David Coram

As Jeremy Clarkson often says - how hard can it be? Yes, tongue in cheek. But think of a disastrous or (at best) misguided rebuild, whether it's a floor-up solution or the addition of one or two ranks. Consider how an authenticity of vision and a consistency between sound, look and engineering would have impacted on what was done, and to what effect. Are there very many instances where this falls down?

Given that an organ is a totally subjective and multi-dimensional thing, I have concluded that this is completely impossible. The attempt by the Lottery board to have a few simple rules about what qualifies for funding and what doesn't proves that. The customers must do the regulation. Every PCC considering major organ work should be made to view a 45-minute training film on the subject they are discussing. Every scheme ever proposed should have Trinitarian aims - to respect the organ as a musical instrument, a piece of furniture and a unified and pure piece of engineering, all rolled together in one cohesive package. There must be parity between what is seen, what is heard, and what goes on behind the scenes. Any proposal from anyone which compromises any of those ought to be discounted. I fail to see what could go wrong.

If you connected a computer, you could either play compositions into Sibelius or have Sibelius play the organ to you. But, like recording and playback, that's a simple note output matter and akin to making a digital pianola roll - when you press the key, the punch goes off whether you like it or not, regardless of whether there's a pianola roll loaded into the machine. Where there are controls marked Midi on Pedal or Midi on Great it is exactly like locating a floating division on a particular keyboard - replace the word Midi with Nave and suddenly there are many instances in cathedrals (Chichester, St Davids, Norwich, Winchester, all of which have something like Nave on Great/Nave on Choir) where exactly this technology is used in a more obviously defined role. The confusion arises because Midi is a concept with many functions, rather than a fixed thing like a nave division - you could theoretically plug in anything digital - a digital organ, a drum kit, the church's lighting and sound desk (pulpit microphones? please?) or a battery of fireworks primed to go off with every key-press (thought of that one, Worcester?) Oh, the limitless joys which abound. Using a simple bit of code to detect crotchet pulse, you could control the giant botafumeiro at Compostela in time with the music, or the wooden conductor's hand at Ripon. Personally, I'm very happy to be limited to organs full of adjustable twigs and pivots where such things are totally alien. I've yet to be bored by the best of 'em, and remain to be convinced that there is anything other than eventual redundancy to be gained by all this. Barrel organs were very popular once, and I'm not sure that encouraging the ability to near-instantly download hymns, anthems, voluntaries and even entire concerts is actually addressing anything useful about the number and standard of musicians in churches.

I can't say what the future purpose at Worcester but the staff there check here frequently and will doubtless comment. At the moment, it is quite useful to be able to play the Rogers as a nave organ for big nave services, and occasionally use the Rogers 32' for rumbles. Midi is at its most useful when teaching, I think. Virtually all electrifications in recent years will have contained the ability to add a control panel for a few pounds and access functions which are already there. Rather like the old debate about Scope piston systems, where everybody said how much they hated them - frankly, the technology's already there, and the only question is whether the button is visible at the console, hidden round the back or requires a USB hookup to a laptop. My crematorium-playing career came to an abrupt end because of midi. My exploration of the Allen midi expander unit's list of such sounds as birdsong, helicopters passing overhead and guns being fired was cut short by a briefer-than-usual address. In hindsight, it would have been beneficial to make sure it was in fact switched off again before gently serenading the coffin through the curtains.

A motor insurance policy in the USA ought to have ample cover for goods in transit. The concert promoter or venue ought to have ample liability cover for a mishap. A continuo organ ought to come apart reasonably simply and be portable. I'd have no hesitation about moving it myself. Just don't try and turn it on its side or upside down and there's precious little else to worry about. Oh, apart from getting it to the venue at least 24 hours in advance so the tuning settles and you don't end up having to re-tune the band six times during the afternoon rehearsal. (Embarassing confession - this happened to me with one of Ken Tickell's box organs. During the second tune-up, my note didn't sound somehow quite right and I noticed that in my enthusiastic playing the case had moved very slightly away from the blower, and the membrane was letting quite a bit of air escape. Not even the viola player found it amusing.)

