Phil T
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Posts posted by Phil T
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As some seem to get very annoyed that a particular thread has gone off topic, I thought I start a thread that will never go off topic. Thread Hijacking is welcome and as long it’s organ or music related, please feel free.
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As far as I am aware, this is not unusual. The system dates from around 1986. There is only power to the slider motors whilst they are actually moving. However, there is a problem with the wiring of the entire stop action: the control boxes (for the slider motors) keep burining out, due to a voltage surge. This is partly due to the fact that there is but one rectifier for the entire job.
The instrument is due for a major restoration (for which we have opened negotiations). Frankly, I do not intend to let the previous organ builder touch it. I keep replacing the control boxes and hoping that it can last until the rebuild. If not, then I shall have to persuade the church to spend about three thousand pounds on several new rectifiers (one for each department), at least in order to render it more reliable.
I’m sorry to take this thread off topic, but it doesn’t sound like your problem is due to there only being one rectifier. Without seeing what’s there it is, of course, only a guess. From what you’ve said, the control boxes are marginal ie of a current rating that is only just up to the job.
I should add that a properly designed power supply (rectifier) SHOULD maintain a relatively stable voltage as long as it’s being operated within its designed current rating.
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I am seriously considering getting this software, as from what I can see it is ideally suitable for one working as a church musician. Unlike Sibelius it doesn't offer a full orchestration facility, but does offer SATB, organ (three stave) as well as other features including playback. Has anybody here had experience of it? One organist I know (not on this forum) rates it very highly. (I hope this doesn't count as advertising? If so please let me know.)
Peter
Like Innate, I’ve got no experience of the programme, so this reply may be of little use to you. Sibelius offers SATB or choir (or pretty much any combination) and organ (either manuals or manuals and pedals) and allows full playback. It will print off two pages of A5 onto one page of A4 and, if you print on both sides (A4), you can fit a small(ish) anthem onto one page of A4.
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It's guess it's always a risk in having a board like this as it is open to jo public.
Do I take it from you posting that you don’t consider yourself a member of the general public? I’ve found that generally most threads wander off subject, but the majority usually end up back on track.
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Isn't it just to indicate who's currently logged in? Sorry this is a less interesting solution.
That's what I thought too.
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Ah - my original post was more in the nature of a wry observation than a request....
Hence the
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There you go Sean, you're now my friend.
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Tracking down intermittent faults that occur once every few months is a job for an extremely well paid consultant, and even then is not always successful..............
The old engineering philosophy of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is valid. I prefer real pieces of wood connected my keys to my pallets!
Tracking down an intermittent fault is always tricky, as it can often be weeks before the fault reappears. Once a fault becomes hard and fast it’s usually much easier to fix. KISS is a good philosophy for life, why make things harder than they need to be? Some times it’s not possible to use wood (or carbon fibre) to connect the keys to the pallets.
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Why? Dare I ask?
Charles
Because Nicholas Farrell, who was playing the fictitious DOM (and who couldn’t play the organ), didn’t have hairy hands. David Briggs was his “playing” stunt double, has hairy hands.
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Actually, that has reminded me about that Trollope mini series, The Choir. I remember most of it was filmed at the cathedral that will sell itself for anything, and although there were quite a few choir practice shots, there were a couple of scenes in the cathedral itself with singing and organ.
That was, I believe, Gloucester. David Briggs was DOM at the time and, apparently, he shaved his hands/fingers for shots of the organ being played.
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Comrade Coram has most kindly suggested that I could zap the pix to him and so they are now to be found on his Web Site. Click HERE to view the Tracker Tunnel of Bergamo. Best wishes and also thanks to DC,
Nigel
Amazing! But what's it like to play with all that inertia? :angry:Paul
Thanks Nigel. Absolutely fascinating, you do have to wonder what it’s like to play?
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This reminds me............. There are two organs on the walls (opposite each other in a mirror image) in the parish church of Sant'Alessandro in Colonna (Bergamo), which are played from only one console beneath one of the instruments. The mechanics for keys and stops for the other organ travel down from the console, go in a tunnel under the church and up the other side. A distance of 33 metres!! The organs were built by the great Giuseppe II Serrasi in 1781/2 and constitute Opus 193 & 194 in their books. I have a photo of the tunnel and action. All was restored (Italian style) in 1970.
All the best,
Nigel
Is there any chance of some photos? That would be interesting to see.
