chrisb

If I may be so gauche as to comment on my own post..... further, dare I commit a musical heresy,..... in spite of my preference for major key gentleness at pre-service, one of my regular offences is to play the D min.Dorian fugue on small diapason/flutes coupled to pedal, leaving my lone pedal woofer to rot in its rack. However much this may offend my betters, I find this to be wonderfully contemplative piece thus performed and, having the added advantage of being concludable (?) within a couple or three bars almost anywhere in the piece. You see, that's what you get when incompetents are let loose on perfectly good musical instruments. We simply don't understand what's right Chris

Hi Peter, I must assume that things are done very differently where you are. In the churches for which I have responsibilty as organist, (admittedly at the 'lower' end of the spectrum), whichever of our team vicars is officiating, will visit the deceased's immediate family and during the course of the visit will obtain from them their wishes for music at the funeral service. My input to the process is to rerquest that I am informed at the earlist possible opportunity what that music reqirement is. I am not aware of any contribution to the process by funeral directors. For the most part, our funerals are simple affairs, with C & A figureing prominently,( though not quite so often these days, it seems). Pre-service I tend to play fairly gentle, major key stuff, avoiding very well-known tunes so as not to create asscociations between that tune and the death of a loved one. I mostly avoid seasonal music for the same reason. Sometimes music requests are simply unmanageable, and a recent request for the slow movement from 'Emporer' was gently turned down as an organ piece, but we popped on a cd for them and it was appreciated. On the whole, I try to support my incumbent by playing anything she has agreed to which falls within the bounds of decency. I confess to having used the occasional 'busker' editions where time and ability are lacking, and I have been occasionally thrown by some CCM stuff at very short notice, which regards the rules of music as optional. Generally, I advise her to contact me immediately if asked for anything she is not certain I can play. All-in-all, funerals are my preferred service, ........................if the alternative is a wedding. Regards, Chris

Only recently, I was required to play 'Autumn' as a wedding recessional. I tried, really I tried to get them to accept ANYTHING else; March of the Toy Soldiers, Chopsticks, RAF March-Past, anything but no, it had to be Vivaldi's Autumn. So I snatched a two-stave version off the net, found that it was about three minutes practice beyond sight-reading and so let 'em have it. I still don't know how I managed to stay awake beyond page 1., or how how I managed to tell when I'd got to the end. At this point, with no musical credibility remaining, I can make a truly awful confession. I have in my possession a full set of Cloister Albums.I am not proud of this, I have no excuse, I cannot explain it..... it just sort of happened. In my defence M'Lud, the only one I've ever opened beyond the contents page is the light blue one with the second Sinfonia from Solomon in it. I know I should bin 'em, perhaps I should burn them in case they were to fall into the hands of some poor soul who thought there was music in them. But, I know for sure that the day I chuck them, someone is going to ask for 'Priere' by Ascher, (who?), or Mayer's 'Lied Ohne Words', I can't go on.. it's just too awful...Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima to blame. Ye gods,Tschaikowsky, I bet none of you knew there was a keyboard version of the Andante Cantabile from his Quartet in D, Op 11, did you? And I'll bet you wish you still didn't know. Any one got a hair shirt and some birch twigs I can borrow? Chris Baker

He worked on the RFH as you say, though at that time he was a console builder with H&H. I never discovered why he turned against them so vehemently. Whilst at RFH he took a lot of 8mm film of the rebuild in progress, and showed them to me a couple of months before he died. After his death, Joan his wife gathered all his film, camera gear and practically everything else of his working memorabilia and placed it all at auction. I did not know about the sale until after the event. It all apparently went for peanuts, and I would have killed for his work journals and records. Chris

I very much doubt it - he was no fool, and definitely had nothing to do with horses.

