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contrabordun

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Posts posted by contrabordun

  1. It also meant that, over the centuries, the language did not age,

    Hmmm, I have no stats but I doubt this would be a majority view across CofE churchgoers generally.

    My experience as a locum across 30 different CofE churches in 2005-8 is that the Prayer Book Communion service is extinct in the context of the main Sunday morning service.

  2. I think there's the beginnings of a flame war in this thread, which it would be best to avoid. The full story of the genesis of these translations is thirty years of church politics, and doesn't make for very edifying reading.

    Correct, on both counts. However, I hope that the following statement will not be seen as inflamatory:

     

    When "the Vatican cut through all the guff [...] by insisting on completely literal renditions", it discarded the 1998 ICEL translation, which had been accepted by every single one of the English-speaking Bishops' Conferences.

     

    Why the Vatican thought itself better placed than the English speaking Bishops to determine what might be the most appropriate syntax for..er...English language mass texts is definitely not a matter for this forum.

  3. Nothing. Plenty wrong with my ability to play from them though.

     

    I did actually learn Wachet Auf with the melody in the C clef, but I ended up writing the letter names at the beginning of each phrase, just to be on the safe side. :unsure:

  4. I'm quite a fan.

    NB, the Brahms/Mendelssohn/Schumann volume does have a lot of C clefs (perhaps only in the Brahms, can't remember). I've had 2 copies of their Franck - left the first one on a console somewhere and found I couldn't live without it. I learnt the Vierne Final from another edition (sorry can't remember) and didn't notice any different notes when I changed to Dover.

    I also think their 3 Bach volumes are absolutely stupendous value for money, even though they also use C clefs in the chorale preludes.

  5. How long did it take you to find that!

    I Googled "wasp in a jam jar" + organ and it came straight back. But oddly enough, it doesn't seem to find that page if you search it now - it finds this thread instead. :unsure: Just one of the ineffable mysteries of Google, I suppose.

  6. According to the NPOR there is a two manual pipe organ in the church with a total of 9 stops. This would be a logical instrument on which to try to learn but I am not known to the church and have nothing really to offer them in return for being allowed to use the organ - if indeed they would even consider that.

    Do please get in touch with them and ask. The Church exists to serve its community, not vice versa, and no member of the Christian clergy worthy of the name would refuse. In any case, you've said yourself that in due course you might be willing to play for services - which means you will in time have something you can offer by way of payback.

     

    Don't underestimate the difficulty of what you're trying to do - playing hymns from the typical hymn book 4 part harmony is quite a bit harder than most people (certainly most people in congregations) tend to credit, particularly if you do want to play the bass part on the pedals. You've got 4 voices, all moving all the time, and until your hands and feet learn the typical ways that the chord progressions work, you'll be thinking about all four notes, every chord. That's a lot of mental processing in a very short space of time. I was sitting down to learn and practise and work on basic hymns long after I could play stuff like Franck 3 and The Widor. (There's lots of far gentler ways of getting into playing the organ!)

     

    It might be worth looking at Anne Marsden Thomas's The Organist's Hymnbook - your local library could probably get hold of a copy - which is "A tutor in playing hymns with 160 hymn arrangements in graded levels of difficulty. Also including a complete instruction in pedalling illustrated with photographs" - it starts with 2 and 3 part arrangements and goes on upwards, so even if you don't start at the very beginning, you should be able to find something realistically achievable, but with enough challenge to be interesting, plus you get a sense of progression as you work through the book.

     

    Finally, get in touch with your local Organist's Association (The IAO website has details of all the area ones. The Birmingham OA has a bursary scheme that has provided funding to cover a few lessons and I guess others may have something similar.

  7. I'll try a precis - apologies if this was all obvious from the Google translation...some of it wasn't to me...

     

    You do rather more than choose the facade. That thing is 3 completely separate organs, plus some shared 32' ranks behind the revolving sections.

     

    The "modern" facade of the revolving sections, with a V/P console has a spec. representing a French classical instrument rebuilt in the C19 with romantic voices, in "almost" equal temperament at 440Hz

     

    The "historique" facade, with a III/P console is made up of a Flemish-renaissance-style part, at 467Hz in "mean tone with 8 pure thirds"* temperament and a C18 central-German style part at 415Hz with baroque tuning.

     

    The three 32' ranks stand against the back wall, separate from the revolving cases and (although this is the bit I'm most uncertain about) I think it says that the pipes on these ranks are shared between the 3 organs, by using the c# pipe @ 415 as the c pipe @ 440, and by 'differently regulated' winding for the 467.

     

     

     

    *sorry, never really got my head round the maths of this, so I can't work out how we'd call this.

  8. St Giles Rowley Regis - north side of the chancel, facing northwards with your back resting against the back of the choir stalls. Only, there's kind of a stone ledge - maybe a plinth that the stalls rest on? - just behind the bench, and the back legs of the bench rest on this, with the front legs at ground level.

     

    In other words, the back legs of the organ bench are 8" shorter than the front, which is fine unless you

     

    1) are visiting for the first time and

    2) like playing with the bench close in to the console, and so you

    3) move the bench forwards, so that the back legs slide off the ledge altogether

     

     

    Abiding memory of St Martins in the Bullring is that you have think about 4 moves ahead in order to get yourself onto the bench and the console doors open without becoming trapped

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