AJJ

Truly great is difficult - but this one sticks in my mind :- http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=D03400 I found it very impressive when I encountered it some years ago. Integrity etc. in quite a nice acoustic with real thought from earliest design stages as to scales of pipework etc. resulting in a sort of 'bloom' at all levels. At the demo I went to we all sang a hymn. The action was quite nice also. This is all a bit subjective though as I feel somewhat that it depends on what one likes! AJJ

There are some quite interesting appointments being made though - starting with Lincoln a few years ago, then Norwich recently and now Gloucester. AJJ

A good choice - wasn't he also Assistant at Worcester at some point? AJJ

Thanks for this. AJJ

'Have just watched the BBC 3 re run - why was the console music desk replaced by a mirror I wonder? AJJ

I seem to remember that Davier wasn't his real name - he did appear and disappear somewhat didn't he! AJJ

I have a number of the distictive yellow cover copies in this series - French music from the Baroque to the 20th Century and all kinds of interesting pieces. Does anyone know whether these are still available and who now publishes them? AJJ

Not this week but not so long ago I played for the induction of a new Vicar. They had given me an out of date draft of the order of service (no hymns announced!) so that when I launched in with a very loud playover and first verse for the printed hymn I received my very own Archdeacon's visitation at the console to get me to shut up. That hymn had been moved in a subsequent version of the running order and replaced with a quiet meditation! AJJ

This is all amazingly interesting as is watching the subtle changes in the spec. on the Tickell website - especially so the way the Solo and Choir are shaping up 'reed wise'. There can't have been a British cathedral organ before that has had its installation documented so throughly and publicly - continuing thanks! AJJ

This might help - scroll down a bit - could it be the 'Fanfare' in the Oxford Book of Wedding Music? http://www.oup.co.uk/music/repprom/mathias/catalogue/ AJJ

And Processional still goes down well whenever I play it. AJJ

Wasn't that said about Schoenberg? AJJ

Not quite but in the same way as the journey home from work where one suddenly realizes that one is one village further on than one thought I have played pieces where my concentration has gone and the place in the music temporarily lost. I am not sure whether this is due to nerves or just going ga ga! I also once played from loose sheets and discovered that two or three were in the wrong order - with quite interesting results for the 'flow' of the music. AJJ

I use a school type version for recorders and just play from the score for a lot of these sorts of pieces. I have a short suite by Praetorius that goes down quite well - not the well known ones though. AJJ

Is anything about as to what they are going to do? - I have a vague recollection about something on here but can't remember where it cropped up. AJJ

Yes - but I but it was some time ago and I don't think I should go national with who was playing for fear of upsetting the person concerned or his large following. Sufficient to say that the organ was no good - the sound coming out through speakers far too near me for comfort (!!) and the repertoire was decidedly too 'light' for even my ears even though the playing was its expectedly high standard. The chippy on the way home had far more of a pull that evening. My wife and I also did a similar thing at a Bath Festival concert. VERY obscure Baroque music - the sort that rather takes itself too seriously with an audience that largely did the same. The final straw was when the soloists came in - a very large man and a very small man. The problem was that the very large one was the Alto and the very small one the Bass! Immature it may be but I am afraid we couldn't stop laughing so we popped off to a very nice wine bar and had a meal out instead. AJJ

We use AQA and I've so far not had problems - 'forms sent to us and all on line - mercifully the Chief Examiner is also superb at her job so if there are queries we can ring - and get HER. (She is as well an extremely competent church musician.) AJJ

It was like this too when I was at school - most of my initial musical education was via the local PC where there was a superb structure in place providing an invaluable grounding. My junior school did however have a very good singing tradition and latterly at secondary school whe had a performer/composer as a DOM who, although composing some quite way out stuff was quite willing to discuss things and make suggestions. I was lucky in this and in that I had a music degree programme that suited me - following this. The initial posting on this thread was partly prompted by the feeling that there are still practitioners in the church music field who are still firmly wedged in an era of hymns in assembly, lessons in so called musical apprecialtion and nothing on the curriculum remotely resembling popular music, world music, any sort of computer assisted composing or anything that can not be written down on 5 lines and 4 spaces. Happily perhaps, the musical perspective in many schools is more representative of the real world than that in many of the more blinkered church establishments. Few if any of my students are in church choirs etc. - one or two are in worship groups, some are in county instrumental ensembles and choirs, some are in rock groups of some kind or other, many will stand up and sing with very little persuasion either solo or in my choirs and all can compose in some way or other because we do that in lessons. And all this in an ordinary 900 plus (if well resourced) local comp. with the usual positives and negatives. On occasions the DOMs in the church field who complain seem to have a very blinkered view of what schools 'should' be doing without seeing the fact that church music is a small area in the whole spectrum. We have recently had communications from the Assistant DOM at our local cathedral for girls who might be interested in joining her girls choir - a few of mine would probably enjoy it but priorities in their lives plus distances from home to cathedral seem at present to have precluded any from joining. AJJ

Re Sidmouth - thanks Vox & Paul - I knw someone here would know! AJJ

And around Sidmouth last weekend!! AJJ Back to pistons (!!!) - the organ in the PC there has a vast 4 decker console - NPOR mentions nothing of this. The church is not big and I don't think it is 'non pipe' - anyone know? maybe it goes with the big cars.

And people in white vans who drive very close to the back of one's car - mostly early in the morning on the way to work. AJJ PS Maybe they are organ tuners making up time - see the other thread!

RANT WARNING!!! Back in the land of the living having marked all my GCSE coursework and been rather inpressed by what an average 16 year old music student can actually produce in the way of compostion and performance I came across the following recently via my local Organists Association news sheet. The DOM at an important church establisment was bemoaning the falling standards of school music, lamenting the fact that his choristers no longer join his choir knowing all the well known hymns and seemingly blaming the erosion of musical culture in the UK on teachers and schools. I am used to things like this but having seen how very hard my lot have worked I feel that the above DOM and others who take a similar line (ie those who are not directly linked with the state school system at least) are doing, in the first instance some hard working and musical students an injustice. Likewise those of us who teach them. There will always be places where things are not good but those in charge of music in churches etc. could perhaps look to the fact that church music is but a small (but important) part of the whole gamut of music in general and that they also have a 'tutorial' responisibility for whatever they are wishing to achieve (which, admittedly many carry out superbly). We can support this but in my experience there is a huge range of high level musiciansip that I see in schools that I do not necessarily see in the church system. It is neither fair nor correct to blame as much as is sometimes blamed on school music or the apparent (!) lack of it. To put all the above in perspective - I am writing as a church musician myself who learned most of what I know from that 'base' but who now works in a much wider musical perspective. AJJ

I have also always found Allegro good - it is fun, however to be able to browse and Blackwells seems to be the nearest place for me to do this - unless one wants to flick through the complete Mayhew catalogue. AJJ

There are also sets of organ/harmonium pieces by Langlais and Fleury - possibly others too. I have both these sets and some are quite effective manuals only/minimal pedal pieces. Especially so the Langlais Prelude Modale and Priere. AJJ

The only time I have been near anything like this was about twenty years ago and it was raising money for a new large 2 manual tracker organ. All kinds of activities took place - people were persuaded to perform and donate fees - churchy activities took place etc. I am sure he will not mind me saying this but the then DOM also plodded the streets and managed to persuade masses of good people to pledge ammounts of money for a number of years etc. He worked extremely hard and we got the organ and a fine one it still is! http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=N07978 AJJ .......................and it has a Chamade pc!