innate
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Posts posted by innate
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How many of us have written posts, critiques of services we have been at, and come rushing home full of bile to write, what we thought was a witty piece. I'm afraid that I am guilty of that, and of course wrote a description of our Christingle service - full of fury etc. Needless to say, it was over the top, and in doing this have managed to offend members of my church who look at this site. Needless to say, I regret this very much, and despite appearances really enjoy playing at the church, even if I don't agree with everything that is said and done (but who does!).
In this season of goodwill, perhaps it might be a good idea to consider what we write - especially after a bad day at church or the office.
Compliments of the season to you all!
An exceptional man, who happens to be both a friend and a C of E priest, once counselled me to write an angry letter and then put it in a drawer!
I guess that's what the delete button is for. On this board there should be a General Cancel.
Michael
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I very much agree with the general opinion above. With one or two exceptions, I am not in favour of taking hymns quickly. Whatever happened to nobility?
A hymn is an amalgamation of words and music. Its speed needs to be governed by both. This will vary from hymn to hymn. There is - or should be - no question of "one size fits all". The ideal speed will be one that allows the congregation to give full vent to its lungs while at the same time maintaining the forward movement sufficiently to prevent dragging.
Does anyone play hymns at the speeds RVW advocated in the original English Hymnal? Opening it at random now I see Dix marked c=96, Stuttgart m=66, Crüger m=56. [m=halfnote (blanche), c=quarternote (noir) for our US (francophone) friends].
I have a feeling that average speeds are creeping up generally and also younger players are faster than older ones. Obviously such a trend would have to stop eventually, if not be reversed, but I don't agree that untrained voices require slower speeds than trained choirs. Anyone can sing The Hokey-Cokey or Knees Up Mother Brown at a fair lick.
Michael
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Sorry to waste your time if this is only affecting me. Since the new Invision version has been in operation I am suffering occasional crashes of my browser. This happens only when I am reading posts on this Mander board. I'm using Safari on a G4 PowerBook running 10.4.6. Is anybody else experiencing anything remotely similar?
Michael
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My best memory was first playing at Hull City Hall in the old days, when the last General Piston produced a "Road to Damascus" experience!
"Let there be light!" Followed quickly by, "Bloody hell! Where are my sunglasses?"
MM
Sorry if this has been covered before, but presumably on a large Compton it is possible to make shapes, patterns and even letters and numbers using the lit stops. Using Generals you could have it spell out whole sentences.
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Who can tell from a mere stop list? Surely the question of whether or not it's a dog's breakfast can only be answered after hearing it and, preferably, playing it. Perhaps I'm missing the obvious, but I don't see any obvious lack of integrity in the specification, except that the Solo Organ on paper looks like a Romantic English division grafted onto a fairly typical, all-purpose, modern German spec.
In that respect it is similar to the Marcussen at Tonbridge School:
http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=D02948
and if Marlborough get something half as good as that they should be very happy. IMHO.
Michael
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How ironic you say that
Oh Jesus i have promised works to the muppet show theme. and match of the day
Does it also fit University Challenge?
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I understand it has all been fixed by a team from Austria (I got this update the day the board went down). My informant tells me that:
(1) many trackers distorted and stuck (more than half the pedal ones, which would have been nearest the heat source).
(2) everything above 4' was unusably out of tune (puzzled by this - I naively expected this machine to be cone-tuned, which would surely be immune).
(3) some reed pipes were put completely off their speech.
It was cone-tuned when it was installed. I spent too much time listening to the on-site voicing and tuning, when I should have been writing essays.
Michael
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Very good article in the Church Times about this. The valid point is made that broadcasting midweek sends out the message that Christianity is not just a Sunday phenomenon. The deans of the Association of English Cathedrals have protested that in moving to Sundays there will be difficulties for smaller cathedrals, which could not move morning worship to the nave to allow the broadcasters to set up their equipment in the chancel, and highlighting problems of timing. Sunday evensongs are usually "enhanced" by a sermon but the BBC would not want that. The cathedral organists association is working closely in agreement with them. The Ven Alan Wolstencroft, Archdeacon Emeritus of Manchester, invites all Church Times readers to join him in protesting to Michael Grade.
Perhaps someone should set up an online petition. The points above seem worth making, most particularly the first one. The others are not particularly relevant if there's an option of pre-recording a mid-week evensong for broadcast on a Sunday. Who remembers the occasional sung compline? I'm guessing about 30 years ago. Can't remember if it was on R3 or R4, or which day of the week, but in English and pretty close to that white Order of Compline booklet of a similar vintage!
