innate

There are many different systems and they can be confusing. For a start there's confusion over whether a pitch or a key is intended. Often pedal notes are treated as though they are inherently an octave below the manuals so the lowest note is written CCC (compared to the lowest note of the manuals being CC); but perhaps the lowest note of the Pedal 8' Bass Flute is CC. I'm no expert but generally which note is meant can be deduced by context. Continental builders often use a system that goes c c' c'' c''' etc. North Americans, I think, have another.

And even if we were to discount specific sounds that would still leave the sound world that Bach inhabited. It is on that basis that I view "original instrument" performances as more authentic than those using modern instruments, whilst accepting that a completely authentic performance is not only impossible but also not necessarily desirable.

Only the other day I received a questionnaire from the Musicians' Union asking for specific information relating to commissions for composing, arranging, and music copying. It is only after seeing the ISM survey relating to organist's salaries and fees that the MU thing makes sense. The MU are still promulgating rates for rehearsal and audition pianists which I find very useful as "markers" (currently £32 per hour). Are all salary scales under threat from the new laws? I was reading about the C of E clergy scales recently. Presumably many professional bodies provide, at the least, some guidance relating to fees. The MU agreements with various organisations eg West End and provincial theatres always specify "these are MINIMUM rates" so don't preclude any musician being paid more, although in practice this is happening less and less; maybe the fact that these agreements are produced jointly by the producers' representatives and the Union make them legally different from a promulgated rate.

Bearing in mind Ouseley's direct involvement with the instrument (I think it replaced the first instrument built for the church as he wasn't happy with it) I would agree that St Michael's would be a prime candidate for sampling. My father was a chorister there, as was my organ teacher. There must be many interesting stories similar to my Dad's, eg singing madrigals after Founder's Day dinner from the original song books with an aged Dr Fellowes and a younger Watkins Shaw and daily sung matins with the Purcell Te Deum split over two consecutive mornings on account of its length. Sidney Nicholson was organist/choirmaster there for a time after the previous organist went to fight in WWII; my Dad said Nicholson had a terrible singing voice.

Maybe we should call them ex-chamades!

I've never been particularly "hooked" on pop music; my childhood exposure was very limited, by my parents as much as anything else. I remember being excited by Life On Mars c.1974. My point is that what makes modern pop music sound the way it does is the way it is made with computers. It would be almost impossible to reproduce the sound of the current top 20 in a live situation with no pre-recorded backing tracks and with no state-of-the-art sound system (including reverb, delay lines, gates, compressors etc.). I'm sure this is attempted in the mega-churches and possibly the leading "Alpha-course" centres, and possibly successfully (on its own terms) too. But I can't imagine this kind of contemporary music being used in many parish churches. At least the Seekers style is fundamentally acoustic, and can be imitated or interpreted quite successfully with a small group of instrumentalists. What I don't understand about many of the songs in, for example, The Source is how the melodies can be learned and sung by a congregation; they seem to be designed for performance by a solo singer with swing- and pop-infections in the pitch and rhythm. Any guidance in this regard would be gratefully received.

What are the spaces in the treble clef, Westgate? Some of us here can barely read or write. Seriously, what is there to add to your original question, after JPM's helpful and candid response? If you want to set up your own organ-related discussion board no one will stop you. Then you can censor replies to your heart's content. Human conversation drifts around and off topic and cyber discussions tend to be just the same. I suggest you choose whether to chill a little and not get too worried by the asides or stop visiting if it upsets you so much. Cordially, innate

Linda Lusardi was a Page 3 topless model in the 1980s. You mean Lucinda Lambton, I think.

I played through a fugue from the "48" this morning with the metronome at quite a fast speed. I forced myself to keep going and it wasn't half as bad as I expected. I think we are possibly more capable than we normally allow ourselves to be; all that unused grey matter etc.

