AJJ

Shouldn't this be in the registration for French Romantic music section? AJJ PS The toilet rolls in the background add an interesting angle to things and is that an academic hoodie he's wearing?

And as far as I can gather there also appear to be at least two posts filled in the not so distant past where the main incumbent has seemed to be as much a singer as an organist. And one of these with a broader educational spectrum to the job as well - school wise that is. AJJ

Get some recordings of Nigel Allcoat improvising, read his book and articles and have a manuscript/notebook handy with ideas, jottings, bits of plainsong, structures etc. rather like an artist's sketch book. I put down any useful scraps of tune, chord progressions - basically anything that I like the sound of. I have this handy most of the time and can usually find something to fit the situation. Last time I did an improvised final voluntary it came out like a piece of minimalist music based around a vaguely modal scale. I can not just produce a piece without some sort of 'anchor' whether it be a tonality, a structure, a melody or a rhythmic element hence the above - it works for me. Funnily enough I also find some of the stuff I teach at school of great help - drones, pentatonic and whole tone scales, layered ostinato patterns, 'world music' scales etc. My year 8s have just done variations so I had to do some too to get ides for them! (My year 10s did 'Video Killed the Radio Star by Buggles today - 'not sure whether that will work on Sunday though!) Above all - keep going - if you make a mistake incorporate it in the rest of the piece - have a start, middle and end in view and keep away from typical non directional Anglican noises! AJJ

Me too - and Rouen - but only lately re discovered I spent a happy hour yesterday on the new ipod (once the kids had gone to bed) trying to work out what it is about the CC sound that is so interesting. The 'full plus mixtures' etc. is a very complex sound - 'not sure quite what it is about it that makes it so though - maybe the mixture compositions or maybe the tuning! Certainly the harmonics flying about the place certainly make for excitement - the big reeds are only just not too loud! I could listen to Ben Van Oosten's Widor at Rouen over and over again - I've also got Kimberley Marshall playing at Toulouse - odd stuff from Messiaen, Alain etc. but splendid all the same. AJJ

I wouldn't mind this every Sunday!! AJJ

Thanks for that Pierre - perhaps more a case of 'not using it right' than 'the stop was wrong' - maybe Ralph Downes should have left an instruction book!! They still modified it though and it was not much use to 'us youngsters' then. On the same lines an interesting house organ built by Peter Collins has an unusual stoplist including a high Cimbel. See link: http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=E00810 I have a recording of Roger Fisher playing Bach on it and using this stop as part of a solo combination - having just listened to this (and some Messiaen at Beauvais!) what you say makes perfect sonic sense. AJJ

'Reminds me of some years back when a friend was playing for a visiting choir at St Albans Cathedral - we could never quite work out what to do with the (very high pitched) Ralph Downes inspired Cimbel III originally on the Swell there - the only enclosed division and therefore one worked quite hard liturgically. It just did not seem to work (to us at least) in the way desired in psalms or the sort of music on parade that day. Since then it seems to have descended little by little (possibly by trial and error, dropping a high tierce rank in the process) to a respectable level as a Mixture III which by all accounts now tops the chorus quite nicely. One wonders quite what it was doing tinkling away in the firmament in the first place so far from it's parent chorus especially as the only mixture on that division. Maybe that is what the 'powers that be' thought neo baroque (or whatever one calls them) organs 'did' in the late 50s/early 60s. The rest of the organ I hasten to say was and is still marvellous in my opinion and will be even better when the planned modifications have taken place. AJJ

Thanks. AJJ

This also takes us back to the old pre set Victorian composition pedals which many of us still use on instruments of a reasonable size. A seemingly unexciting set of combination settings becomes all one needs when one considers the stops and couplers one draws (or withdraws) by hand above and beyond these. The section on combination pedals in the essay below by the late Julian Rhodes sums this up albeit on a very small instrument - a particular favourite of mine however. http://www.ondamar.demon.co.uk/essays/kilk.htm AJJ

Probably the visual effects of double spacing on the spec.!! AJJ

Fair enough then - what about this? - plus a Tierce on the Great perhaps - not Liverpool but well known to at least one on this discussion board!! http://www.harrison-organs.co.uk/twyfordspec.html I'd quite happily have something like this rather than 'neo' anything. Except perhaps neo Father Willis. Below is nice too. http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=N11170 Though again perhaps with a Sesqualtera somewhere along the way - Tierce Mixture maybe. AJJ

Or even this - http://www.harrison-organs.co.uk/glenalmondspec.html AJJ

Does anyone know what happened to the organ at Pershore? AJJ

[quote=Vox Humana,May 11 2006, 06:07 PM] On paper it looks like a not untypical neo-Baroque jobby from the 1960s (a Pedal Schalmei being almost de rigueur back then). It looks like a French-biased spec in a Werkprinzip layout - most odd. As far as I remember there was no actual Werkprinzip - more like the whole thing chucked up at the back on a shelf. Nothing much fitted 'chorus wise' and the general effect was decidedly thin and top heavy! There was also a bit of a time lag. But...they let us play there! AJJ I seem also to remember that the Archbishop of Westminster was priest there for a short time in the early 70s - before my time in Southampton though.

Back to French Romantics for a moment - there is a 2' reed on the GO at St Sernin, Toulouse - I would assume for added brilliance in the reed chorus rather than for anything more subtle as far as registration goes. AJJ PS This link is quite fun - nice photos and a bit of Vierne on the video. http://www.xs4all.nl/~twomusic/discography...in/Sernin1.html

'Not sure what happened here!! AJJ

Don't joke - I had to play a wedding recently by telepathy - the choir was so far away and out of sight/sound that they might as well not have been there at all as far as I was concerned! At one point a churchwarden had to come round and tell me that we weren't actually performing together - my reply was that someone aught to tell the conductor to keep with me then as there was no way I could keep with them! AJJ

That was it - you must have been lucky with the heat though - maybe your playing was better than mine so they turned it up specially! AJJ

I was involved with the design of this some years ago - the 'toy' stops are actually in the best possible taste! http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=N07978 AJJ

I seem to remember the Choir Trompette could also be roped in to help out on occasions too. A bit of fire in the winter when we students diligently trooped down to prepare our pieces before the Collins at the University went in - it used to be perishing down there. The only place worse was the RC church with the horrid little organ at the back - high up and the console at the front. There the whole stoplist was truncated!! AJJ

The 'demo' CD by Thomas Murray of the big Yale organ on JAV has an example of the quint reed on that instrument being used as a sort of 'thickener' to the chorus - giving a darker feel to the whole. There are no odd consecutives etc. due to the subtle voicing. I found the same effect with a Quint 5-1/3 as part of a Great chorus. AJJ PS The only Pierced Gamba I have played sounded like an ordinary Great type Gamba!

In the 'Dom Bedos' organ at Ste. Croix Bordeaux this is a fabulous sound - for instance in a Couperin Duo or Trio it has all the bite of a a rather rustic Double Bass! http://www.atelier-quoirin.com/Bordeaux.htm http://www.store.yahoo.com/ohscatalog/maallicocoon.html AJJ PS The rest of it is pretty stupendous too - 32' GO chorus etc. - well worth a visit if you are down that way - and the case could fit into the 'work of art' category of another thread on this site.

Gerard Brooks writes quite well on this subject - see latest Organists' Review and other such places recently. AJJ