Michael
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Thinking of King's DoMs, I can't remember who told me that "Daddy" Mann would take a daily early morning bath in the nearest college bathroom to his rooms, which was some distance away, walking in some style attired in his dressing gown. During the winter months this perambulation was too cold so the winter routine was to take a weekly bath at the Great Eastern Hotel, by Liverpool Street Station in London.
I so hope this story is true.
I also heard a story of a collapsing anthem at Windsor during which "Doc" Harris was heard to say "Boys, boys, you're letting me down."
Michael
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Given that the programme is one of those most downloaded on listen again, I'd have thought it highly unlikely that the BBC planned to ditch it?
Might another way of reading the runes be that the move of CE to Sunday might count towards the BBC's obligation to Sunday Christian broadcasting thereby allowing them to drop something else?
Michael
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1. Lots of knowledge required to set the thing up
2. Ease of use for non-technical organists
3. What of future organists - i.e. if you, who set the thing up, move on, what does the poor sod who follows you do with it - will they know enough to keep the thing running?
4. No "professional" support agreement - who do you call on if it goes wrong?
5. Potential for major screwups ; the computer hardware is not solid state, unlike in a proper digital organ.
I'd have thought that the computer technologies involved are pretty much "main stream" for computer audio folk. Finding freelance support on an ad hoc basis would be fairly easy, particularly near big cities.
The chances of a Blue Screen of Death or the Beachball of Death (on a Mac) are, of course, real. I've seen BSODs on train information screens on station platforms. On the other hand, computer audio is used in mission-critical recording and live events these days with almost no second thoughts.
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I had a truly terrible stammer in my early years which has long since gone, but many posters on here would doubtless have found that highly amusing?
I don't think the hurt you felt through bullying and being "poked fun" of ever leaves you in later life, but it does make you, I hope, more human and kind, and obviously people who "make fun" of those with stammers reveal themselves for exactly what they are.... and are not. As a Gentleman, I could not possibly say what I think of such people.
Basically the reason I did not make mention of the previous posts before now, is out of pity.
R
The stories I passed on were supposed to convey that it was the stammerer himself who was having the fun; I was in no way making fun of a stammerer. Maybe they lost a little in translation to the written word. Who was that lovely man on Call My Bluff in the '70s who wrote so humourously about his own stammer and the attempts to cure it? What with you, Blick, and the stiff-shirt from the RCO this board is becoming dangerously serious all of a sudden.
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Ladies and gentlemen
<long apologia snipped>
Whilst the debate contains some genuinely thoughtful views, there are also postings which question the location of office space (someone’s home) and suggest violence. No doubt tongue-in-cheek, but actually rather personal in the context and in my view sufficient to warrant the closure of this forum and referring this to the police.
I hope we all share the mutual aim of strengthening both the College and the overall community of organists for the future. If so, please (i) give the RCO a break and allow it to move forward, (ii) think beyond what it “is offering to me” just now and remember it is a charity not a club and (iii) stand as candidates in the next governance election.
Or resign.
David Saint
RCO Trustee
The suggestion of violence you refer to can't be both tongue-in-cheek and sufficient to warrant the closure of this forum.
Don't assume that all the readers of this thread are currently members of the RCO.
And why should we "give the RCO a break"?
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Oh yes, quite a bad one really. I now recall it being particularly bad on initial "m" as well as "s".
Three famous S-s-s-Sydney W-w-w-w-Watson stammers:
Replying to the enquiry of a finals undergraduate, when Dr Watson was chairman of the examiners: "I have to tell you that you've f-f-f-f-f-passed."
To the choir at the start of a rehearsal before Evensong: "What's on the menu tonight?" <looks at music list> "Ah, m-m-m-m-Me in E."
In a lecture about the Romantic Symphonists: "Now we all know that t-t-t-t-t-Tschaikowsky was a homo-homo-homophonic composer."
On a more organ-related matter, he used to accompany Stanford in A from the orchestral score. Now there's an idea for a more practical ARCO test.
Apologies for any errors in transmission.
Michael
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They actually specify a temperature below which it is legal to refuse to work, which is quite different from it being illegal to work.
Thanks for the clarification, Nick. So, do the Acts apply to churches or not? Presumably if the church was hired for eg a recording session the players could legally refuse to work below the minimum temp.
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Seriously - the church is unheated during the week - the vestry is maintained at 12 degrees, which is the temperature at which we're required to do choir practice, but that's it.
I wonder if employed church musicians, staff and clergy are covered by the various Factory Acts as performers in theatres are. The Acts provide a minimum temperature below which it is illegal to work. There is, unfortunately for theatre musicians, no maximum temperature.
