ajt
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Posts posted by ajt
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building (which will be water cooled) but this card is £200-300 and I know is nowhere near the fidelity of a top-end hi-fi amplifier, even if it is much better than most PC sound cards.
I think you're comparing apples with oranges here - a sound card is just a sound source, an amplifier merely, well, err amplifies it, for want of a better word. A decent one should be able to provide very clean and high resolution audio, otherwise they wouldn't be the tool of choice for mobile recording, etc. Something like the M-Audio 192 series is a very capable card, certainly when I've used our school one hooked up to my hifi system I can hear an improvement in detail and separation over my CD player. Admittedly I'm not talking top end hifi, but it's not at the lower end of things either - top end Pioneer gear.
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At best they look like glorified Midi keyboards,
Sorry, but I don't think you can say that - have a look at:
or
Both of those are not what I would call glorified Midi keyboards. Yes, the first one (Daniel Cook's console) has a bit more computer gadgetry than many would like.
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I'm thinking of purchasing an electronic organ for practice at home. I'm on a tight budget and space is limited, so for now, I just want to get a modest, two-manual instrument with built-in speakers. I prefer a digital instrument than an analog instrument, but can make compromise if need be. I have only played on Allen and Rodgers organs, so prefer them over other brands. I have a slight preference for Allen. The Rodgers instruments that I played had decent sounds, but I didn't like the pedalboard.
Do you have any recommendations? As I understand, electronic organs of the same brand vary in quality depending on the time period and where they were manufactured.
Seriously, look at Hauptwerk. It won't be as pretty as a bought in console, but for the cost of a computer, two keyboards and a pedalboard, you can have a fantastic sounding organ (organs). You can buy ready made ones too. I'm in the process of putting together a console, and I reckon that it'll cost me under £400 to have a 2 manual console. Hauptwerk now does a free edition, which is limited to the number of ranks it can play at any one time, but there are a surprising number of instruments available that work on the free edition. My current plan is to buy a 2m Silbermann sample set and use the free edition until funds let me get a paid edition and Salisbury.
The basics are a really easy to put together - buy 2 midi keyboards off ebay (£60 each), plug 'em into your computer via USB, and you've got two manuals up and running straight off. Pedalboards are slightly more complicated in that you either have to buy them already midified or do the electronics yourself. Pre-done, you're looking at about £350 - http://www.classicorgans.co.uk/Pedalboards.htm
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I probably preside over one of the most successful efforts in the UK
I've always admired your modesty, Colin :-)
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I have said before on this forum that I consider myself a competant organist, capable of turning out a reasonable recital every so often and accompanying liturgies to the satisfaction of congregations and clergy alike. But am I alone in finding that I get excited discovering a new piece either by hearing it on the radio or a CD or learning of it from others (such as on this discussion board) and then buying the score and if not able to play it after two or three readings getting really disheartened? It might be my advancing age of course, but when I was studying first piano and then organ sight reading was always a strong - nay often pass-mark clinching - attribute. Not that sight reading any piece means that it can be played to recital standard of course. I suspect it is that I no longer have the discipline that was drilled into me when I was having lessons. Thoughts would be very welcome. Encouragement and suggestions even more so.
Peter
I'm the same - I've not learnt a new piece properly since I sat my last exam, back when I was 15. If I can pretty much get through it on a sight-read, then with a few repetitions get it pretty much ready to play, then I'll play it after chapel at school, then roll it out on a sunday morning at church. Anything that requires more work than that just doesn't get learnt - I have about 15 minutes in a good week to practise, most weeks I just don't, which is a sad state of affairs, but a fact of life when teaching and being a houseparent.
I find that I can get through most "English" music in this way, but a lot of the French repertoire I haven't bothered buying, sadly, because I know I will never learn it properly, and if I do buy it now when I'm not practising, then it'll get "learnt" in a completely inaccurate way, so I'd rather just not learn it at all than create a mockery of the original. The exception being Franck, generally.
