pwhodges

I recall an occasion when an unfinished organ was required to be used for a Christmas service. We had an organist playing manuals and pedals, another being the pedal couplers as they weren't in place, and as there was neither stop action nor swell linkage, someone with the running order manipulating the slides on each soundboard - the organist just had to trust that a suitable setup was available on each manual at any given time... Oh, and someone had to pull a piece of string to play bottom D on the unconnected pedal reed! D is a very useful pedal note at Christmas, if you've only got

Nice to see that Forwoods is still going!.. When I was at school in Canterbury, I spent many hours in Forwoods, browsing LPs and music, and having chats with Mr Forwood about Hi-Fi. I remember that the record player in the shop had a Burne-Jones pickup arm which had a pivoted head to reduce end-of-side distortion - I've never seen another. Paul

I found the sounds from organteq mildly unconvincing (on a good hi-fi setup) - but nothing like as bad as their awful piano synth. Paul

The choir (not a church choir) that I sing in will be one of very few such choirs in Oxford giving a Christmas concert this year. We are at present 20-odd voices. We are rehearsing (just started again today after lockdown) in an octagonal church, spread around the outer wall at 2m intervals - which actually works better in some ways than our usual layout in pews. We hope to be singing in the University Church (the formal risk assessment is tomorrow), with the choir laid out in a chequerboard pattern (like you see pictures of orchestras), and an audience limit of 80 (the same as the church i

Presumably noise-cancelling headphones as a superior form of ear protection. Paul

That makes me wonder - has anyone managed to design or make a stop with the mouth placed at right-angles to the body, as in the way an orchestral flute is blown? Paul

Plumley's book merely says of each organ (on pp 45 and 156) that they were destroyed in a bombing raid during 1940. No more detail than that. There's no index of dates of destruction, and I don't have time right now to go through the whole book looking... But it may be of interest to know (from p157) that the pipework of the Jordan organ stored but not erected in St Benet Fink was sold for scrap in 1941 to aid the war effort. Paul

My wife has Phonak hearing aids, not for age-related reason, but because of serious life-long deficiencies in her ears. They are bluetooth enabled, but being an older model, the bluetooth functionality is in a separate thingy hung round her neck. She uses the bluetooth capability constantly - to listen to BBC Sounds from her phone, and to use the phone itself. Also to listen to the TV to which we have added a bluetooth audio transmitter. As she has never experienced "normal" hearing, she can't comment on accuracy, but she certainly finds these aids to be the best she's yet had (she's been

I never use FaceBook - it interferes too much with even the process of trying to read it. Meanwhile, I note that the front page of this forum has been updated with information about F H Browne's, and that registration on the forum has been re-enabled. I guess this indicates that the forum is to continue under the new management. Paul

I note that the front page of this forum has been updated with information about F H Browne's, and that registration on the forum has been re-enabled. I guess this indicates that the forum is to continue under the new management. Paul

We all pay for things that cost as much or more - but only for as many things as we feel justified. As for the cost, Steve's offer is presumably free even to himself, apart from the time he spends on it. I would also be happy to set up a forum and run it - free, gratis, on my own equipment - as it would count as a hobby (and not be my first forum either). But (a) I'm 74 (and currently healthy, I hasten to add), so the longevity of my offering could be seen as uncertain, and (b) Steve got his in place first! Paul

I have used another SMF converter - it was easy enough, but the result needed work (at the database level) to get everything just right. Usually the problem with such converters is that they worked when written, but haven't been updated as either the source or the target changed format, even in small ways. Mind you, going from one major version of a forum to the next can be as tricky! But keeping the forum going as is (if that could be arranged with the company's liquidators) would require a commitment to something over $40 a month for hosting (+VAT. I presume). Is anyone here happ

I believe that it would not be hard to convert a backup of this forum into another system, as I offered early on - I already run several forums, including one hosted on my own equipment. My preference is to use the (free) SMF software, and I know that has a (free) converter available - though I have no experience of its quality or completeness. That would not cost anything unless someone else was paid to do the work; but there is the question of whether the liquidators would try to capitalise on the perceived value of the existing content, and so charge for allowing access to it or providing

Last year the blower failed, and a (second) electronic was brought in as an emergency standby: https://viscountorgans.net/organ-hire-999-worcester-cathedral/ Might this have been longer in the fixing than expected? Paul

Liszt looked up to him as an executant. There are quite a number of lovely miniatures which are not especially hard. Paul