Phil T
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Posts posted by Phil T
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To me an "ee" does involve the stretching of the mouth, maybe yours has had more experience at being stretched than mine and perhaps you find it easier than I do?My singing lessons consisted of.................
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?
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RC members and indeed anyone who cares for the future of music and the encouraging of children to sing in church should take a look at this week's edition of the Catholic Herald which has an excellent article concerning a husband and wife team which has ditched all the happy-clappy (crappy) stuff and actually got children as young as nine getting into such as Vittoria and plainsong! It reminds me of a story in Kenneth Long's History of English Church Music in which some children - not great churchgoers it seems - said that when they did go to church they wanted to hear real church music and not shallow sub-pop music. Hmmm.
Peter
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.
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A very common error is " Jesus Klyst", heard from some quite well known establishments and correctable in a matter of seconds.
All of these faults arise from errors in choral technique that can be put right by any choir director who has a basic knowledge of the elementary skills. Regrettably, these skills seem to be rarer now than hitherto.
Barry Williams
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”.
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Is it just me, or has nobody noticed that verse 2 of 'O little town' is usually printed backwards? If you start it 'O morning stars...' then 'For Christ is born of Mary...' as it was printed in the St Nicholas carol book (RSCM, thin, pale blue) it makes much better sense.
I invariably have it in the carol service and print it in the service sheet this way round.
(Mind you, I usually provide other misprints of my own. Like leaving out an entire carol...)
Um, I’ve mostly sung “O Little Town…..” from Carols for Choirs where verse two definitely starts “O morning stars….”
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Of course, the only answer is to put the organ at Liverpool up the cone,
MM
Like they did at St Paul's then?
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Well yes, it must go up, but most of it must come down again!
It's not the same as incense smoke!
Sound is sound, and it will go up, down, sideways, creep through keyholes and even convert to heat, but it doesn't just disappear upwards into a corona and swirl around like a sonic fairground-ride, for God's sake!!!!!
MM
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.”
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Interesting already...space in pipe lofts is limited - the subbass on the pedal is big boomy, just right for the church, but it is bent over in the limited space it has. So a metal 16 would be out of the question.
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.
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Chaps, (we don't have any chappesses at all here, do we?)
If we were to refuse to play any music by anybody whose politics were possibly not 100 % MODERN - because the pacifist and egalitarian ideas we fondly hold today would have been considered very odd 100 years ago, or even 45 in the still-colonial South Africa in which I grew up- we wouldn't have much left. Perhaps we could compile a list of all composers we might blacklist?
Let's just think about it from that angle.
BarryI’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.
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Tony we've had this before: I am surprised that one of your calling doesn't recognise the distinction between the active and permissive will of God....
And I was merely speculating as to the possible anti-Semitism of certain composers, not denouncing them!
Reger? Well it's a cracking piece!
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.
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I am planning a recital for April and was intending to include Reger's Dankpsalm but I read recently that it was composed as a kind of "war victory celebration" or something, giving thanks for the safe return of German soldiers in WW1. As a sworn anti-war sort of bloke, is there an ethical problem inherent in my performing pieces which might be said to in some way "glorify" war?
Peter
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.
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No.
Exeter only has the lowest sixteen pipes of the 32p Contra Violone in the South Transept and Salisbury has the lowest octave each of the 32p Diapason and the Contra Posaune in the North Transept eastern aisle.
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.
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Before the Mander rebuild, I can recall Martin Schellenberg at Bristol Cathedral accompanying the "Special Choir" in a nave concert and having to play the pedals a beat ahead to compensate for action + acoustic delay!
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?
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Yes - it is certainly quite capable of leading a full cathedral from its commanding position. Equally, there are a good number of quiet effects available. The Choir Organ is, in particular, very quiet - even from the console. However, care is needed in order to ensure that the singers are not overbalanced by this comparatively small but powerful instrument.
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.
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I think that there are many organists who are outstanding, and I wouldn't be able to name any without leaving another out who was equally worthy. However, a few observations:
I greatly enjoy the playing of Simon Preston, Colin Walsh and Robert Sharpe. What I find interesting in particular is that it would appear that Sharpe studied with Walsh, who in turn studied with Preston.
Also, two recitals which I particularly enjoyed were given by William Whitehead and Clive Driskill-Smith, when they were both teaching on the Oundle course. These were particularly good amongst all the recitals I heard there.
Also I was fortunate to be able to sit in the loft during David Briggs' recital at Christ Church in Oxford. I was impressed not only by his playing but also at how relaxed he was while playing, as well as the fact that he was very welcoming and friendly to all of us watching up there.
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.
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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?
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Then, of course, there is the well known 'God rest you, merry gentlemen' rather than 'God rest you merry, gentlemen'
One assumes the gentlemen in question were drunk.
John
If they were gentlemen of the choir, post nine lessons and carols, then it’s probably not a bad assumption to make.
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An interesting topic and one that exercises the minds of the British more than most.............
If a congregation (for about 5 hymns in a service) require such an instrument, we have got most things out of proportion, I think. Just relay the music as best you can through the speakers (PA system). They will join in - or arrive earlier the next time to get a seat nearer the action...............
Nigel
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?
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Oh, my goodness. Where do I start?
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.
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Just curious as to what other members of this board get annoyed about in the world of organ playing / choral music etc :
.........Over to you guys.
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.
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I wonder what would be like to get the East and West divsions in sync at somewhere like St.John-the-Divine?
MM
I think it would be a very unmusical experience throughout the building apart from the “sweet” spot.
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And indeed it would be both a clever builder and a clever action that could anticipate a key press before it happened
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.
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Omissions from above lists: Coventry, Southwark.
Also, unless I'm mistaken, haven't heard Chichester or St Alban's for a while either......
Might be interesting to bear in mind this list whilst reading the St John's topic currently running....
Edit - Oops - Should have looked here first!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/cesched.shtml - St Alban's coming up soon.Chichester were on last March (2006)
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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.
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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?
Ho-lee Smurfs?
in General discussion
Posted
Surely the choir should provide a positive lead for one and a blend with the other?