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Opening Voluntary - silence
Introit - Keep me as an apple, Fielding
Responses - Shephard
Office Hymn - hymns make evensong too long. Should be omitted, just like the sermon.
Psalm - hmm... 18, possibly. Coram Chant maybe?
Canticles - Tomkins 5th
1 or 2 Anthems - Hear my prayer Purcell. Dum Transisset Taverner
Two Further Hymns - see above.
Concluding Voluntary Any Bach trio sonata.
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But it will the end of civilisation if that gets out!
;-)
Paul
It's quite easy to capture any audio stream - there are many legal apps out there to do it; Audio Hijack on the Mac, for example. However, I believe (as I'm sure most others on here do) that if you're prepared to go that much trouble to pirate a sound file, why not buy the track for 79p ?
2 things would improve Spotify for me - 1. Adverts are fine, but can they be related to the music that I'm listening to, or public service (and at a similar volume!) 2. I'd love a "buy this" link.
(1 I suppose would rely on the record labels being willing to spend money on advertising the kind of music I listen to. Unlikely)
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I am pretty sure that the "Mawgan" you refer to is really St Mawgan in Meneage as opposed to St Mawgan in Pydar which is up near St Columb Major and Newquay. I should give Lance Foy a call - he's a friendly fellow and he will almost certainly know the answer to your questions. I'll PM you his phone number.
Martin.
I think the one you want is N12253, an Osmond creation.
St. Mawgan near St. Columb Major used to have 2 organs, one in the Carmelite convent (a one manual non-descript something, probably built in the early 80's, but with no regular organist apart from myself when home from school), and one in the parish church which is the Hele, as far as I can remember
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Some of us are trying to keep things going.
My School (small town 11-18 comprehenseive) Choirs' choral repertoire this Christmas:
I have no idea what my school are doing for our carol service next Saturday - despite it being held at the church where I'm DoM, I'm not involved except as a member of the congregation. Slightly upset? Moi?
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I presume everyone knows that Alan Thurlow is retiring from Chichester.
Barry Williams
Last I heard he'd committed to another 5 years, but that could just be the rumour mill getting it wrong...
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The standard text on the cathedral by Jones and Freeman has an apostrophy "The History and Antiquities of St David's by W B Jones & E A Freeman ( 1856)" so it must be a result of a 20th centuary slide in standards; perpetuated in many places including the cathedral web site.....
...Doesn't necessarily mean that it's right though - it may be a case of a few Victorian gentlemen deciding that the correct grammatical form was an apostrophe, so sticking one in.
90% of the cathedral printed matter does not have an apostrophe, but the sign on the way back into the city from the north has one, the south doesn't, and nor does the eastern approach. Confusing!
Conducting uphill was an interesting experience too!
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Hi Lee, are you talking about www.organum.org.uk ? If so, glad to hear you like it. It was all hand-coded in a text editor, so there is absolutely no more of it than there has to be, resulting in very quick page loading.
Without wishing to be rude, if you want a hand with website design and coding, drop me a line - whilst the site above is functional, it's not a good advert in that I would expect anyone wishing to market themselves via a website and be taken seriously would make it look a touch more professional. See http://www.stephenfarr.co.uk and http://www.paulspicer.com for examples of what I mean.
As I said, I don't wish to be rude (for some reason you seem to have come under attack since joining the forum, I don't know why - I find it rather saddening), so please don't take it as yet another person having a go ; not my intent, this is a serious offer of assistance if you want it. That said, provided your site does what ( and looks how ) you want it to, then that's all that matters.
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A church at which I play regularly has a toaster with 6 generals on 6 channels, no divisionals, and a spec of Gt 16 8 8 4 4 2 1.1/3 III 8 Sw 8 8 8 4 2 II (sesq) III 16 8 4 Ped 16 8 8 4 16 4
How would YOU set them up for service playing? I have my own schemes, but would be interested to know what others would do.
