David Coram

Great sub octaves can be terrificly useful things. Christchurch Priory is quite at sea without the one that Geoff Morgan had added. Daniels occasionally used them too, on small extension jobs usually, and their imaginative use can make them worth ten swell octave couplers on restricted instruments. And, hey, you can always take it off again or just not use it, and like Frank says, better to respond to a problem this way than to start making tonal changes instead. Christchurch though suffered with winding problems in the early days, though I gather this is being corrected.

That's a sad situation. Quality has to come first. The cost of moving should be absolutely minimal. All the instances I've mentioned have involved the organ being dismantled down to the building frame - putting it back up in a different place doesn't really amount to much assuming the platform and electrical work is provided. I played Tetbury once and was very impressed. I hope it's faring better.

Different church, same builder - I've been working on both today...

Not St Peter's Little Cheverell by any chance?

Of the last 6 rebuilds (small tracker jobs, up to 20 stops) I have worked on, 5 have involved moving the organ to a more musically advantageous location, whether this means back to the west end, one bay west or just forward a few inches. One is still under discussion but seems set to involve the construction of a new west end gallery. Is this an isolated hotspot, or is this sort of thing happening all over? Would be interested to hear other experiences of organ moving, particularly from the player's perspective.

I think I know the instrument you mean. It's cone tuned, which obviously helps. Stability comes not just from quality of fluework but from leaving the damn things alone. There's a little Walker in the care of a small firm I do a little work for which has had one visit (to mend a pedal tracker after someone stood on the board) since its rebuilding in 1993. Previously it was getting two or three ministrations a year. The money saved in the meantime will go a long way towards paying for the next cleaning.

Yes, but only v recently. In response to other - some very valid points. I'm all for helping the majority - that's the whole point - but you don't do that by cancelling. Where you've possibly got the wrong end of the stick is that these courses in question (cancelled/underpromoted ones) are at a very basic/elementary level and for all ages, and not at all outfits like Oundle. I made the parallel there only because Oundle targets a very limited age range, is very expensive and fairly remote from just about everywhere, and yet is consistently full to bursting; the RSCM has four times the age range, nationwide facilities and, in theory, a fantastic mailing list, and still it ends up cancelling. As you know most of Robert's training work (which he now does independently, because the RSCM decided to pull the plug on it) is with finding and training "volunteers". This, of course, is specific to areas outher than Winchester and based entirely on opinion, but my impression from outside is of an organisation cutting off its arms because it doesn't want to risk get its fingers burnt. This, of course, is counterproductive in the long term and would appear to make it look foolish in the short. "Dear X, thank you for your interest in our Sitting the Right Way Round on the Bench course. Unfortunately, we're cancelling it." If you got such a letter, what would you do the next time a brochure arrived? As another committee member has said to me, the issue is less about coming up with the initiatives and more about inspiring people to come and join in. Time isn't such an issue, because they're often one day workshops or Fri/Sat/Sun; money isn't an issue because they're often free if one day, or v cheap otherwise. In other words, how do you get people to read the brochure and fill the form in? How do you make sure the right person has got the brochure, and the church secretary hasn't thrown it in the bin? As another member on this board said, Sarum College is "outside the radar". How do we change that?

Thank you - glad someone agrees! I have had an email from a member of our local RSCM committee and perhaps should say that I'm not anti-RSCM, I just think it needs to be bolder and braver and adopt the same in-your-face, sales driven mentality of Oundle and the London Organ Weeks etc and make more use of the training resources on its doorstep. When the training of little old ladies does happen, it's a joy to watch. I eavesdropped on a course about a year ago (another one that was cancelled and bankrolled by Robert) and watched Gordon Stewart working for an hour with someone you could describe as a volunteer organist. Although they never got beyond bar 4 of a Bach prelude in that time, I have seldom witnessed anything so inspirational.

Something I was shown that impressed me a great deal was an iris valve for adjusting the wind to large bass pipes. Rather than the traditional slide under the pipe foot, there was a circular device which opened like the lens of a camera ensuring that the wind was always delivered to the centre of the foot and speech wasn't therefore affected. Simple and clever.