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May I suggest this is because however well-intentioned, these attempts do not reach their intended target. In my years of training choirs with assorted trebles from hither and yon*, they don't want even up-to-date pop music in church, they want something 'special' - something they don't get anywhere else. I believe that most of a congregation does too. Why should we chat with our maker in common tones? Why choose the meretricious and vacuous as our offering? Why insult with prayers that drone on and on along the lines of
'we just want to thank you for....'
That word 'just' is a splendid give-away, so are off-the-cuff casual/informal sermons that blather on without accomplishing anything but passing the time (lots of it). Some modern CofE worship is an affront to anyone with the slightest serious intent.
For me, the concept of doing our best to offer up in the worship of God seems to be a less common aim and I miss it horribly. Incidentally, when I wrote my depressive stuff here in January, I received a number of private (kind) e-mails, amongst which were some from cathedral musicians. A common thread seemed to be, not only is the church nothing like what it was when we grew up, but it isn't what it was only ten years ago.
*And those kids....what sort of things did they really like? I know because over the years I regularly allowed the kids to request favourite repertoire to sing through purely for fun when we finished our work early. Once they'd learned them, time and again it was the Latin pieces - the striking and difficult things, the high emotional pieces (Greater Love etc.).
The whole point of church is that it's not your front room or mine. Any sort of Dumbing Down will not ever raise people from their mundane gloom.....excellence and the truly 'special' will.
Hear, hear and hear again!I was going to try and write something deep and meaningful, but I think what Vox wrote sums it up nicely.
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2. English Romantic Organ Music: Graham Barber at the Truro Cathedral.
A superb cd, I particularly like the Whitlock “Fantasie Choral No.2 in F sharp minor”.
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Mmmmm!
You mean, like a bluetooth console?
MM
I’m pretty sure that Bluetooth doesn’t have the bandwidth for a medium size console, but I may be wrong.
I don’t see the problem with sampling the o/p of a console and transferring the data, via fibre optics, to a remote division.
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I don't have any specific basis other than my experience of hall-effect generators in motor-vehicles, which can be very troublesome, to say the least with the passage of time. Maybe I have tared them all with the same brush, but I've come across so many sensors which collapse due to magnets breaking down, and refusing to produce a steady signal, or any at all for that matter.
I would be delighted to think that I may be wrong........please tell me I am, and I may revise my stance.
The trouble is, I'm very conservative, and really do think tracker is the best approach to almost everything which is key-action related.
MM
Simple mechanical engineering is usually the best solution to any given problem, as long as it’s feasible. The organ at St Paul’s couldn’t exist in a pure mechanical form. With many cathedrals adding nave divisions, there is a need for non-mechanical actions. Surely the best thing to do would be to use tracker action when feasible, and embrace technology when tracker action isn’t?
:angry:
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Now if Brunel had built organs......................
MM
He’d probably have changed the pitch on the grounds that it was easier on the ear.
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I said I wouldn't come back on this, but never mind. 'Romantic engagement with the past' is a very small portion of the story; music and instrument grow together not just in tonal ways, but also technical ones. Witness the moments in Bach where he has written (or placed rests, in implication) notes which were not available to him, and the same in Beethoven's piano sonatas. Or, indeed, the way perceived limitations are exploited - the magical effects of 'early organ' winding on 'early music' ornamentation, for example.
For me the crux of the argument is that the music and the instrument being used to reproduce it should not be artificially divorced - neither from each other, nor from their respective traditions and traceable 'family trees' of growth and development. To abruptly make decisions about instrument construction which are approached purely from an engineering or commercial perspective (rather than a musical one) does exactly this, and has been the start of enough blind alleys in our instrument's history that we ought to know better by now.
But the organ, as an instrument, continues to morph. I should imagine that when swell boxes, pedal boards, pneumatic action, etc were introduced, there were many that hated “these new fangled inventions”. If we don’t embrace new technology, don’t we cap the growth of the instrument?
If an organ builder built a superb sounding instrument with a brilliant console that had just the right “touch”, would it really matter what technology was employed behind the scenes?
:angry:
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!!! 3kw? That's insane!
That's only 125 w per speaker. My Hi Fi is 250 w per channel, so half a Kw in total.
Added/Edited as it didn’t come across well. I was trying to point out that 3Kw of amplification for a large building isn’t that much. If you have a 7.1 surround sound home cinema system with 250 w per channel, then that’s 2Kw, and that’s in a domestic environment.
