David Coram

Didn't know Fred Dibnah was also an organbuilder?

Mine will be pretty obvious to anyone who knows me! 1) Romsey Abbey, beyond any shadow of a doubt just THE most amazing combination of instrument and building I have ever found (as long as you mostly avoid the Tuba). There is no restriction on when you can use it, and the stewards and gift shop people are very nice! Despite slightly limiting and Victorian specification I have found almost no occasion when I can't get exactly the sound I want from it. In my humble opinion, it's the English equivalent of... 2) St Antoine l'Abbaye, France. I went on one of Nigel Allcoat's do's there about 10 years ago and was blown away by this incredible Aubertin instrument which went on and on and on in the darkened abbey. 3) Wimborne Minster. A lot of people hate it and think it's a jangly 1960's thing but I am hugely fond of it. I think it has among the nicest choruses I know and a great deal more integrity than many more recent instruments. I always find my time on it very rewarding. 4) The Metzler in St Mary (University Church) Oxford. It's just... amazing. 5) New College Oxford. Perhaps I could have fun revoicing it. 6) Clifton Cathedral. Again, small spec but voiced with huge integrity. I never tire of it.

da bobby trap workd an i can no longa tipe. also i cn only play eric thiman. what wus dat gas dat sprayd in ma face wen i used da trmulnt?

I hope not - I made quite a few of them...

St Mary the Virgin (University Church), Oxford - easy to slide down the stairs, grab a coffee from the refectory and sit outside in the sunny churchyard. Very nice. A cathedral also in the south of England has a marvellous development - alongside the organ tuning book, there's a choir tuning book - full of comments like "Precentor tenor G tuning please" and "Dec altos, revoicing, urgent please". A fairly large parish church nearby has a sort of voluntary book where the resident and various visitors have whiled away the sermons drawing little cartoons and making trenchant observations about life in general. Most amusing...

There used to be a Positif Press journal called The Organbuilder, don't know if it's still available - think it turned into something else?

OK, now I am scared.

am i bothered

I once played a Hill with a "blind man" console - the stops were drawn by pushing a button beneath them and then returned by pushing the stop knob in a small way. It had just had a disastrous electrification, but it did have a very nice "Open Diapason (Wood)" which was a really, really lovely Clarabella. I wonder if anyone else used this terminology?

I can understand the uproar about Open Wudes, especially on smaller instruments where you get the "dull thud" effect from it being perhaps the only pedal stop. There is a little Sweetland near me that suffers from this. My vote however goes to 8' extensions of Open Woods, or "Octave Woods", especially as the only 8' pedal stop on smaller instruments. I have never found one that doesn't clog everything up.

Happy New Year, Colin One of the things that saddens me is that so often people default to the larger firms for new instruments, when there is often equal or better quality to be found outside, with the sole traders - who so often left the larger firms' employment, because they felt creativity was stifled or that quality was being sacrificed to support the expensive company infrastructure. Without another great exhibition, we shan't know what talent truly exists out there. Any millionaires care to contribute? How about a competition to build a practice organ of a set budget or design?

I adore New College. The Pedal Prinzipal 16 is rather like Clifton Cathedral, in that it becomes whatever you want it to be. Unlike so many baroquey instruments, there is a huge amount of colour - celestes, quintadenas, bourdons, chimney flutes, open flutes. Manual reeds of copper and wood as well as traditional materials. Really good tremulants. It's actually a quite small specification but you can get a lot out of it. I'd take it over a lot of the modern stuff that's coming out and often is disappointingly bland.

After ajt said a few weeks ago that I was going to go and tune his reeds, I thought I ought to point out that it isn't me that's been tuning at the tops! Some of the springs on this instrument are a) nigh on impossible to get at and b ) incredibly tight against the reed that I found they were impossible to move. Then, there's the fun part when you discover that the wedge has either dropped out or is about to do so. Aagh! I suspect these are actually the reasons why the maintainers have been going for the tops - to save an enormous amount of time and aggro. On some of the pipes it didn't matter anyway - as the pipes had been entirely squashed by poor racking and careless feet. Poor thing.

Don't be ridiculous. You don't have enough hair.

Crematoriums are huge fun. You get to do tons of practice, can have a cup of tea every 25 minutes, it's lovely and warm, and you can play the same piece 53 times a week. Best of all, mine has a shiny new Allen with a bolt-on midi unit containing 5000 voices, so I can have fun making septieme mixtures and nones and adding a 2' Musette plus tremulant and a 32' Contra Violone to everything. Between services, there are rounds of applause, gunshots, helicopters, waves breaking on the shore, birds tweeting etc to make the most of. And you can play Crimond in Gb in quarter comma meantone.