That's just it. A lot of the questionable firms are very expensive, often notoriously so. A lot of them are guilty of excessive work - a village organ near here, for instance, has 5 stops (no reeds), yet the tuners attend every 3 months. Four times a year to an organ with no reeds! What on earth for? The touch is among the worst I know and the keys so slack they hold adjacent ones down. They're obviously not spending time on that. I think it may have more to do with expectations - we will unquestioningly nod and accept that the "old" organ is "worn out" when in fact it's just in a poor state of regulation, and throw good money after bad effectively changing the oil every 1000 miles and achieving nothing of any use or benefit.

Indeed so. There are so few resources that only 2 channels (i.e. 20 generals) can be set aside as "fixed" - no 1 for congregational, and no 2 for choir work. You certainly have to know your way around them but there is a kind of logic to both - basically, general crescendo 1-5, "special effects" 6-10. The rest are in constant use for specific anthems, recitals etc etc. It's been used for 3 major concerts in the last fortnight, 2 visiting organists with choirs for special services, plus use by an organists' course, and in the next month it's got Elgar Spirit of the Lord (which takes 2.5 channels), RVW Let all the world (1.5 channels), a recitalist, an R3 broadcast and 3 visiting organists to cope with. The problems are well known and I shan't be able to set up for my recital until the day itself, which makes practice very frustrating. Bearing in mind it has a modern AJ&L Taylor capture system and all-electric stop action, the cost to increase the resources to 96 channels + stepper/sequencer is comparatively modest. You try convincing the powers that be, however! Please send me an email of complaint and I'll gladly forward it. On the subject of registrants - I recently saw a DVD of Jos vd Kooy playing St Bavo. His two registrants were utterly on the ball and amazing to watch. Clearly an art form in its own right.