:angry:
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So do please tell me why people think that "tradition" is necessarily better than "design" and "innovation," especially when the latter can do the job of the former in the same way, but with better access, cheaper production and probably far greater reliability.
Maybe it's just me!
MM
In their time, many “traditional” engineering solutions were cutting edge; they were the “design” and “innovation” of their period.
It’s hard to define better. Is it cheaper, improved reliability, better access, etc? It’s often down to personal preference.
Personally, I’m all for embracing technology.
:angry:
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I wasn't thinking about console or case design, but purely the machinery within.
However, as BMW own the Rolls-Royce company, but not the name, which is owned by Volkswagen if I DON'T quite undertsand it properly, the German firm of Porsche Design (the same company as the car division) have certainly produced a rather splendid console, complete with evocative dials which look like something out of a Porsche 911.
Can anyone recall where it is, and if there is a link to it?
I was actually more concerned about both materials and actual design of organ-mechanisms, but as a starter, the use of plastic has certainly played in part in the winding system of many re-installed theatre-organs, where standard plastic drain-piping has been used, rather than metal or wooden trunking. With modern glues, it is possible to get all the pipes, angles, flanges and joints, cut them exactly to length, and produce a very cheap and effective system.
That's one good use for plastic.
One could, presumably, use Kevlar (the stuff Police Jackest are made from), which is an extremely tough plastic using long-chain molecules. This could probably be used for reservoirs, rather than wood and leather alternatives, which are so expensive to make. They would be almost indestructible, and incredibly strong.
Carbon-fibre has been used; not least by Mander Organs at Peachtree Road, Atlanta, for the tracker runs.
It is a material of incredible tensile strength, extreme lightness, rigidity, stability and longevity, and I stand to be corrected, but I think the detached console at Peachtree Road is some 60ft from the divided pipework, with the carbon-fibre action running under-floor.
Carbon-fibre is used extensively in Formula 1 motor-racing, with all the suspension arms and chassis made from this material. The fact that they can crash at 200mph and stay in one piece, says all there is to say about the strength of this material. The problem is the fact that it is a laminate material, which requires very precise laminate cutting and positioning, after which it is autoclaved and bonded. It is very expensive to produce for this reason, but due to the fact that it contains carbon-fibres, it has considerable musical properties of resonance; not unlike wood or metal, and could be used to make organ-pipes.....at a price!!!!
But what of windchest design and valving?
Surely, there MUST be something more sophisticated than the old bar and slider chest?
MM
The trouble is, you’re looking at what (engineering wise) currently exists, and applying modern solutions (carbon fibre, etc). If you started with a blank sheet of paper, I personally don’t believe you’d design and build “tracker” action. Again, starting with a blank sheet of paper, I don’t think you’d have more than three manuals, even if you had more than three divisions.
:angry:
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Jumbo jets being mentioned in MM's thread "Re-engineering the organ", I was reminded of another mode of transport - that I'd many long years ago seen a photo of a ship's chapel with what appeared to be a console in view, albeit rather obscured. Now, I have a feeling that it was a Royal Navy battleship or battlecruiser, and the only reference that I can find to one having with a dedicated chapel was HMS Hood, which was sunk by the Bismarck in 1941. But I haven't found any reference therein to an organ (which would surely be too large for a warship, where space is generally at a premium) or harmonium. Does anyone know?
And has any liner ever boasted an organ? Some were so palatial that surely someone must have thought of this indulgence.
Rgds,
Cap'n Nemo MJF
There is such a thing as an “Organ, portable, small” in the RN, but I’ve never seen one, so have no idea how small, portable, or organ like it is.
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Other techniques that I like is trebles/sopranos singing two verses on their own followed by the men singing two verses on their own. Then there are the magnificent unison verses at the end of each book of the psalms.
Especially when the tenors split, so half sing the top part an octave down, and the rest sing their own parts. I believe this is known as fauxbordon, but I may be wrong. Whatever, it’s a very effective of adding more “colour” to a psalm.
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Just back from our Ascension service - it just struck me half way through verse 6 today just how much i enjoy accompanying Psalms - does anyone else share my weakness?
Does singing psalms, whilst someone who knows how to accompany them properly, count? If so, yes.
Choir To Pub
in General discussion
Posted
We have the Choir of St Mary’s Church, Cambridge (led by Sam Hayes) coming up shortly, their web site is under construction so offers very little information. Does any one know anything about either the choir or DoM?