I'd hope that other areas of the world were proving that factions aren't really the way to go about things. So, get stuck in. Anyone serious about saving the future of ministry will be doing a bit more than hanging fairy lights on the altar front and singing Bind us together. That's exactly what the C of E's current exercises appear to be trying to do away with. My most recent experience of anything calling itself a mission audit involved doubling the number of choral evensongs held each month, since it was clear from the collections that more people came on weeks where a full-blown service was held. Be optimistic and positive; find somewhere where your skill is wanted and appreciated (some clergyman somewhere will be delighted to meet you, even if they don't currently have anyone able to play trad music and run a choir); but be prepared to get involved at the grass roots and make the case for the spiritual growth and outreach potential music has, to anyone who will listen. No, you shouldn't have to, but you will need to, as most of your audience won't have experienced it first- or even second-hand.

Deleted at the request of one of those involved. Sorry for cluttering the place up.

Mission Action Plan needn't be about carpets and canned music. I think this is an important misconception to lay to rest. I personally believe it has a lot more to do with an institution tacitly accepting that it went the wrong way in recent years, and devising a realistic and useful strategy for assessing how to enhance its own relevance to the community in all sorts of ways - as bringer of comfort, as place of learning, as concert venue and in terms of hospitality. This is made all the more important in light of the big pointy job up the other end of the high street. An AM congregation of 250 or so against that sort of competition suggests to me that they are doing all the right things, and happily doing so without dumbing down.

I think if I've given that impression I've done them a disservice. I did also mention Rutter! There was Stanford in Bb at Evensong this week just gone and some unaccompanied Byrd in the morning. My point was to suggest that the church has a varied diet, including some worship songs, and the organ needs to be approachable enough to attract confident players.

Calm down! I was thinking of, you know, maybe mentioning it to the church before ordering the posters! We do need to have people on board as participants before we've actually got a proposal to take to the church.

Well then, let's do it - some quiet weekend in February, maybe - lots of playing on Friday afternoon/night and Saturday morning, tuning through Sat afternoon and bashing down some tracks in the early evening. RE church funds, how about advertising a concert from 7.30-9.30, then a quick pint at the Grasshopper over the road, and recording after that? Organ folklore being what it is, we'd have them travelling from miles around to hear it and quite happy to part with a tenner a head. Any Masons here fancy chatting the chief of police into a 2 hour late night road closure?

If pcnd will arrange it, we'll all congregate there and take it in turns to keep playing it until the magnets wake up again. Then I'll tune it through and we'll make a disc. No talking, just doing. Anyone in? D

I am, as many know, the sort of chap who foams at the mouth at the sight of a Pozidrive screw. However, I cannot seriously advocate a tenor F Swell, FF/GG Gt and Ch and no pedals as the prime instrument for a city centre church. The choir sings Rutter, the congregation sing Shine Jesus Shine and the organist plays Eric Thiman. I will not win that battle, much as I would love to; they'll get a new ****** instead and chuck it in a skip, which is what has been seriously proposed. So, while it probably is a new situation, it's better than no situation at all to sometimes accept that the best on offer is to freeze the old pipework/soundboards in time and re-use the Victorian mechanical underpinnings, adding a new take on a pedal organ which is a logical downward continuation of the manuals and doesn't need its own transept. Little will be gained, but nothing will be lost - for now - and others in the future will be able to see all that we can about what has happened to the pipework (which I actually don't think has been significantly revoiced, in the most part - an esteemed historic organ specialist in the south of England has used at least one stop from it as a model in a reconstruction elsewhere). To link to the topic - this is what I would deem to be 'the purist approach' and I don't think it's hard to see how this will cost less than new soundboards, new case, new pipes and new mechanics!

