MikeK

I wonder if it is the same Viscount that was installed temporarily in Winchester Cathedral earlier this year? I didn’t like the sound there also!

An interesting topic & pertinent to my own experience. I recently changed my Phonac hearing aids to Oticon ones, on the recommendation of my hearing specialist. These are superior to my previous aids in all respects, bar one, organ music! Anything above around 400hz has a tremolo effect, which has so far proved impossible to remove, despite various tweaks by my hearing specialist & Oticon. I am awaiting the next tweak! In the meantime I resort to my old Phonac aids when playing or listening to the organ.

Surely, the equipment installer can advise you the best monitor?

I realise you stated you would be happy with the digital time delay, however, other players, your successor might not be. Trying to follow a conductor whose beat can be seconds ahead of you is fraught with difficulties. Cannot a ‘stand alone’ analogue system be installed?

I will admit to feeling uneasy about honours being awarded to people for just being good at their job. Surely we should all be striving to do that? An award for services beyond the call of duty I can live with.

Any decent DIY shop should be able to supply suitable blocks to your measurements.

D. Cecil Williams was organist at St. Mary’s, Southampton from 1936 until the 1970’s. He was responsible for the installation of the new organ in the rebuilt church, which had a remarkable likeness in specification to The instrument in All Souls, Langham Place, both being built by Willis111 around the same time.

Perhaps the new incumbent will continue the tradition?

I beg to differ! I thought the Parry balance was about right, bearing in mind what you hear is what the sound engineer wants you to hear. Microphone placement is critical & the only way to really judge the balance is to be there & experience it live, not through a set of speakers.

I seem to remember being told that when the organ was worked on in 1990, a condition attached to a grant given by English Heritage(?) stipulated that the action was restored & not altered. I wonder if any such conditions have been attached to the proposed works?

How refreshing to hear a Choral Matins this morning from Ipswich. Well sung with ‘proper’ music, & a sermon worth listening to for a change!

I fear that a lot of the skill needed to be a good organist has been lost over the past 20 years or so, one such skill was the ability to adjust ones playing to suit the building & acoustics. Console management, or the lack of it, is partly to blame in my opinion. At a recent recital I attended, the whole program was played on one manual with all registration & manual changes being done with the aid of an assistant pressing the sequencer advance piston. Even the music was on an iPad, with pages being ‘turned’ by a piston! The management skills of organists like Harry Gabb, for example are now in short supply & sadly missed.

I understand the Makin was donated.

Anyone know what is happening here? The church has been 'adopted' by HT Brompton & my spy tells me there are organ pipes stored in the south aisle. Let's hope that the long awaited rebuild of this Willis 111 is underway. I have a soft spot for this organ, having had lessons here from D Cecil Williams, which culminated in me taking up music professionally in the late 1960s

This house has been on the market for some time & was the subject of earlier web discussion.

You could always contribute something yourself!

Goodness me! Someone needs to lighten up & get out more! I suggest most sensible people will know exactly what is meant by 'twangy bangy music. '

I would be interested to know how you managed to record the King's Service if you don't have a licence?

To misquote Oscar Wilde; 'To lose one organist is unfortunate, to lose 3 is unforgivable'!

See https://www.churchofengland.org/media/20084 for the latest info, regarding 'exercising' the organ.

An interesting topic, but am I alone in thinking it is posted on the wrong forum. or is it being suggested that when playing Bach the organ should be tuned in a similar way to that suggested by David? The piano in the church where I play can be tuned in about an hour, whereas the organ takes almost 2 days!

This topic was covered in a topic started on 5 Feb. 2017. Since then I have been using a pair of Resound Linx 2. 961 aids. They were not cheap but are a vast improvement on the nhs ones I was originally prescribed. As has already been mentioned, what is suitable for speech is unlikely be suitable for music, particularly the organ. It is possible to adjust the settings to suit via an iphone & then save both these & the location, this is about as good as it gets! They are not perfect but at least the organ no longer sounds like a badly out-of-tune fairground one!

I seem to remember seeing a demonstration of an app that enabled the organ to be tuned single handed. It also allowed the player to check balances etc. away from the console by controlling the playback facility. With Facetime I wonder if I could work from home?!

David Lang was indeed the Organist of St Mary the Boltons. I was assistant organist there in the 1960's whilst studying at one of the London music colleges. The organ was a revelation to me as I had not experienced another instrument like it up to then. it took no prisoners & demanded very clean articulation, every mistake & fudge was obvious, just what an organ student needed! The detached console was placed immediately in front of the expressive box with it's glass shutters & the choir sat to the right of the console, so everything was 'immediate.' I understood from David that this organ was the last to be built by Compton & Johnie Degens. The schamei stop was certainly there in my time, & I would have thought the substitution of an oboe would not have been in keeping with the rest of the tonal scheme. MikeK

I agree! We also use Fothergills & have found them very thorough & reliable.