anyone had experience of this - especially whether it's playable on a fairly small parish church organ? does anyone know of other arrangements that are worth investigating? Thanks in advance! Steve

Yes please! It does seem like there's a huge cross-over of interests and a ready made user base that would be more difficult to establish from scratch. Steve

Here at St Stephen's Church, Canterbury we're doing (or have been doing...) Sunday 28th March Palm Sunday 10:30 am SUNG EUCHARIST (Choir 10:15) Introit - Hosanna to the Son of David - Weelkes Setting - The Hadleigh Setting - Alan Ridout Responsorial Psalm 31 vv. 9-16 Anthem - God so loved the world - John Stainer Hymns 511, 509, 90, 82, 86 (omit vv. 4 & 6) Organ voluntary 06:00 pm SERVICE FOR PASSIONTIDE (Choir 5:30) Wednesday 31st March 07:00 pm Trebles practice 07:30 pm Full practice Thursday 1st April Maundy Thursday 07:30 pm SUNG EUCHARIST AND STRIPPING OF THE SANCTUARY (Choir 7:15) Gloria - Mass of St Thomas - David Thorne Gospel Acclamations, Sanctus, Agnus Dei - The Hadleigh Setting - Alan Ridout Taizé chant - Ubi caritas Anthem - Ave verum corpus - William Byrd Hymns 293 (t. 239), 297, 270, 268 (part 1; t. 202) Psalm 22 vv. 1-21 (tone 2i) Friday 2nd April Good Friday 10:00 am ALL AGES SERVICE (Trebles 9:30) Anthem - Were you there? - American Spiritual melody, arranged by Stephen Barker Hymns 92, 375 02:00 pm LITURGY OF THE DAY (Choir 1:15, soloists 1:00) Psalm 22 vv. 1-21 (tone 2i) Passion - Victoria Reproaches - Victoria Agnus Dei - plainsong Anthem - Crucifixus - Lotti Hymns 92, 94, 517 (omit vv. 3-8), 82, 95 Sunday 4th April Easter Day 06:00 am SERVICE OF LIGHT (Choir 5:45) Setting- Mass of St Thomas - David Thorne Exsultet part 1 - t. 'Woodlands' NEH 186 Exsultet part 2 - plainsong Hymns 120, 110 Organ voluntary - Paraphrase on a theme from Judas Maccabeus - Alexandra Guilmant 08:00 am HOLY COMMUNION (No Choir) Hymn 110 10:30 am FESTIVAL SUNG EUCHARIST (Choir 10:15) Introit - This joyful Eastertide - arr. Charles Wood Setting - The Johannesburg Service - John Bertalot Anthem - Christ the Lord is risen again - John Rutter Hymns 110, 117, 116, 123, 120 Organ voluntary - Sortie in E-flat - Louis Lefebure-Wely 06:00 pm FESTIVAL CHORAL EVENSONG (Choir 5:40) Introit - This joyful Eastertide - arr. Charles Wood Preces & Responses - William Smith Psalm 66 vv. 1-11 Canticles - Brewer in D Anthem - Sing choirs of heaven - Richard Shepherd Hymns 120, 331, 117 And then we're off to Rochester Cathedral to sing Easter Saturday and Low Sunday! Happy Easter everyone! Steve

Allan Wicks was included in this week's edition of Last Words on BBC Radio 4 - I was listening on my way home from work sat in a traffic jam within sight of Canterbury Cathedral so it somehow all seemed rather apt. You can listen again for the next 7 days by going to BBC iPlayer Last Words Radio 4 and forward though to the last 5 minutes. Steve

Yes - you can upload any file type to the group And thanks, headcase, for the promotion! The more people we get using it the better, so do pass it around all your organist and choir director friends. I know that you need to have a google account to upload files, but can anyone confirm whether or not you need to have an account to simply access the files? I will try and get round to uploading a few more of my own soon! Steve

When you hit the '+Upload File' button it should have changed to a 'Choose File' button which, when clicked, will open a standard windows File window. Hope that helps! Steve

I've renamed some of the files so that the name of the tune comes first followed by either Last verse or Descant, then the composer in brackets, and if a descant the first line of the hymn. I'm happy to rename any that are uploaded with other filenames - it's a quick job. Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to use the search function on the page to search for files, only posts to the group and there aren't any (yet!). We could use the 'discussion' element of the site to leave reviews - perhaps more useful when there are lots of files uploaded. Incidentally, if anyone has Sibelius files that they want converting then if you upload them I'll convert them as I notice them. Steve

I'm usually a bit of a lurker on here learning from all of you who post regularly. However, I was particularly taken by the ideas on this thread so have set up a Google Group as an experiment to see if it's the sort of thing that you all had in mind. You can find the group by heading to http://groups.google.co.uk/group/last-verse At the moment I've set it to allow anyone to join so that you can get on it straight away, and I've uploaded one of my own descants I wrote a few years ago but if you like the idea then we can set it to be a little more restrictive about membership; I don't think that we can force people to make a donation, but perhaps rely more on conscience! I agree with others about being pdf files, although this group will allow anything so if you've only got you favourite descant as a hand written image that you've scanned in then that will be fine too - you might even find someone is kind enough to set it in Sibelius for you! So will this work or would some sort of website be better? Steve

Perhaps I should have included some more information about the organ - we're not talking about anything historical here. Some of the pipework dates back to the 19th century, but there have been two complete rebuilds in the 20th century, the most recent in 1964 included relocation to another part of the church, new casework and various tonal additions. It's all on direct electric action and the console is detached. This current rebuild will involve moving the organ again (hopefully) onto a balcony to speak directly into the nave and chancel rather than being stuck in a transept, new casework (the 1960s casework wasn't particularly inspiring, except to the woodworm who have taken a liking to it over the years) and more tonal modifications. You can see the current spec (and a photo of the current casework) on npor: http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi...ec_index=N14669 I was interested to see the mention on 30 degrees as a comfortable angle, because that was somewhere near where I had thought having tried things out pulling pens across paper etc! Thanks for your responses so far! Steve

I'm in the early stages of a rebuild of a 2 manual organ in the church where I am organist and choirmaster and as part of the rebuild I would like to change the console from stop tabs to draw stops. The 'norm' seems to be for angled jams at 45 degrees, but I have to say that I don't find these quite right - I don't feel like I'm pulling towards me. Does anyone have similar experiences? what angles do others find comfy? If I go for something that feels right for me am I being a bit selfish for anyone else who might come to play the instrument in the future? Interested to hear from you!

I can confirm that it's still there - I was music teacher there from 1999-2006 and I played it every morning in assembly. Fortunately after the fire the insurance paid for it to be rebuilt and so it's in good condition and well maintained. Unfortunately I'm not so lucky in my current school! Steve

I've been looking at a lot of electronic instruments for home practice, and they've all had some degree of tracker touch built into the manuals; I know we'd all like to play a nice tracker instrument but in many churches (including my own) electric action is really the only suitable action due to position etc. I haven't ever come across an electric action pipe organ that has 'tracker touch' manuals - do such instruments exist? I'm beginning to start the ball rolling on a rebuild of my church instrument - would tracker touch manuals be worth investigating, or just seen as a bit of gimmick really?