A few years back I was associated for a while with Bert Prested, an organ builder in Durham. He told me of St. Nicks in the market place. That they were buying a Copeman Hart instrument, and that he was retained first to remove the pipe organ, and second, to make from it a one manual organ sans pedals. I saw the instrument just once, and if I remember correctly, it is something like Flute 8, Principal 4, Fifiteenth and Nazard. I could be completely wrong, but in the short time I had on it I know I was entranced. Moving on, the re-developement of St Nick's interior was completed, and the 'big' service was scheduled, and arranged for a date. The ceremony was to include 'opening the new CH 3 decker. Come the day however, and for whatever reason, the Copeman Hart was not ready, or could not be delivered in time. The solution to the service accompaniment problem was solved by bringing Bert's little gem in from the back room and plugging it into the wall where the CH was to have been. By all accounts it performed magnificently and did the job without a hitch. To the best of my knowledge, the Prested instrument is still there, tucked away and unused. Bert Prested, now sadly no longer with us, was a fascinating old feller, but nursed a seething hatred of Harrison and Harrison. When contacted to quote on work which H&H were also quoting on, would price himself ridiculously low to keep H&H out. This ensured that he never became rich. He was a craftsman nevertheless, and gifted. He once called me to give him "a hand with something". When I arrived at his workshop (in Bearpark), there was his yellow Reliant three-wheeler van with ten feet of Open Wood sticking out of the passenger side window, and another foot or two emerging from the back door. We wangled it back out of the van, stuck it on the roof bars of my old Montego, and took it round to Ushaw College, where I had a happy hour or so on his rebuild of their instrument. It was for my embellishment of the St.Nicks story, and an unwise comment or two about CH that Cheryl Hart had me tossed out of Piporg-L or whatever it was called. Funnily enough, I survive to this day. Chris Baker

I play a little H & H octopod at Chilton in County Durham. On the Swell is a Lieblich Flute 4 which has a bit of 'chiff' to it. This feature is by no means evenly evident throughout the rank, and about a third of pipes do not have it at all. The Gedackt 8 (seperate rank) has a few notes in the tenor octave which also have a bit of chiff to them, and a few pipes up the top end give a ladylike little squeak when you blow 'em. As far as I am concerned, this is all just about perfect. Solos on these stops have a bit of character and the little variations in attack make something interesting out of what are otherwise plain boring old flutes. I am guessing, but I suspect that the degree of chiff my flutes are sounding is actually speech defect (and very welcome), and was not intended when originally voiced. Would that make sense ? The reason I ask is that I also have a digital organ, (Viscount Vivace), which in two of its voicing environments has a couple of flutes with quite astonishing degrees of chiff. Sounds as though someone is playing along with me on a harpsichord. Fortunately, user voicing controls allow me to knock out this silly sound. I noticed though that any amount of this 'feature' being present (evenly on every note of course), meant it was impossible to use it for anything other than 'one-finger' solo stuff. Chords sound like someone smashing crockery. Now, on the digital instrument this isn't really important, I'm never going to use it for anything that matters, and, there is plenty of other noise I can make with it. On my H & H, with only eight plus SubBass over IIP, I need all 61 notes from every register, and I need them to be available on their own and in chorus, in solo and in big handfuls. And I've got that. If an organ is being built nowadays with what seems to be the obligatory 'chiffy flutes', deliberately voiced as such, does the problem I have with the digital doofer also occur in pipe instruments ?. Do they work in chorus as well as in solo ? Have I just asked the daftest question ever? Best to all, Chris Baker

Many thanks for the info, though being in Durham, It may be a while before I get there. Cheers, CB

FF and Cynic, thank you for your replies. Sheffield cathedral obviously favours United rather than Wednesday ! CB

If I may add to my previous display of ignorance, could you take a look at this page http://woodgears.ca/organ_tour/pipe_making.html , and scroll down to the bottom of it. My experience follows close on the heels of my incompetence, but I have never seen wooden reed pipes like this. Are they in fact commonly employed? Anyone got some? Best etc., Chris Baker

A few years ago while note-holding for Bert Prested in Durham, he told me that in many cases, the body of a wooden pipe is made at double the required length and literally cut in half. After fashioning the mouth, foot and cap, each pipe of the pair is then pitched to its respective semitone. Seems logical and practical, up to certain length anyway ! However, and here's my daft question - Starting at middle C and cutting the bodies in half, I can understand C & C#, D & D#, but what happens at E,F & F#. Do you [i'm going to regret this] make one odd one or three the same? Fortunately, I am not a sensitive soul and can tolerate almost unlimited levels of ridicule. Regards, Chris Baker If God intended me to be an organist, how is it that He only gave me two hands and two feet? When a cypher is closely followed by a chromatic scale........ the organist is tone deaf.