Not exactly; RD might have been saying no organ could perfectly fulfil its main liturgical purposes. Accompanying anglican chant is one thing, leading congregational hymn singing is another, and playing inspiring voluntaries appreciated by all is a third; I would say all three were significant when RD was working at Gloucester. The subsequent years might have extended the liturgical purposes of an English cathedral organ.

Is the Vox Humana really in its own swell box which is in another swell box within the main box of the swell division, therefore under three "leves" of expression? Like, wow!

But JSB must have had a reason for specifying 2 stops rather than a II Sesquialtera so presumably he anticipated using them in various combinations and, I imagine, for solo effects.

This seems rather French to me. Is there another example of such a cornet on a "Bach" organ?

Peter Warlock could have done a stunning harmonisation of Living Lord, or indeed anything! I only have to think of Yarmouth Fair or Bethlehem Down (the voice and organ version) to come over all unnecessary!

You could produce a travesty of Tristan Und Isolde using the same technique. Or Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. Or the Britten Missa Brevis!

Similar for me (without the Australian bit). A failed popstar managed by Epstein in the early 1960s and a psychiatrist convicted of sexually assaulting his patients over a period of many years in the North-East. Oh, and a professor of Classics at UCLA.

I don't know if this should be here or in Nuts & Bolts but here goes: Prompted by looking at Clifton Cathedral's spec: http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=N01276 I wondered how useful you all might consider a third manual, both for liturgy/accompaniment and for recitals/voluntaries. If we took the 26 stops and three manuals of Clifton as a starting point how would that compare in terms of flexibility and scope to, say, the 34 stops and 2 manuals of Hexham http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=N04090 or the 24 stops (also 2 manuals) of the RAM van der Heuval http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=T00351? Are coupling manuals (a third manual with no stops permanently coupled to both of the others) eg at Magdalen, Oxford http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=N09181 useful for hymns and psalms but not much use in the solo repertoire? This is definitely in the idle speculation of a Sunday evening category as far as I'm concerned but I'd love to hear what the team think.

Which eminent Parisian organist described the effect of the, I think, Septieme, on the the Pedal at Notre Dame as "like a muster of [orchestral] double basses"?

The difference between a C-C Hautbois and a C-C Cor Anglais can't be that great, can it? Interesting spec. anyway: is the Voix Céleste two ranks or does is undulate with the Flûte? 6 reed stops out of 18; only 5 of the 11 manual flues are at 8'. Apart from the short compass of the Récit I think I'd love this instrument.

60 is cut-common ¢ or 2/2; 120 is 4/4; they are the same tempo for Colonel Bogey.

I haven't been following this thread; am I allowed to say "I disagree most strongly!"? If the only thing going for Vivaldi was the fact that JS Bach admired his work sufficiently to arrange 4 of his concertos for organ surely that would be sufficient for us to accord him some respect. Of course the Four Seasons are played too often, so they cease to have any surprise for us, but they are brilliantly inventive and combine beauty with harmonic and rhythmic ingenuity and provide a virtuosic challenge at the same time. I'm a big fan of his vocal and choral music too.

This document contains information upon which doubt has been cast, particularly with regard to costs for new pipe organs or rebuilds and maintenance of the previous organ. My feeling is that Trinity Church, with almost unlimited budget, has done the pipe organ community a terrible disservice. There is also something I can't quite express in connection with the 9/11 attacks that makes me feel uncomfortable.

I was under the impression that the state-of-the-art toaster in New York City's Trinity Church, Wall Street cost significantly more than £100K.

New UK legislation is being introduced concerning claims made in advertising and other promotional material which will, apparently, go some way to ending theatrical producers' misuse of selective quotations from bad reviews. I wonder if the same legislation could cover misleading claims in programme biogs? CV "distortions" that remain private are, of course, a different matter.

The thread about the Eule organ at Cleveland Lodge made me wonder about the Peter Collins organ at Addington Palace. I remember playing the Leighton Paean to Nicholas Cleobury on it when I was about 16 and the next few years of my life probably turned out the way they did as a result. NPOR merely states "tranferred elsewhere". Any ideas?