martin_greenwood

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'm sure I'l be able to make use of some of them. What a marvellous resource this forum is!

I came home tonight fully intending to watch SOP which I record on my hard disk player on Sunday, only to find that "her indoors" had indavertantly erased last night. After some quiet gnashing of teeth I tried out this new-fangled iPlayer facility via the BBC website. I have to say I'm really impressed. I was expecting very poor video and sound, particularly given that SOP is a music program. However it was perfectly listenable to peace is restored in our household. The only irritating thing is that the iPlayer recording "expires" after 30 days and becomes unplayable. Give it a go if you haven't tried it already. Oh yes, and better still, it's free.

I'm dep'ing for a number of services during lent and would appreciate some advice on appropriate voluntaries. Am I correct in assuming that it would be appropriate to "tone down" the voluntaries throughout lent? Or is this a progressive from Ash Wednesday onwards, culminating in more sombre and contemplative pieces for Holy Week? Thanks in advance.

Banned for encouraging blatant advertising on behalf of global corporates. Oops, wrong thread.

I've just got through my second music case in the last 12 months. I've tried two different types of nylon-type briefcases for lugging music and organs shoes around in, but both have collapsed under the strain. Can anyone here recommend something suitable to fit both music and shoes, preferably with a sholder strap, and which won't cost the earth?

OrganAssist does something similar(ish) to what Contrabombarde is describing. See the "Translate pieces for other organs" link on their website.

Reminds me of a story told by a friend who is an AB examiner who was doing some examinng in Hong Kong. She asked a particular cnadiate to play a variety of major and minor scales , to which the candidate responded by playing a G major scale time after time. Upon querying this with the candiate, their fluent English apparent at the start of the exam completely abandoned them in favour of Cantonse.

And on a similar vein, Q. What's the difference between a Radox bath and xxxxxx? (for xxxxxxx substitute appropriate conductor/music director) A. One bucks up your feet, and the other ...

That's how I read it too. If you above the board in how you file your tax returns, then whether or not the IR choose to investigate is neither here nor there - there won't be anything untoward for them to find.

I wonder how does it work in practice with considerations such as adding fingerings, articulation? Must you have written these before you scan the original sheet music onto the system? Or can you "write" on the music using the display itself much the way you can scribe on some of these personal organisers? You could take it even further and have different "channel settings" enabling different players using the same music to write their own annotations and select their particular copy when they use the music stand. Not sure how useful this is but might be helpful in a music school situation. I could imagine it being useful for a string section in an orchestra if the stands were all linked up, so that the conductor/leader could mark bowings and dynamics on one copy and it would appear as if by magic on all the other player's copies. However I suspect that such devices will go the way of bread-making machines i.e. used a few times then appear later on eBay or at a car boot sale.

I guess this adds a new dimension to the colloquialism, "pushing up the daisies".

You can always selectively quote a section from a previous post (see above). Just do a Qoute / Reply but then delete anything irrelevant in the quoted text.

What's ET short for? 'Cos he's got little legs.

In the absence of a Zimbelstern (sp.?), I'm planning on making do with a chorister and hand-held jingle bells by way of intro for Sleigh Ride. A bit naff maybe, but should do nicely for a conclusion to the Christingle service.

I think of this as the Curse of the Conscientious. It's because we care deeply about doing the best job we can "despite", that we end up in these situations where we feel we have been taken for a ride. Of course, it's not to say that weren't a few people in the congregation/audience who did not appreciate the skill of the organist. It's just that not many of them would make the effort to come and tell you so after the performance. Over the last year I have become a little more battle-hardened in this respect, and if I sense the potential for such a situation arising I have politely declined to participate due to "prior commitments".

Judging by the blank zombified looks on the majority of their faces, these habitual shoppers are paying no attention to it whatsoever.

I can recommend a method not to use for warming fingers, namely sitting on your hands. From my recent experience this only yields partial success. True, my fingers no longer felt cold, however this had little to do with their increased temperature and more to do with the fact that they had lost all sense due to lack of circulation. Needless to say the subsequent playing had a certain random element to it.

What a fascinating morning spent at the workshops. On one hand I wish I'd brought my family along to see it too, but on the other I would never have got away with spending the best part of the morning there. It was truly illuminating and the craftsmen were all so enthusiatic and willing to share their knowledge and love of their work. Huge thanks to all involved in hosting this day.

That's exactly how I'd read it too. I was half expecting another posting enquiring if anyone had a white transit van for sale.

My favourite has to be the beer bottle organ Though I can imagaine it going sharp farily quickly - hic

Completely mis-interpreted the subject of the post. Was expecting someone's thoughts on the 20 best organ wall-posters Not even sure such things exist.

Looks like there might be a second hand copy available from Roger Molyneux's cuyrrent 2nd hand catalogue. See here

I'll second the point about when sung with an orchestra accompanying. Fluffy maybe, but like a top notch pop song, it's masterful for what it is. Often with a populist highly accessible piece of music, you can listen to it once or twice and the novelty wears off. Rutter seems to have a knack of creating immediately likeable compositions but which can wthstand repeated listening.

A composer of carols called Rutter, Was for many choirs their bread and butter, Though some preferred Wilcox, (Green, orange or blue) 'cos, S-S-Starlight brings on such a stutter.

For me this is all part of the "danger" of a live performance. Obviously you don't want to pay good money to anxiously await the completion of a piece without too much more going wrong. But on the other hand, if you want a guaranteed safe performance then buy a recording. Living outside a major city, I have occassionally experienced professional musicians who turn up with a far more laissez faire attitude to their performance then they would dare to exhibit in, say, London. They do themselves no favours pulling such stunts, since it's a small musical world and provincial music festivals avoid such musicians like the plague. The odd glitch during a live performance I can excuse, but a sloppy performance is disrespectful to the paying audience.