Rather depends on the size of the building, what you're accompanying, what the tonal qualities are, etc.
But, if it were me, I'd probably have one piston for full organ, one for basic hymn registration (then hand register) so that you can hit it in a hurry, maybe one for swell strings, ped 16, solo flute on great, then various for solo registrations, e.g. swell oboe + acc.
So, mostly hand register, but have generals for the more complex but common stop changes so that you can easily get to a solo stop + acc.
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However, any reasonably 'faithful' realisation of this is also dependent on the instrument on which it is performed.
I know I'm responding to a very old thread, but it has just woken up again...
I recently conducted "Spirit" in St. Davids (I've still not got a satisfactory explanation for why there is no apostrophe) with 9 singers, and David Coram playing - http://www.adriantaylor.co.uk/lauda/st_dav...sday/spirit.mp3 - I think he makes a *very* good job of it...
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Hell...definitely! At an organists' association meeting, a priest once asked me what a collection of organists might be called. Hearing what was going on at that time on the organ in his church, I suggested "A cacophony of organists". I think this is apt for this video!
I still think the collective noun is a bitch of organists.
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...............one of the main reasons I got mine - it does very little that a 'real' organ doesn't. I even tried to get them to replace the 'Auto Bass' thing - where the Pedal plays on the lowest part of the Great - but they couldn't give me anything worthwhile in return!
I'm trying to get a pipe organ back into my church - currently getting objections from one of my stand-in organists, because it won't have a pedal->great coupler like the copeman hart does. Grr!!!
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Isn't it interesting this? I asked a simple question and over half the replies are nothing to do with the question I asked. Wouldn't it be good if folks could stick to the topic?
In which case you should have not posted that here and instead added it to the "stick to the topic" thread elsewhere.
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Just to say that I totally agree with the above comment. It's sometimes frustrating when one is trying to find some information and only to find the topic talking about something completely different within the first few responses and often by the same people. It's guess it's always a risk in having a board like this as it is open to jo public.
Is this a "discussion board", or a reference library?
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I think this unfairly maligns the workaday firms, who are, after all, constrained by their customers' budgets. You don't go to a Jaguar dealer if all you can afford is a Skoda,
Actually, you do. The Jag X-type prices overlap the Skoda Octavia's by about 7k. Having had both, I much prefer the Skoda!
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We're all busy people, I know, with little time for such tidy-mindedness. The answer surely is to start a new topic - preferably with some sort of cross-reference - if you want to introduce new material in the course of a reply to an existing topic.
Sorry, but I think doing that will stifle a lot of discussion on here.
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I wonder how many on this forum have read today's "The Times" and spotted the following letter? Any thoughts?
I really can't see how replacing organ accompanied music with instrumental accompaniment helps the church or worship... One of the benefits of the post-Victorian organ is that it is versatile enough, in the right hands, to provide a convincing alternative to an orchestra when orchestral colour is required - at the cost of a single person ; I can't imagine any cathedral would find it easy to fund a whole orchestra/ensemble of any worth...
I think this guy's really misunderstood the appointment - just because they've not appointed an organist doesn't mean that the whole establishment is going to turn on its head ; all it means is that they think that appointing a professional choir director to direct the choir and leave the organ to the organists is the right thing to do. I'm not entirely sure I agree with it - the current assistant -> DoM moves give the advantage of, effectively, studying at first hand how to train boys (and/or girls), which is a very different skill to training adult choirs. I don't know if the new man at St. Paul's has that experience or not (Carwood, is it?) - I know very very little about him, so this isn't meant as a criticism of him ; he may have that experience in spades.
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It could be worse. Did you ever hear about Mr and Mrs Soul who called their children Bob, Dick and Becky?
I have encountered a gentleman called Isaac Cox. Unsurprisingly, he uses his middle name.
There is a lady here at work (she's in the US) called Fonda Cox, which often amuses.
