ajt

My point is that the church is a business as much as anything else, so in many ways the same rules apply.

Call me cynical, but isn't the church *really* all about money? When was the last time you heard about Anglican church that thought it had enough money?

Now *that* is an acoustic to die for. My wife and I went for a walk there with a couple of other singing friends, and popped into the Abbey - we found an Oxford Tudor Anthems lying around and sang through a few. It was like having another 40 voices with us - absolutely marvellous.

Depends how bad the extant pipe organ is. Even then, you've got to assume that you've got the basis of something salvageable that's able to be turned into a usable musical instrument. There are a few pipe organs I've played where I've wondered if would be possible to do *anything* to make them musical, but I'm sure a competent organ builder with a limited budget could make something.

These days, you have different species - the competent organist and choirmaster, and the downright reluctant and not very good who don't have a clue how to run a choir, and . I know that's a broad generalisation, but... When you add in that most village churches with a decent choir will still only pay for an "organist" - i.e. someone to direct the choir and play the organ, the situation gets complicated. Then factor in that there are almost certainly FEWER competent organists and choirmasters than there are jobs. We can then pick and choose. So, if you've got the choice of church with an ok choir and a very small organ, or a church with an ok choir with a more exciting organ (and I don't mean a toaster), which one will you choose? (Assuming all other factors are equal) Personally, given the choice between a small pipe and a good but larger (and I don't mean stupidly large, I mean say 2 manuals, 16 stops as opposed to 1/2m 8 stops) toaster, then I'd go for the toaster. My repertoire is limited - I have not grown up with small instruments, the ABRSM grade system is not setup for repertoire for small instruments, and I don't have the talent and sheer love of playing that someone like David does to revel in playing on a single 8' stop for a year. I'm not in favour of ditching real organs for toasters. But, given the choice of replacing a toaster with another one or a pipe organ, then the choice is trickier.

I got asked the same question only yesterday. Followed by someone asking me why I had to make so much noise... The christmas tree decorators elected to decorate the tree whilst I was playing my voluntary, clanging around with ladders and shouting to each other. So we had a sudden shift to the tune on full pedal reeds (32/16/8/16) ... When will people realise that the voluntary, no matter how crap it is, is, for us organists, part of the service?

I like the tempo. However, I think it's interesting that for much of the hymn the congregation (or is it choir?) is flat. Verse 1 is probably the best in this regard - my ears and laptop speakers aren't quite good enough for me to work out the registration differences, but the v1 registration sounds a bit brighter, which, in my experience, is the thing that helps congregations stay in tune. Lots of 8' tone doesn't help some differentiate between what they're singing and where the tune really is. Same reason why some choirmasters advocate playing along staccato and an octave below when teaching tunes to trebles - they can more readily hear the pitch when it's not in the octave that they're singing.

I think he said Mac OS 10.4.6, which means Safari 2.0.4, I believe. innate - you might want to try using a different browser that relies on WebKit for a bit - Safari uses WebKit to render pages, etc, so by testing a different WebKit based browser (the mozilla browsers use Gecko, not WebKit), then you can work out if it's Safari or WebKit. There have been quite a few patches to WebKit in 10.4.7 and 10.4.8 plus security patches, so there's a possibility that your problem might be fixed by applying those upgrades.

Safari on a G4 running 10.4.8 works fine for me. I normally use Camino though.

Thomas Williamson at a guess.

Yes, some of the editing is not perfect. However, it's still a bloody good resource for a lot of Renaissance music that won't cost you anything. I've provided the bulk of the music for 5 years worth of concerts from CPDL... All at no cost, except printing. Yes, there are mistakes/typos, but that's easily rectified.

Indeed there are. With most modern capture systems, along with your chosen piston memory, you can specify how you want the GC setup for that specific channel. I don't use the GC much, but it can be very very useful - if you spend a bit of timing knowing what comes on when, then you have quite a lot of control.

No, a Dulzian is a fairly rich contra-fagotto type stop. I have one on my Willis III.

I just went down to B&Q and bought an intruder system - they do wireless colour ones these days... With microphones too, if you want them.

It was quite superb - we had a big (noise, not so much in terms of numbers) choir in, and a good 500+ in the congregation. I've never heard Be Still accompanied by full organ before - awesome.

I suggest that we leave Malcolm Archer's motivations for moving out of the public domain (I'm not criticizing parsfan here - just suggesting that this particular aspect of the discussion stops here) - his reasons were personal, and we shouldn't hint or speculate about them in a public forum. I can't see JSW moving to a number one post - if he were that way inclined, surely he'd have done it before? One thing's for certain in this new set of shuffles ... I won't be getting a cathedral job Although, I've just had an invitation to take my chamber choir to do Ash Wednesday at Winchester, as Ash Wednesday falls in half term next year...

Now that IS a surprise. Blimey. We're doing well down here then, with Malcolm Archer going to Winchester and Stephen le Provost at Twyford School.

I also played it a few times back in the late 80's, when I was first starting out on the organ. It was not only a lovely instrument, as I recall, but a rare treat for someone who was more used to 1 or 2m Hele organs around the place - my main practice instrument was a tiny tiny tiny 1m thing in St. Eval church, and occasionally the 2m Hele in St. Columb Major (Ivan Rabey was the organist there at the time).

I can imagine AndyL being tempted by Paul's, but it might be a bit soon for him - he's not been at Winchester all that long...

Koopman - Bach Trios No need for any other CD. If anyone knows of any better recording of the Trios, then I'd be interested to know, but this is the one I happen to have...

I love watching people trying to use the ISG's for the first time...

On Sunday I had a really frustrating morning - all the manual to pedal couplers were permanently on, as were a couple of great diapasons. No amount of toggling could fix it. So I e-mailed the tuner, and asked him for an emergency visit. He e-mails back "Have you checked the general crescendo pedal?". What a fool I am - I forgot that the bottom light on the indicator for the GC has been missing for years - I just never touch the thing... Sure enough, I went in tonight, checked that the "faults" were still there. Then I shut the GC... All works perfectly.

I don't think the points that were made above were about clergy versus organist, but more about the fact that when interviewing clergy, almost every parish says "We want to change and grow", but then when the newly appointed person does want to implement "change and grow", the same people who did the interview then turn nasty and dig their heels in. Personally, I'm all for churches changing and re-inventing themselves. What we see at the moment in many Anglican churches is that the congregations are getting older and older and smaller and smaller. At some point someone has to take the brave step (like the new Archbishop of York) of saying "You old folk aren't what we're about any more". That's not to say that they aren't valued and should be driven away, but there's no point in continuing to run the church into the ground to keep a bunch of people who are not going to be with us much longer happy. Brutal, but the reality is that if we keep aiming our worship at the older generation, then we will be left with empty buildings. Many places try a middle ground, but that doesn't really please anybody.

Quite. One of those completely pointless and circular arguments. Exactly - why not use it if you can? There's a reason these things were invented - to make our lives easier.

A former vicar boss of mine, when quizzed how he was getting on a year into the new parish, said "Oh, just watching". 2 years on... "Still watching".