A little case study, if you will. I spent most of today working inside a large 3m tracker job, with the brief to keep it alive for the next 18 months or so while they get funding in place for a new organ. This one is to be broken up, or sold if anyone wants it. Three organ builders, two household names here and one from outside the UK, have deemed it to be in a state of collapse and not worth saving. A little sleuthing revealed that virtually all the pipework (more than 75%) dates from the 1790s and is by Samuel Green. At least two of the soundboards are probably of that time. Will they heed my proposal which is suggesting a return to the situation prevailing in about 1877, except with the present compass, or will they have the shiny new builder from one of the three firms approached...?

It's not just about incompetence - trouble is, few organbuilders with a car to tax and insure and a workshop to heat and bills to pay will say no when someone hands over a cheque and asks for a new stop. There's no point in saying no, because someone else will say yes. The battle to get parishes to recognise what might be a more sensible solution is a difficult one to fight, and against the considerable opposition of someone else offering shiny new toys. It's become as bread and butter as plumbing. How? In some small way, I believe it's because pneumatic and electric actions made it possible and even straightforward to add things and change things where previously you could not. It then becomes the cultural norm. This makes the organ into an appliance first and a musical instrument second. Avoid such industrial relics (at parish level, at least) and you avoid many of the associated problems.

Of course. But in the 'typical parish', if such a thing exists, I think this is seldom the case. More often than not, the 'typical parish' I encounter has a 2-manual tracker of about 15-22 stops. Maybe one time in four there is some kind of tonal change. Invariably the blower is a later addition. Almost always the action is very badly adjusted. I'm afraid I would find it very, very hard - actually, quite impossible - to justify (in a church) reconstructing a pneumatic action after it had been replaced. As for electrics, there is inevitably an element of disposability built in, as there are also evolving safety and fire prevention considerations to consider. A permanent mechanical linkage is a more straightforward thing to respect because it's either there or it's not. I expect this is mostly down to my own personal prejudice, but I like to think there is some small element of pragmatism in the suggestion that anything more complicated than it needs to be - i.e. two sticks and a pivot - isn't doing anyone any favours.

I don't want to end up caught in one of my characteristic circular arguments, but I really don't see how this can be possible. Restoration is about doing the least amount of work necessary to render an instrument in as-new condition. Consumables are; sheepskin on reservoirs and pallets, leather buttons and felt washers. In short, getting to grips with the fundamentals before worrying about anything clever. The other approach - adding stuff on clamps, electrifying pneumatic pedals, adding pistons, swapping Dulcianas for Mixtures - all require things to be bought or made and the organ adapted to take them. That is inevitably an expensive process. Anyone offering to do such work for less than would be charged by someone offering to simply put into good order what is already there ought to be at least questioned with healthy scepticism. Any perceived added value assumed by the term 'historic' needs to be carefully accounted for - for instance, have pipes been lengthened in a return to cone tuning, or has an original swell mechanism been replicated? None of these is likely to cost any more than the alteration did in the first place. In my view, the basics have to be right before any discussion of whether or not a change of direction is appropriate; it's usually straightforward to apprehend quite quickly what has gone on inside an instrument, and work out whether it was done for any reasons other than convenience, incompetence or ego. Some changes (eg slider seals) can actually be important or even vital to the survival of an instrument, and quite easily reversible.

Interesting. Does being a purist necessarily mean being more expensive? As far as I know I have never been involved in the most expensive tender for any project, but invariably the work done is as respectful of original techniques as it's possible to be. This is in many ways to do with my caveman view that if you provide a musician with a musical instrument, they will produce music; that, to me, means getting the fundamentals of key touch and pipe speech right. This is a process which need not be very expensive at all, certainly by comparison with adding extra stops and elaborate capture systems which often seem to me to be there to overtly demonstrate 'improvement' or 'change' rather than getting to grips with what brought about the dissatisfaction in the first place.

Indeed. The R3 messageboards are the place for all that. (Though I think you get booted out if you can't spell 'ragged'!)

