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ajt

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Everything posted by ajt

  1. Fair enough - being a proper geek, I still argue that that 640MB is still not generating power - it's storage. The tone generation being done by the card using the stored sample. It matters not - just me being pedantic I'm assuming that you (bombarde32) and I have met fairly recently ?
  2. That Wyvern monster is a Bradford system based organ - i.e. all the sounds are generated (think synthesized) from something like 24 tones, whereas their new ones (which use the Phoenix system) are all sampled from real organs. I'm currently researching toaster builders for my new church, and Phoenix seems, so far, to be offering me what I want, although I haven't talked price yet, except with one company (who shall remain nameless) who wanted us to pay them to come tell us what they could offer us, tantamount to charging us to allow them to sell us something. I'm intrigued by bombarde32's statement of "over 640Mb of generating power". Assuming that MB means megabytes, all that is is storage. i.e. how much space is used by samples. No power or generation involved.
  3. I've put 'em down in the hope that the cantor will do his usual trick of going up a 3rd (ish)... Revenge... I was due to play for a friends' wedding a couple of years ago, on a lovely 3m Hill... They'd insisted they wanted a CD to go out to. Until the night before, when the announced they wanted Widor V (which I can't really play - I just busk the first and last pages). I was booked in for practice the morning of the wedding, so thought that would be fine for an "artistic impression" of the piece. Anyway, I turn up at the church, to be met by the caterer (reception in church), "'scuse me, mate, 'ow many are comin' to this like, and what time, and when do me ingredients arrive". I spent the whole ****ing morning sorting out the reception. Bloody marvellous. Finally I get, literally, 5 minutes on the organ, before the choir turn up. As I'm rattling through the Widor, the vicar comes up and says "Can you play it a bit quieter at the end of the service, please, as the congregation won't be able to talk over it..." Talk over it? Talk over it! Talk over it, my xxxx. Came to the service, and, having been holding back all the great reeds for the final passage in rehearsal, I thought bollocks to taste, and just pulled out everything. The couple loved it. Or, at a former church with a toaster, when a particular git of a visiting clergyman complained that the organ was far too loud the last time he came (because the speaker installation faces the clergy stall directly, and doesn't speak very well down the church, you have to keep the revs up), we used the Gt Dulciana alone for the first 2 hymns. On announcing the 3rd hymn we got "As this is one of my favourites, I wonder if the organist would mind letting rip with this one?". Response: Trompette en Chamade and Pedal Trombone only. (Chamade on a Toaster = the worst noise imaginable. Think of a hundred babies screaming)
  4. ajt

    Faults First

    I think you can have "rogues" in any trade - I would never accuse any of the organ builders I know of questionable practices like that ; you have to have some trust and assume that the people you're doing with have integrity. Indeed, most of the people I've dealt with in the organ world have integrity in abundance. This may seem to contradict what I've been saying on this thread, but I don't believe it does - the practice of charging for hours "not worked" (i.e. paying from the moment the tuner leaves his house) is not down out of malice or an intent to rip people off, it's done because the business practices of much of the organ building/tuning world are stuck in another age.
  5. ajt

    Faults First

    That's partly my viewpoint, but really paying the costs isn't my major beef - the cost will get passed onto the client somehow - it's the "contract us for a day's work, but we'll only be there between 11 and 3, and we have to have lunch and a cuppa, then we'll say we didn't have time to sort xx out" attitude that really gets my goat. [various edits] And that twaddle about paying for a lifetime's expertise... That is the same in any service you engage. A carpenter, a plumber, etc. I don't pay them by the hour from the moment they leave the house. Hell, even my services are the result of a large investment in training and experience. I don't charge my hourly rate for the hours 9-11 and then not turn up to 11, and leave at 3. If I did, I'd be charging £2000 for 4 hours work.
  6. ajt

    Faults First

    I don't see how organ building is any different from any other trade, except that you're usually dealing with the most parsimonious clients you could think of, who usually create their own problems!
  7. ajt

    Faults First

    No, you've not pressed wrong buttons - I for one am not wound up about this ; I'm rather enjoying the discussion
  8. ajt

    Faults First

    I completely agree - I wasn't saying that it was "right", but that the economic facts are that churches are increasingly skinflint.
  9. Actually, I came very close to a knife (not for the first time, I must add, but that's a whole other story) whilst practising (a rare event) at Lyndhurst. The "organ" is stuck at the end of the choir stalls, such that the only way out is to either climb over stalls or to walk down the whole length. This particular day, there's a chap who comes up and starts chatting to me whilst I'm playing. But the conversation makes no sense whatsoever, I can't remember the details, but if you imagine that I said "good afternoon" and he replied with "Shepherds' Pie", you get the idea. Anyway, I quickly spotted he was a lump of mashed potato short of his shepherds' pie, and tried to get away in a convenient interval whilst he wandered off to stare intently, rocking backwards and forwards, at a chunk of brickwork. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get my shoes back on before he'd come and stood at the end of the choir stalls, blocking me. He started talking to me about his time in the penguin colony or whatever, and I'm making polite noises, trying to manoeuvre past to escape. At which point I notice he's holding a very large carving knife - one of those awful "The World's Sharpest Knife" things that look like they were invented by a particularly psycho ex-Marine, designed for removing all vital organs with a single flick of the wrist - just casually patting it against his leg. Fortunately, after 45 minutes (no joke) of talking about the Martian cricket team, the poor guy's nasal haeomorrhoids and the fact that he used to be a film star until the penguins started taking all his work, he just wandered off. I then had to walk past the chunk of brick he'd been staring it - only to find a very smelly yellow puddle to clear up.
  10. ajt