I have just come away from an excellent course at Sarum College on improvisation, organised by Robert Fielding and tutored by David Briggs and Daniel Moult. The cost was - for four days, residential, including all meals and outings, individual time with tutors, roughly 15 hours group tuition on a wide variety of instruments, plus time out to attend the events of the Southern Cathedrals Festival - £350 or so. Fantastic value? Only 9 other people in the UK thought so. I believe I'm right in saying that the RSCM pulled funding on it, so Robert Fielding had to bankroll it himself. Courses later in the year have been cancelled due to lack of interest, or because the RSCM pulled funding, or both. Never mind Oundle, this is England's main church music training body pulling the plug on training parish organists for reasons of cost. If James Parsons and a small admin team can persuade dozens of teenagers to trek up or down the M1 to an obscure market town in the middle of the summer holidays, then surely the RSCM (with the same big name tutors - David Briggs, Gordon Stewart, Daniel Moult etc) ought to be able to communicate with a far broader spectrum of people who, pretty generally, sincerely want to become better? I believe the answer lies firmly with the RSCM. If you look at the teenage organists pouring into Oundle - at a guess, a good 100 or so a year, from a very wide geographical area - you have to wonder what happens to all these people, not to mention the ones that go to the many other events organised locally, nationally and internationally. I still get brochures from them years later, presumably on the basis that I might have some pupils by now and be able to generate some sales for them. Big business hangs around Oxbridge JCR's at graduation time - so where are the RSCM, at a time when they could be doing most to get the talent into churches? Why haven't they even got a significant publication of their own with similar sort of broad appeal to, say, Organists' Review? If they have, why haven't I heard of it in 16 years of parish music making? On a wider level, what about creating a new job of "benefice music consultant", perhaps not doing so much playing themselves but going into schools, recruiting and training pianists to get on the organ, forming small singing groups, and so on and so forth? Vicars rely increasingly on NSM's and lay preachers and pulling people out of retirement to help deal with their ever wider territories. Businesses large and small constantly adapt to emerging trends and threats in a way, for instance, they didn't in the 1970's. We, by and large, haven't changed, and the establishment (i.e. the body of organists, not the RSCM per se) we represent can often be found guilty of the same sort of mentality as Scargill and Red Robbo and all the rest. Make no mistake, the makers of CD's are about to win, and it's our fault. Allow me to digress for a moment. Something that incidentally doesn't help is the lamentable state of organ building in this country. In my personal opinion, and speaking on a rural/small firm level, there are several firms on the books of the IBO that I believe shouldn't be. I have before me a quotation from The Organ in 1924, where a respected and renowned player and reviewer evidently felt able to openly say of a large organbuilding firm that "their proper place is in the bankruptcy courts, not a workshop." Why do we now, with our vastly better transport and communication and more competitive market place, tolerate poor workmanship? Can we still tell the difference? Who is monitoring standards? (Dioceses clearly aren't, when 1 builder is able to pretty much wreck several historic organs in a 40 mile radius over 15 years before they take any action. I know who and where I'm talking about - no doubt every person reading this will be able to identify a near-identical situation local to themselves. Shocking, isn't it?) When Bevington, Bishop, Sweetland, Bryceson, Walker and even most of the small provincial builders built all these little tiny parish instruments, they were pretty generally light and rattle-free and musical and sweet. It's only poor regulation and maintenance that makes them feel any different, with a very few possible faults excepted - apart from the issues of heating, dirt, bushings and slider seals, there ain't a lot to actually wear out in a little tracker organ when it's adjusted properly, and heating and dirt can be controlled to a degree now we are out of the era of coke stoves and ladies with stiff brooms throwing all the dust up. There are a couple of fairly eminent instruments near me whose condition is excreble, almost beyond belief, and it all comes down to proper attention from the tuner on details like action/coupler regulation and reed regulation. Organ tuned, blower oiled, can I have my money please. Who wants to play ratbags like that, for next to no money? The role of the RSPCM (sic) as I see it is twofold - firstly, to actually use the considerable talent and dedication (musically and administratively) at its disposal to design and implement relevant and inspirational training of the sort that is currently being organised by a few individuals. Robert Fielding's site www.churchmusictraining.info will give a brief idea of how much time he personally spends in small parishes working with volunteer organists and choir trainers, organising practice instruments, recruitment, etc etc etc. I mention Robert's site because I work with him, but there are countless others at all levels - Anne M-T, James Parsons & Nigel Allcoat are the ones whom we surely must all be aware of, because they're (quite rightly) forever right in your face in Organists' Review peddling their wares. I've been the assistant at one of the larger greater churches in the south for a year, and I don't know the names of anyone on the local RSCM committee - or, for that matter, the national one. As I look around the choir vestry, I see a dusty certificate signed by Lionel Dakers and a handful of festival service books and that's about it. Secondly, having got the people inspired and in post, to take a truly leading role in making the process rewarding and self-propogating, such as the "music facilitator" role suggested above. Casting blame isn't what this is about; we must find a way forward that is going to work, and start now. The chance to learn improvisation at the feet of David Briggs for four days, to return to the example I started with, ought to have been massively over-subscribed. But, even though this event happened (initially) under the auspices of the RSCM in an RSCM flagship building during a large cathedral music festival, I'd be willing to bet that not a single person on this board knew the event was going to happen. That's the first problem to overcome.

I think Alistair Johnson knows it better than I but I remember going there on an organists association jaunt in about 1997 after some work had just been done, and it was in fine condition then. I'm not sure how many notes of the Grand Cornet actually have 12 ranks - not many, I think.

