Phil T

Surely the choir should provide a positive lead for one and a blend with the other?

Either I seriously need some singing lessons or you need to sack your singing teacher. The amount my mouth moves between the O and E of Holy is minimal and could never be described as stretching. When you say Hoe Li, do you mean Li as in lift? Wouldn’t that tend to cause people to “snatch” the last syllable?

Pinch me. Am I dreaming? What a positive article. I strongly believe that (good) music can bring the scriptures alive. It’s nice to know that another generation are being inspired by the music of previous generations.

I was always taught to roll my Rs whilst singing, so making “klyst” an impossibility. I dislike an extra “H”, for example turning “born on Christmas Day” into “bor horn on Christmas Day”.

Um, I’ve mostly sung “O Little Town…..” from Carols for Choirs where verse two definitely starts “O morning stars….”

Like they did at St Paul's then?

The propagation of sound through air is a highly complex subject. Whilst sound doesn’t just disappear upwards into a corona, what comes back down could be highly attenuated. In the Royal Albert Hall (as built, pre “mushrooms”), the reflected sound was focused in such a way that the echo was louder than the sound producing it. Different air temperatures may even cause a refraction of sound. The following is “borrowed” since its author obviously knows a lot more about this subject. “In acoustics, however, sound waves usually don't encounter an abrupt change in medium properties. Instead the wave speed changes gradually over a given distance. The speed of a sound wave in air depends on the temperature (c=331 + 0.6 T) where T is the temperature in oC. Often the change in the wave speed, and the resulting refraction, is due to a change in the local temperature of the air. For example, during the day the air is warmest right next to the ground and grows cooler above the ground. This is called a temperature lapse. Since the temperature decreases with height, the speed of sound also decreases with height. This means that for a sound wave traveling close to the ground, the part of the wave closest to the ground is traveling the fastest, and the part of the wave farthest above the ground is traveling the slowest. As a result, the wave changes direction and bends upwards. This can create a "shadow zone" region into which the sound wave cannot penetrate. A person standing in the shadow zone will not hear the sound even though he/she might be able to see the source. The sound waves are being refracted upwards and will never reach the observer.”

There’s no reason why a metal pipe can’t be bent over (I believe mitered is the term). THIS picture is an example. I’ve never been a great fan of acoustic basses, maybe that’s because I’ve never heard a good example.

I’m a pacifist (in principle) in an ideal world, but then we don’t live in an ideal world. I wholly believe that the majority of people fight wars as a sense of duty to their country, not because they believe in the politics and/or the ideals of their countries leaders. But back to the music, which is after all why we’re here. I suspect that the blacklist (or should that just be list in a pc world) would be very long. I think that many composers religious, political or countries ideals, would offend somebody, somewhere. Let’s just get on and enjoy the music. PS I hope this rant hasn’t caused any offence to you good people.

Playing their music doesn’t mean you have any sympathies with their beliefs (religious or political). Howells was a non-believer, playing his music doesn’t make people listening to it question the organists faith. If you like the piece, and believe others would like it, then include it in your recital.

It doesn’t glorify war; it celebrates the safe return of people (it doesn’t matter their nationality) from a war they didn’t choose to fight. You (soldiers/sailors/airmen) don’t choose to fight a war; the decision to go to war is usually taken by politicians after breakdown of talks/negotiations. “Anti-war sort of bloke” or not, I don’t see problem with this (or any similar) piece of music.

I did a diocesan (hope it’s spelt right) sing at Exeter when I was down in Plymouth. We entered the cathedral via the south transept and the first sight that greeted me (and surprised me) was the Contra Violone.

Do either Exeter or Salisbury suffer form this problem as they both have some of their pedal division situated a short distance from the main organ?

I’ve not heard a recital at Truro but on the recordings (several) I have, the full organ (I assume its full organ anyway) sounds very impressive and the 16 ft Ophicleide is superb. Not only is the full organ impressive, but the instrument does delicate and subtle as well.

I wasn’t aware that Robbie ever studied under/with Colin Walsh. This web site makes no mention of it, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t. Both Robby and Colin Walsh studied with Nicholas Danby, but I’ve no idea whether Simon Preston did. I’ve never heard Robbie give a recital, but the times I heard him at Lichfield I thought his playing was superb.

Does the organ position work at Truro? There’s no screen, so the organ should be just as useful in the nave as the quire. Do they move the choir into the nave for large services?

If they were gentlemen of the choir, post nine lessons and carols, then it’s probably not a bad assumption to make.

There seems to be a trend of choirs singing in the nave rather than the quire for large/communion services. They still sing communion settings, anthems, etc as though they were in the quire. They need an organ capable of accompanying everything from a pp psalm verse through to the last verse (with descant) of a congregational hymn. So, where is the best position to place an organ?

There are too many things to list here. In addition to my previous post, modern translations often annoy me. They ought to make things easier to understand but so often rob the passage of “soul”. An example: - "The snake tricked me,” she answered. “And I ate some of the fruit.” And the woman said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” I find the second version far better.

Hymns where the entire theological message is contained within one (two if we’re lucky) lines, yet each verse is four (or more) lines long and there are at least four verses. People who hold on for at least a minim when the last note is a crochet, but only for a minim when the last note is a dotted minim or longer.

I think it would be a very unmusical experience throughout the building apart from the “sweet” spot.

If you look at this from a reverse direction then it is possible to achieve. Rather than anticipating a key press, you retard whichever division needs to speak later. This would give a very odd feeling sat at the console as there would be a delay between key press and pipe sounding (A total nightmare for accompanying a choir). At the chosen position (nave or where ever) the two divisions would be synchronised. As some one else mentioned, this just move the problem from one place to another, rather than alleviating it. Another thing to consider is that all of the above is based on sound arriving by direct path. In any building you get sound reflections from walls, ceilings etc. This further complicates matters.

Chichester were on last March (2006)

Colin Walsh live is (when I’ve heard him at least) very good. Although it doesn’t count because these are both recordings, Andy Lumsden and Andrew Nethsingha both play with a great deal of insight and flair. The Lumsden recording is from Westminster and contains the best rendition of Master Tallis Testament I’ve heard. The Nethsinga recording is from Truro and it’s hard to choose any track as the best, so good is the whole cd.

With many cathedrals having nave divisions built and installed, where do others think is the best place for the main organ to be placed? A few examples are, Exeter (on the screen), Salisbury (either side), Guildford (in the crossing) and St Paul’s (dispersed throughout the building). What do others think?