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It is a fact: some of our best cathedral choirmasters are not in 'first division' cathedrals. It's a bit like league tables for schools where teachers blessed with good material are deemed to be 'the stars' while ignoring those who (with a far greater challenge) seem to be able to turn the odd sow's ear into something far more useful. Nil nisi bonum of course, but I just loved the story of what happened when the late great George Guest briefly took over the choir at St.David's Cathedral as a locum. By all accounts, the trebles tried their best with his methods for a couple of weeks and then resigned en bloc and wouldn't come back until he had gone.
Great story that was new to me! I've often wondered how, say, Herbert von Karajan would have coped with a lower-division County Youth Orchestra, whereas someone like Vernon Handley could work wonders in a similar situation.
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Would you specify a Clarion in a new Swell (or Great)? Opinions please?
I think if you have two chorus reeds on the Great the German tradition is for 16' and 8' and the French tradition is for 8' and 4'. There is something thrilling about 4' AND 16' chorus reeds both in an enclosed Swell and on the Great. If I had to choose I'd have the 16' reed in the Swell and the 4' on the Great but you are right, Clarions are rarer now than before. There are 2 on the Rieger at Christ Church, Oxford, well, 3 if you count the one on the pedal.
Michael
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I'm afraid a lot of them have this predisposition to regard even genuinely interested people as a nuisance. I can't remember who the sub organist was 10 years ago, but if you have never met "the boss" (Ian Tracey) I can tell you that he is a very pleasant, friendly man always willing to listen and chat. When giving recitals his inter-music talks are often very amusing and informative. I'm positive he would not have given you that sort of treatment.
It's surprising that I still play the organ, piano, harpsichord and celeste given the number of times I was dismissively shoo'd away from those instruments as a child, my interest rebuffed by both amateur and professional. Perhaps if I'd been given a warmer welcome my interest would have waned.
Michael
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The Gabble-and-Thump method was demonstarted to me by no less a liturgical authority than Prunella Scales who had heard it as a child in a village church in Devon, I'd imagine in the early 1940s. I encountered a version of it still in use in a church near Derby in the mid 1970s. So I don't think the tendency to rush the words on the reciting note (tha gabble) is anything new. And of course it is not limited to the Old Cathedral Psalter. But the printing of the first word of the "metrical" part of the half verse in bold in that book was, I think, hugely contributory to the thump.
Michael
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As for Psalters, you really can't beat the Old Cathedral Psalter.
This is a joke , right?
Hehathnothidhisfacefromhimbutwhenhecalled__ un - to him__ he__ heardhim_____
What my Dad called Gabble And Thump.
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I suppose if I'd have been a member of the brickies, I may have got on better with a couple of church officials who were a constant pain in the **** ,
Neil, what is/are the brickies? The Freemasons? Aren't they meant to practise charity and believe in the brotherhood of mankind?
Michael
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Wells Cathedral, 1662:
The Forme of the new organs
The organs are to have two fronts, the one towards the quire, the other towards the body.
The hight of the organ
The Hight of the organ must be Thirty foot
The breadth of the same must be fifteene foot.
The Names of the stopps
Two open diapasons of metall, the longest pipe of each Twelve foot and a halfe.
One stopp Diapason of tymber unison with the open diapason.
One twelfe of mettall
Two principalls of metall, six foot longe the longest pipe.
One Recorder of metall.
One two and twentieth of mettall.
In the Chaire organ
One stopp diapason of tymber.
One Flute of tymber
One principall of mettall six foot long
Two fifteenths one of mettall, the other of tymber.
One two and twentieth of mettall.
And also the guilding of both the organs, both pipes and cases.
In this supposed age of historical reconstructions has anyone made a Restoration organ with a similar specification to that above? I suppose the addition of a Pedal department would be desirable in a church or teaching location but that could probably be done without affecting the integrity of the instrument. Is a height of 30ft commensurate with a largest Great pipe of 12' 6" and a largest Chaire pipe of 6'? And are the two Open Diapasons on the Great for the two fronts?
And if we are to suppose a compass starting at F or G for the 12 & 6 ft pipes, would it be possible to view the stops as equivalent to a short compass 16ft organ as much as a long compass 8ft one?
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I think I played this:
http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=N03183
(for the non-clickers: St Paul, Burton-on-Trent 4-manual Hope-Jones)
about 25 years ago. It wasn't fully-functional even then but I was told it was pretty much a H-J original. I hated it!
Oxbridge Organs
in Nuts and bolts
Posted
I've wanted to see, hear and play this one since I first read about it:
http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=R00476
After discussion here of an organ with three Nazards this four-manual French-ish organ only has one 2 2/3 and that is a half-draw from the Sesquilatera on the same manual as the Cromorne. True, there is a Cornet on the Solo but is this organ appropriately designed for the French classical repertoire?
Anyone got first-hand experiences to share?
Michael