How is it that I didn't know about this - Trio with Guitar and Hurford A shade rushed-feeling but what a combination of sounds.

I am surprised that nobody has, except incidentally, mentioned John Compton in this. What is being described is the Harmonics of 32', an incredible cost saving device to overcome the need for a 32' reed - and which, in my experience, actually can do a far better job. The recent one at Christchurch Priory (albeit missing its top harmonic) can be used under a moderately full Swell accompaniment, but also adds thunderously to Full Organ by complementing what is there. This was all achieved by the provision of a drawstop, and changing some settings via a laptop. In a Compton organ I have recently been working on, some ranks (unisons and quints) are derived from the Sub Bass unit, others (Septieme and Tierce) from a huge (almost Tibia) scale stopped flute which (uniquely on this instrument) appears nowhere else in the stop (switch?) list, and actually forms part of the display pipes - the pipes are the correct visual scale for a large 8' Open Diapason, but go round the back and you will find most of the back cut away, and stoppers about a third of the way up the length. It is a great shame that these mutation ranks are not available seperately, as in all other respects the organ is very good for Improvising. It has two sets of Celestes and of course all manual divisions are enclosed.

Hmm! Colin, I hope you'll understand that I posted what I did in order to avoid any speculation that the organ was to be destroyed or anything like that. It would seriously compromise any future project if I put any more here.

Indeed. You can actually get a full orchestra on there now. For balance and background, just in case anyone thinks this is an act of wanton destruction - the TS is built over a stream. An electric pump continually empties the basement of water. Some electricians, several months ago, worked on the building and then left without putting the pump back on. The parquet floor was ruined - as indeed it was a few years ago in the same way. In order to replace the parquet floor, the organ has been removed - as it was last time. Whether or not it returns is not yet decided, but should they decide against, there are other venues in Southampton expressing keen interest in housing it in an unaltered condition. In my view it would in any case benefit from a more generous acoustic.

Coming from the other direction entirely, as you'll know the inevitable harmonic by-product on pianos is to stretch the octaves - thus the highest C is slightly sharper than middle C, and likewise you get progressively (slightly) flatter in the bass. (I expect MM will bounce up Tigger-like and quote some long-dead Yorkshire piano tuner to tell me I'm wrong. To avert that possibility, Google it or read this.) There's also the matter of equalising tension across the soundboard, as anyone who's ever tried to do a pitch raise of more than a semitone in one tuning will tell you. Logically, you have to start at the middle of the keyboard. Freed of both these considerations, the organ tuner can work in an octave where the beats can more easily be heard, and arguably more accurately measured. You also have more than one 'unison' to deal with on an organ, and tuning is always best done at the octave; you therefore need the scale on a Principal to be able to work back and tune the other 8' ranks, and then the other members of each 'family' get set from the 8' parent in each case (Flutes/Bourdons to Stopped Diapasons and Clarions/Doubles to Trumpets, if it wasn't completely obvious). Off topic - as a student, I used to make a bit of cash tarting up banger pianos with a process I nicknamed Piano Medic's Instant Recondition - I've still got the t-shirt. Essentially reserved for instruments completely at the end of their life-span and barely good for firewood, it consisted of dousing all the action bearing points in liquid graphite from a garden sprayer, boiling up the bass springs for half an hour (which does nothing to change the metallurgy, but shifted a lot of gunk between the windings), and inserting modelling ply wedges or tin-can shims around loose tuning pins. Then they went up to concert pitch - all of them - sometimes by pitch raising as much as a sixth. By such means, many little offspring were able to get to Grade 3 without their parents forking out a fortune for a truly awful 80s/90s digital substitute which any right-thinking person would be bored with after a month. Anything coming my way which was actually worth tuning I passed on to others...

You're absolutely right, and I apologise to you too, as I did to Mr Best, for posting something which wasn't properly thought through. Since it has now been quoted twice there is little point in my removing it, although I would like to.