    Faults First

    Quite - travel "expenses". Not your full professional hourly rate. BIG difference. That is my bug bear. Why should I, as a "church" (well, not me personally, although I am quite wide, there's probably room for a pew or two), pay for something I'm not getting? Some (and only one of the 3 I've used in my last couple of jobs), still charge a full hourly rate from the moment they leave their house. If I encounter someone like that, I'll either negotiate to try to reach a different agreement - e.g. we'll pay travelling expenses/mileage, but not a working rate, or switch to someone that doesn't do that. Churches are always trying to get something for nothing, and when they do actually have to pay for something, they expect to get what they pay for. Anyone who wants to do work in a church, and expects to get paid for work they're NOT doing, really needs to wake up.
  11. ajt

    Faults First

    I think it's perfectly reasonable for the tuner's employer to pay him from the time at which he leaves the house/factory, but I do not expect to a) be told by his employer that the church is paying him for that travel time, pay for a "day's work" which is in actual fact a day's work less travelling. If I were being sent to Stockholm to a "day's work", then I would, and have, arrive the night before, stay in a hotel and be at the client at the commencement of their working day, and leave either when the client is satisifed that I have resolved their problem (I typically get sent out as a problem solving consultant), or at the end of their working day (or later!). Ok, in my world, the $$$ are higher, hence my company will pay for me to stay in a hotel in Sweden - they're still charging a lot of money for my services, so there's room for manoeuvre. The organ world is not like that. But... tuners don't *have* to travel a great distance, really, assuming that the bigger firms have regional reps, and the smaller firms stay "in area" - if the cost of getting the tuner to site is too high, then reflect that in the quote. I understand where you're coming from, Frank, but I really don't see that this area is problematic at all - it's a practice that's stuck in Victorian times. Churches usually pay for a day's work - that should mean a day's work. Why should we pay for 2-4 hours of work that aren't actually being done? I can understand paying mileage or such like, but not an actual working rate. The cardinal sin, if the tuner is starting their "day's work" from the minute they get in the car, is to say in the tuning book "Unable to deal with due to lack of time" - if they arrive at 11 and leave at 3, this makes me *very* angry.
  12. ajt

    Faults First

    This is one of my bug bears. In the "real world", if you pay someone to do a job based on a daily rate, their day is expected to be 9-5. Not "You pay us from 9, which is when we'll leave the house". Every other business in the world expects to get the full day's work that they pay for, and NOT to pay travelling expenses. If my company is asked by a customer to send me out for a day's consulting, then the client pays the same, regardless of whether I'm going to Inverness, Southampton or Stockholm. They also expect me to turn up at 9. In other words, if they pay for a day's work, they expect to get a day's work. Not a day minus travel time. There are still organ maintainers out there that persist in this stupid practice - when will they come into the 20th century, let alone the 21st?
  13. I'm a committed atheist, but firmly into religion and sprituality, which probably sounds odd to anyone else. I don't get anything out of it myself, but I do believe in create a spiritual atmosphere for others to worship in - that is what I see as my job. I guess you could also say I have religion but not faith. And yes, I vaguely recall singing in a church in Kingswinford, but not sure if it's that one - I was at school in Wolverhampton ; we got out and around a fair bit... I got into the organ and all things church music when I was at Ripon, started having lessons with Robert Marsh on the cathedral organ aged 11/12.
  14. Unlikely. For that matter, do churchwardens or vicars?
  15. This was only 6 years ago! These same guys had a blow up doll, called 'Phyllis (you can work out what it was short for), which they put inside various members of clergy and vicar choral's robe cupboard - imagine the dean being surprised by a 5ft inflatable woman leaping out at him, lips pursed, ready for action! She was last seen run up the cathedral flagpole.
  16. A friend of mine was a choral scholar at a cathedral that shall remain nameless. One evening after a few jars and a curry, a number of the choral scholars and others decided to have a swim in the school pool on the way back to the house... For some unknown reason, someone decided to take a picture of all these lads, tackle out, as it were. They had a copy printed off and slipped inside page 2 of the vicar who was precenting's (not the precentor) copy of the Elizabethan Responses... The intonation "Praise ye the Lord" was indeed preceeded by much choking and surprise. End of the service, the whole choir processes back to the vestry, said clergyman rips off his dog collar, says "b**tard, b**tard, b**tard" in a stern voice at each of the possible culprits, put his collar back on sharpish, bows his head and says "Let us pray"... Hmm, doesn't sound so funny now I've written down!
  17. Who's playing on the Ripoon one? [edit - found the answer : Andrew Bryden ] I have the Lichfield one (Lumsden), and very much enjoy it .
  18. I know many "organs" that sound worse than this... Apart from the completely over the top head movements, and the fact that I just don't like the piece, I thought this wasn't bad...
  19. Apologies if this has been posted before... Shows how suggestion can make indistinct hymn diction look very silly...
  20. You mean appraisal systems in your experience? "Appraisal system" is just two words, not a set in stone process the same the world over - it can be whatever you make it, good or bad. I think we're all leaping on the negative connotations of the phrase. I actually really enjoy appraisals in the work place - it gives me a chance to not only hear about the things I do well, but also to talk about what I can do better. I can also air my frustrations about anything I like, and often get stuff done about it.
  21. But surely there must be some feedback system, otherwise we will never grow in our roles?
  22. I think that's by far the healthiest way of looking at it.
  23. Well, given that well over a year later they still don't have a replacement... If you can tell me what my job title means, then you're doing better than I am! "Mission Critical Escalation Consultant" - now there's buzzword bingo for you!
  24. Good game of buzzword bingo there, MM... Is it now I mention that my job title includes the words "Mission Critical" ?
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