It might be worth keeping an ear to the ground for St Mary's, Devizes - a very fine 2m tracker Sweetland full of period features and with a clever device grooving the Gt Stopt Diapason Bass to the bottom octave of the Swell. It's the church where Sweetland himself was organist and makes some really delightful sounds. The church is horribly under-used and now, since its "parish" consists mostly of car parks and kebab vans and there are already 4 major Anglican churches in Devizes, its future seems uncertain to say the least. There's also an 1813 Joseph Davis organ at Dauntsey's School. It's 2 manuals (Gt 8884432(used to be a trumpet), Sw 8848 fiddle G, pedal 16. Needs much restoration - has been unceremoniously carved up to accept an RCO pedalboard and a couple of stops have mysteriously disappeared. Its most unique feature is a 6' long barrel which plays Mozart Magic Flute overture (pinned a year or so before the first performance of Flute in UK) and Dead March from Saul. 6' barrels apparently very rare. The barrel has a few ranks of its own - 2' open flutes and things like that. I did have it working when I was there and we made a recording of it. There is gorgeous brass marquetry all over the case but it's being baked in its current position, and the school is totally disinterested in it, probably because it doesn't have a plug on the end of it. Its one custodian has just retired so I think they would probably be receptive to an approach.

There's a strange machine in the Rachel Fowler Centre, Melksham - not sure if it's on your register or not, but it certainly exists on the internet - the controls for the hydraulics are certainly still in situ.

Hope the trumpets aren't hooded - they might get asked to leave.

Well, it's surely more appropriate as a foil for the undulant than a romantic string? I understood Bill Drake was instrumental in Aubertin getting the contract for this one. Apparently they approached him first, but weren't prepared to wait until 2012. It does seem that after a flurry of new instruments in the late 80's/early 90's, we could be set for another raft of fine musical instruments - St Mary Mag, and now this! And no, it's far from the last college to get a decent instrument. There are dozens of dreary horrible little heaps scattered about, plus the bizarre neo-baroque constructions like my old thing at St Edmund Hall upon which I was compelled to play Howells on a weekly basis. If it weren't for the voicers making the best of a peculiar brief, it'd definitely be one for the worst organ thread.

1858 Walker actually, with no subsequent tonal alteration (except for a few minor additions in 1888 such as a Pedal 32 and a tremulant), at Romsey Abbey. On one track - trio 6 - the left hand is taken by the 4' Flute on the 1999 Walker nave organ, some 50 feet away, the other hand on the Choir 4' flute. This is quite inaudible from the console and only possible to do because of the noise of the barker levers providing a percussive landmark. Otherwise only the main organ is used. Did wonder what you might make of it, seeing as the choruswork hails from much the same generation as Wimborne (pcnd may correct me but I believe the Gt chorus there stands largely unaltered?) Sorry about the notes, these are just extracts of practice recordings made from halfway back the nave (which exist to make me SLOW THINGS DOWN)... Be as critical as you like...

The notes are all wrong of course, and it's a fairly naff minidisc recording, but I'd be interested to hear delvin's opinion of this instrument: http://www.archive.org/download/bach_trio_...rio6extract.mp3 http://www.archive.org/download/trio_3_ext...rio3extract.mp3 http://www.archive.org/download/schubler_c...ler2extract.mp3 http://www.archive.org/download/schubler_c...ler3extract.mp3 http://www.archive.org/download/gigout_sch...goutextract.mp3 http://www.archive.org/download/extract_fr...rne6extract.mp3

This is of course partly to do with its unfortunate positioning and the unfortunate building. I thought that "track 8" was the perfect tour de force of the quieter stuff - that Great Viola is gorgeous. The tuning in the Mendelssohn probably belies some wind problems but there's no disputing the fineness of the choruses, IMHO. Even the chamades work well, much more stable and less barky than many. I could play all day on Gt 842 principals or the Pos flutes 8 and 4 - lovely. Of course there are things to criticise but you could plonk anything in that building, whether Snetzler or Harrison or Compton or Drake or Mander, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find anything that could be made to work better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI-wgntHHv4

I tried. Accidental content falls outside the specified limits - not allowed.

At the crematorium all week and moving house on Saturday, so not yet! Will be starting 9AM Monday & will let you know. Get a bigger egg timer

For what it's worth, I don't think anyone's come close to the masters of the mid-1800's - Walker, Bishop, Gray et al. I shall have to find out a recording of Romsey. Of course board members are always welcome to come and see it in the flesh, with a little notice!

If it's the same person, then they used to do the same thing when teaching at Oundle, with the result that an hour's session was reduced to about 20 minutes, mostly of snide remarks.