MM asks:-[Could someone please explain how the manfacture and voicing of wooden pipes is carried out? quote] Please forgive me for intruding into an area which my cat probably knows as much about as I do. I eagerly await the experts replies to your question. Having been stimulated to poke about on the net however, I stumbled into this site http://mmd.foxtail.com/Tech/Pipes_recipe.html .Whilst largely incomprehensible to me, it did throw up the piece of information which I think falls into the 'blindingly bloody obvious' category viz., that most of the voicing and regulating operations are carried out on a readily removable front plate. Presumably if such operations go too far, it is a reasonably simple, if irritating process to make a new one? I have not the slightest doubt that Mr Mander et al. will expose my ignorance. In my callow youth (early 1960s) I was engaged in voluntary service in Liverpool's Toxteth. At one stage our project required a quantity of timber which we could not afford. By what means of communication I know not, an invitation came from the Willis Organ workshops, [fall down and worship], just below the Cathedral, asking if we would like to carry away a very considerable amount of (yellow pine IIRC) boards. We shot off down there with roof racks, trailers, hand carts and dollies to be faced with several ranks of very large organ pipes. I dimly remember that the longest was in the order of 26 feet or so. At that time it never even crossed my mind to enquire as to the sources of the ranks, or the maker. 45years on and I now feel pointlessly guilty at how we lobbed the small ones onto the fire. In the event of course, using the timber was problematic because of the varying sections, but with ingenuity, much wedging and packing, we created a floor of somewhat individual character. The place we did it, World Friendship House in Faulkner Square still stands, so I suspect that the 'Willis' floor may still be there. Does anyone here recall St Saviours church, Huskisson Street, Liverpool 8 ? All I remember of the organ is that it was a Lewis 3 decker with a facing rank of the most sublime pedal Violoncello. Willis were looking after it at the time. I think it went into the developers' skip about twenty-five years ago...sods!

MM asks :-"If the organ had never been invented, and someone came along and said, "Hey, if I blow this tube, it makes a musical note," how would you make a musical instrument which used ANYTHING at the disposal of designers/engineers to-day" What a romantic fellow you are ! If someone today discovered that a musical note could be obtained by blowing into a tube, a sound engineer would sample it, stick it on a chip, nail the chip to keyboard, and say: " there you go, there's your sound at sixty one different pitches... enjoy. D'ya fancy something a bit rortier? got a decent trombone noise here on this chip, tell you what, I'll put it on another keyboard for you. Oops, can't have your feet sitting there doing nothing, got a real bit of tonal artillery here. Its called a Fundaton 128'. You'll need a speaker the size of a bungalow to get the full effect, but its worth it" And poor Mr Mander would be a wandering lost soul. He knew there was something he was going to do with his time on this earthly sphere of sorrows, but for the life of him can't figure out what it was. He seems to think it had to do with lots of wood, leather and tin............. Best etc., Chris Baker