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I think that's a little unfair and negative. David Owen Norris is renowned for his interest in old keyboard instruments and has gathered quite a collection of old instruments at the university, including a square fortepiano, a Broadwood grand within 100 of the one sent to Beethoven, a Clavichord, etc. He is very keen for people to use them and experience playing them and his research on the piano music of Mendelssohn and CPE Bach with the split damper on period Broadwoods is very interesting. So I think the energy and enthusiam remains. In fact, the music department has probably never been better at Southampton than it is now.
Unfortunately, the music department has very little to do with the running of the concert hall and the organ. The concert hall is run as a separate business, so the music department has to book and, I believe, pay for, time in the hall. The organ is pretty hard to get on - I worked 2 floors above the music dept for a number of years, and I was only able to get in to practice on that organ twice, despite playing for university carol services, chamber choir concerts, etc.
DON is very good news, but his keyboard collection and remit doesn't extend to the Turner Sims.
That's as maybe, Colin, but we see little effort payed to the organ - and little concert programming on it either!Every time I have played it there has been a serious fault with it. The last time was the Haupt. Principal 8' which just didn't work. Fat lot of good when there is so little else (Rohrflote and Gamba) from which to choose!
The last big choral concert in there had a toaster shipped in!
That used to be, and may still be, that the TSH management believed the organ was theirs to control, until such time as it needed maintenance, at which point they handed the bill over to the music department. Also, because so few people actually get on it, because the place is often in use for other stuff and because, frankly the TSH were (are? I don't know) so obstructive about getting on the organ, there is noone to tell them that it needs work. In fact, I don't know who an organist *would* tell if they found something wrong.
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Electronic Practice Organ
in General discussion
Posted
Actually, I'm mostly using a 10 stop sample set, and practising on very few stops. I don't actually care about the number of stops, I care about how it sounds. There is absolutely no way I can have any instrument that actually speaks out loud - I live in the middle of a boarding house; girls boarding immediately below (and last night they complained they could hear my wife's flute), boys just outside the door...
Everybody has different needs/pleasures when it comes to playing and practising - yours is a perfectly valid viewpoint, but others simply want an organ they can fiddle with at home and enjoy the colours it makes, etc. Others enjoy playing large instruments. Some enjoy the whole gadgetry/tinkering thing, and some want to be able to practice on as close as they can get to a cathedral organ in their living room. Horses for courses.
To whoever it was said that Hauptwerk organs are impressions - yes, they are, to a certain extent; I would suggest it's more like playing a CD recording of the real organ, which has both good and bad points. Bad points; it's still not a pipe organ and the sound you get is not the same as you get at the console. Good points; the sound you get is still a damn sight better than most other digital instruments around, and if, for example, you play the Salisbury organ for real occasionally, having the organ sound like the organ actually sounds at the entrance to the Choir, rather than how it sounds up in the loft can help you with balance, etc.
I think many people on the Mander forum might get offended by the idea of Hauptwerk-style instruments; we tend to give the impression of being a bunch of purist (even elitist?) types who scorn "fake" instruments. I don't think anyone who has tried or owns a Hauptwerk instrument would say that they would prefer it or that it is a substitute for the real thing (assuming the "real thing" is a decent instrument), but it's about as good as it gets at the moment in terms of sound. The console interaction is not for some. Personally I was dead against electronic instruments of any sort, particularly as I've now had the "pleasure" of being DoM of 2 churches with toasters, but having tried Hauptwerk for myself, I actually ENJOY playing that little 10 stop sample set from Haverhill (Binns); just playing the Gt Flute on its own is something I regularly do and enjoy. I prefer it to playing the 2m 1911 Norman & Beard I have downstairs from me, which is sacrilege, I know.
I think it's interesting to note that an organist of the standard of Daniel Cook has embraced Hauptwerk fully (that 4m console above is his), and I hear rumour that another cathedral (not too far from Salisbury) assistant who lurks on here has similar plans...