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ajt

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Everything posted by ajt

  1. Isn't that so often the case? We're expected to go into schools and recruit, do funerals in the middle of day, weddings on Fridays, weekday evening services, plus run the choir, plan the music, and do the usual selection of Sunday services. I would hazard a guess that many churches are still paying £1800 a year, as per Category B rates in about 1999... I was widely (actually, not widely, 1 person with a loud voice) criticised in a post I had a few years ago for NOT going into the local primary school to recruit. Given that i) I have a day job, because there's no way being an organist in the average parish can provide a living, ii) the primary school in question only went up to 7, I was pretty ****** off. I know churches don't have much money, and that many of us don't do it for the money, but c'mon, it's time to start at least pretending to pay properly, or realising that the day of the parish organist being a profession have been over for a long time! (Not all posts, obviously, but even, say Romsey Abbey, doesn't pay anywhere near enough to allow you to give up the day job - it would take a LOT of supplementing to get anywhere near acceptable). My belief is that those with either the right experience and/or qualifications should be looking at salaries based on teachers' payscales - I don't mean pay us £30k per year or whatever, I mean look at the hours we do, work out how that relates to a teaching job, say 1/4 of a job or whatever, then pay accordingly. Woosh - where are those pigs flying to?
  2. I have never heard of this happening elsewhere. My usual experience of churchwardens on power trips (which this sounds like) is that they are usually "out to get somone", and should be shot on sight. If I were you, I'd try to find out exactly why they think it's a good idea (PCC minutes would be a good place to start), and find who they're targetting and why. Of course, I could be completely wrong, and you just have a management consultant on the PCC You might also want to have a chat with the area Archdeacon about the churchwardens getting ideas above their station. An appraisal can be either a positive or negative thing, though. Any half decent appraisal will concentrate on the things that you do well and developing you in areas that you and "your manager" deem you need improvement in. It's presumably the case that the churchwardens don't have any expertise by which to judge your professonal abilities? Do they have any management experience? If the answer to both is NO, then you really can't be appraised by them. I would also hazard a guess that you are employed neither by the churchwardens, nor the vicar. Most organist appointments are made by the PCC - the vicar might make the selection, but the PCC has to approve it, rather like Parliament and the Queen passing Acts .. Any appraisal, if you're going to have one, should be performed by the vicar and a representative from the PCC (presumably the churchwardens are the appointed representatives in this case). Most organist contracts are with the PCC - therefore the PCC has the power to hire and fire.
  3. Unknown what the future is at St. Mary's. Current deal is 2 trad and 2 worship songs per week, vicar would like a more contemporary Anglo-Catholic worship style, so I've recommended that they produce a very tight job spec to get the right candidate. The problem is, of course, that this stlye of worship/music is in conflict with the very traditional choir (of about 4) who will probably all remember you, given that many of them remember the previous church...
  4. Jeremy Blandford? The accounts I've heard were, err, that it was a mushy blur! Not mine for much longer - I finish on Easter Day.
  5. Swell strings + 16' Dulzian + 8' Hautboy + Sub + Octave (box half shut) accompanied by Pedal Contra Tuba 32 (box shut), 32' acoustic bass and selection of 16'. Whatever you do, don't open the choir box on this registration ('cos the Contra Tuba turns into a road drill and obliterates the first 5 rows of the congregation)
  6. I'm surprised you haven't got in the car already ...
  7. What's actually wrong with it, apart from the swell to great thing?
  8. I don't think that's especially true. There's a fairly large difference between score-reading to play it on the organ, and score-reading to conduct an orchestra - with the organ playing, you have to read many lines simultaneously. Conducting, you're looking at a picture ; if you're really following each individual line and transposing each part as required, then I would suggest you're not paying enough attention to guiding the music and the orchestra. Being able to play a score and being able to say to the bassoons, in your own time, "that F in bar 147 is an F# " are quite different skills.
  9. I thought Angelicas were always meant to be flat, Celestes sharp?
  10. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/col...icle1522558.ece ?
  11. Do you by any chance have a link to this article?
  12. Just one, but they do it with their feet.
  13. We certainly enjoyed singing it - the altos were milking it for all they were worth (which isn't much !).
  14. great and pedal pistons? I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean should General Cancel cancel out "Gt & Pedal Pistons Combined"? If so, I prefer it if it's left alone by general cancel.
  15. Yes, I do, quite often. I don't like the final section ; doesn't feel particularly Bach-y to me.
  16. Yup, my church gives me the morning off and uses the gospel choir instead.
  17. Where does the Turner Sims bag of whistles sit on the scale of major instruments by Collins? it had the console modernised a while back, but I didn't think much else got done?
  18. I used the Pedals Off rocker switch for the first time ever this morning - for a pedal free verse in Rockingham... Works quite well!
  19. Remind me of the coupler layout at Truro, Robert? The Willis III I play has the couplers in the standard HWIII way, on tabs under the music desk, which I hated at first, but am now finding very convenient - things like jumping up on to the swell and being able to sort out couplers as you play without removing hands from manuals, e.g. killing gt to ped as you hop up, or adding ch-ped 4' for a nice pedal solo accompanied by strings that can cut steel from 30 paces.
  20. One I use rather a lot - it has the added benefit on my own organ that the stops never go off together, so you get a nice subtle decrescendo The great is particularly good at that this, the order's not perfect, but if you had, say OD 1 2 3 out, and hit cancel, they go off as 1, 3, 2. (the double never bloody goes off - takes about 5 seconds of continous jabbing at the cancel to get it to go in) Unfortunately using div cancel on the swell is not an option - every time you hit a swell piston you get a flash of Hautboy for the duration of the button press.
  21. I have a setter button on a 1950's console, which uses 1930's Skinner technology to do this, albeit quite slowly and not particularly reliably.
  22. Pedal On/Off - pointless The doubles, I've never used, but it could, I guess be used musically. Boldre, in the New Forest. Small church, crappy old 80's toaster (Copeman Hart), great vicar, choir of around 30ish, with kids. A growing church too. Fortunately someone has offered a grant to get the toaster updated. Still not the same as a mighty HWIII.
  23. I use mine a fair amount, not least because the general cancel is uselessly slow. I use the choir 0 a lot - I have 1-4 setup for general accmpt, 5 (Corno di Bassetto) & 6 (Orchestral Oboe) for solos, which means that if I want to use other solo stops, it's handy to be able to hit 0, then hand draw what I want, rather than cancel a whole pile of stuff by hand. Sniff. Only 5 services left for me on this lovely old girl.
  24. I have an excellent disc of Keith Jarrett and Michala Petri playing Bach recorder sonatas, KJ on the harpsichord. He's not just a jazz musician.
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