Ok, ok, you're all right, I was wrong - thoroughly enjoying it. At least they are making it interesting and informative, not just queing endless tracks. Very much enjoyed the coffee cantata the other day.

I'd better not!!! It was made by a company called Smith & Foskett, and parts of it were voiced by one Mr Bonavia-Hunt who produced a quite magnificent Open Diapason No 1. The later additions were clearly, um, done to a budget.

Hmm.... their revoicing at St Peter's Bournemouth wasn't bad...

It should be absolutely compulsory for provincial organ tuners upwards to be able to play to at least average parish standard. How can you maintain an instrument, especially a mechanical one, if you've little clue about how it should feel in use? You wouldn't let someone fix your car who didn't know how to drive. All the most successful tracker instruments I have played have been the work of people who are themselves excellent or v good players. These are the people who will take the time to regulate actions & couplers well & not just yank the pallet springs open as tight as they can (to prevent having to come back & fix ciphers).

Think I've just played it. And you have to be so NICE about it when the vicar (invariably) comes up to you and sings its praises. Then, you leaf through the tuners' book and become genuinely astonished to find that it has recently been rebuilt by someone you previously respected as a craftsman. This one couldn't summon enough action wind to get more than four notes at a time down (you couldn't play a scale at Grade 4 speed so appalling was the response), and has been added to so much that there are 4 different soundboards for 6 stops on the Great total. The Sw has had an extra octave of Oboe pipes put in for use with the Suboctave coupler in quite the most ingenious way I have ever seen. Full organ is basically 3 stops - they shout their heads off while the rest do absolutely nothing at all. No reservoirs - it all runs straight off the blower, and wind is fed by several lengths of tumble drier hose. This could be the only time in my life a 20 year old Allen sounds like a more attractive proposition. What broke my heart was it was in such a glorious building with a 3 second echo. So, could this be the worst organ ever - anyone know any even worse - any amusing anecdotes please?

Well, Salisbury Cathedral's is out of action for 4 months. Somehow they are apparently coping with an amplified piano and one of their chamber organs, and haven't gone the toaster route. I suppose when you consider the amount of stripping down, rewiring, rebushing etc 4-6 months isn't that unreasonable, particularly when you've got to set everything up to perfection and get it all working again without the teething problems that come with the territory - parts don't come out of the box fully regulated and ready to use. Not forgetting also that Harrison's have a stack of work on the shop floor already.

That is very bad news. I was under the impression that Cawstons would be in the same boat - both firms were taken over by the same person. I heard a lot of the Daniels records were thrown out - nothing short of vandalism. They were never a cheap firm by any means, and much of their voicing was an utter disaster (more especially in the 70's and 80's), but often their cabinet work was extremely good quality and they did the "face to the customer" part exceptionally well, down almost entirely I suspect to Chris Manners, who will be devastated when he hears of this development.

Of course the great Mr Compton achieved much with this sort of device also. We would be denigrated and cast down for bolting on an extension rank capable of providing true "pedal harmonics" - that would naturally be "vandalism" - but apparently not so much for fitting loudspeakers? There was an instrument near me where the late organist had chosen in the 1970's to add a 10 or so stop pedal organ made of electronics (to a fairly modest 2 manual Hele). Behind the music desk was a mass of valves & several of the Open Wood pipes had to be discarded (dreadful old fashioned things, organ pipes) to make room for the speakers. When you tried to use any of it, there was a mass of crackles and the console lights dimmed. At the time, it was probably at the very cutting edge of technology. I wonder how shocking and dated some of our current activites will seem 40 years from now? I think we should stop; as several have said, there's nobody needs a 32' reed so badly that they can't raise the money for a real one, so it only ever really comes down to having new toys.

That sounds like a wonderful idea. I know our audiences at Romsey were entranced when we were able to show them the feet moving. Particularly important as there is a good 60 feet between the console and the first row of pews. We have started using the screens occasionally in services, too, particularly when the nave is full - it enables those stuck in the outer aisles to be more involved in the service, and also helpful for the disabled and less mobile on occasions when we have processions or parts of the service happening outside. There are also those amongst most congregations who can't see as far as the altar, or the choir during the carol service. Probably not to everyone's taste, but what is?

That seems to be about it - go for a fairly low denominator, then the target is easier to hit. Around my way they are busy cancelling all the courses and workshops (young organists, improvisation etc) at a terrifying rate, and it's thanks to a couple of dedicated individuals taking financial risks that any of the courses will still happen. Where is the leadership in that?