MM says >As for your little H & H of the 1930's, well one of the first churches to which I was appointed had something similar. Now you tell me if you can think of another builder who could make a small organ so perfect for accompanying hymns and psalms, whatever the shortcomings for the repertoire.< Hello MM Thanks for your reply. In the quoted extract above, I both agree and disagree with you. My church, St Aidans, Chilton, Co Durham. is a big open 'barn' of a place, light and airy, well-maintained and decorated,(albeit simply and none the worse for it). The empty building has a five second acoustic, down to about three seconds with a few dozen in the pews. Just about perfect for music. The organ is in the usual place, a chamber on the south side of the chancel. Behind me is something that the builders of the church and the purchasers of the organ could never have contemplated :- that there would come a time when the choir stalls would be unoccupied. If the photographs in the vestry could come to life and once again put 20 or so souls into the stalls, then I would agree with you that as a choir organ for hymns and chants it is not too bad at all. For congregational accompaniment, it is less satisfactory. Without the Principal, it simply fails to bring along the people in the pews, and with it drawn nearly all the time, accompaniments are a bit umm.. plain. I accept that most grumbles about organ deficiencies are more to do with the organist than the instrument. I realise that much can be done to suggest a crescendo, using detatchment, or even none of it at all. But on the whole there is the slightly uncomfortable feeling of being at near full-chat all the time. Alright, you win, now that I have done a few months there, I am discovering more about the instrument. The 8' Open makes a decent french horn, the Dulciana is a very reasonable pedal Violon, the Claribel is rather nice with the Swell string, the Principal is....umm .. handy for tuning. The Swell 4' Flute is a cracking little Flageolet at the octave, the Horn is quite tasty on the pedal, but absolutely disgusting with the octave coupler and to Great for a 'full works' interlude. Did it once, never again (Having to stand on the bench to push the keys down didn't help!). Yes, fair enough, I regret suggesting that the organ is not from H&H's best period. Actually, I was probably reflecting the views of Bert Prested (deceased), who was a local organ builder with a seething hatred of that firm, and with whom I was in touch for a while. Enough for now Regards Chris Baker >Hi Chris Keep up the good work - and keep practicing. (And please do send the correction to NPOR!) Every Blessing Tony< Thanks Tony, I think you and I have met before haven't we? Organchat maybe, perhaps Pipechat. Unlikely to have been PIP/ORG, 'cos I got thrown off there for being rude to Cheryl Hart. Best etc.. Chris

Hello to you all. With much trepidation, even fear and trembling, do I venture a toe into this sea of the great and good. Being of lowly talent, no formal training and possessed of the skills which might, perhaps, qualify me to hand pump the Positive Organ Company whistle box in a wayside chapel, I feel distinctly out of place here. In the main therefore I will continue to read all your postings with a sort of detached but intense fascination. That aside, I do really enjoy reading about those thing for which I can have only a watcher's role. My own part in the field of those who refuse to breathe air which hasn't been round a Discus, is to pilot a H&H octopod (8848,8884,& Bourdon) at Chiton, in the Land of the Prince Bishops. It was built in the 1930s, so not one of their best, dare I say, and had some alterations in 1955. NPOR makes a complete dog's breakfast of their description of the instrument. I keep meaning to write in and give a true spec. of the thing, but keep getting diverted into more important matters like cleaning my glasses, burying the dog, and wishing the wedding party who want 'The Vidor' would just b****r off. ( I can't play it, the nearest I have to anything over 4' is a Swell Octave acoustic-mud-creating-device, my pedal technique is an abstract concept, and there's a perfectly good version on cd which the verger can stuff into the thing at the appropiate moment). Here I pause whilst a corporate cringe and shudder runs through the list - cries of "get 'im out of there, he's a disgrace", "they'd be better off with a digital organist", ect., etc.. I suppose the truth is that at the small parish end of the calling, there are a great many of us basically- incompetent- but-able -to- get- by organists, with our Langley editions, our 80 Chorale Preludes, our Gabriel's Oboe, our two-stave 'busker' versions and so on. On the whole, I manage to bluff out a reasonably acceptable performance, and knowing that if I wasn't shining up my trousers on the bench, then it would remain empty. It seems true that wherever there is a decent organ, then a decent organist is never far away. But there are now so many unmanned consoles at the bottom end, (if I can put it that way), that I think even the less able of us, if we have basic ability, have a role to play. I think I will finish here before I am persuaded that <alt.goldfish breeding> might be better home for my postings. Regards to all and thanks for some really fascinating threads. Chris Baker