Jump to content
Mander Organ Builders Forum

Colin Pykett

Members
  • Posts

    825
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Colin Pykett

  1. Although the newspaper article mentioned the repair cost as being only £10, that did not, of course, include the time and expertise of the repairers which - if costed realistically using commercial accounting principles - would have been substantial. For this reason faulty digital organ transmissions are often considered beyond economic repair. So replacement is the more usual option and this easily can cost upwards of £20k as the article suggested. Another reason for replacement rather than repair is that electronics rapidly becomes obsolete, so it often cannot be repaired anyway. Old fashioned electromechanical systems which use relay technology rather than electronics are often repairable, though there might again be a substantial labour overhead involved if the fault or damage is extensive, such as might occur following a lightning strike to the building resulting in burnt wiring, etc. 'Diode keying' is a halfway house between fully electromechanical and fully digital (computer controlled) transmissions. It is more amenable to repair than the latter but, yet again, often with a significant labour overhead unless the fault is localised and easy to locate. It is interesting that the church in question was in Southampton. Some years ago (c. 2008) the splendid dual purpose Compton organ in the Guildhall with its twin 'grand' and 'variety' consoles was brought back to life through patient renovation of its original electromechanical action, including its clever capture combination systems on both consoles. The action had therefore lasted over 70 years at that time, a feat which any form of electronically controlled system could not possibly compete with - though this statement is rather a non sequitur, considering that transistorised electronics doesn't go back that far anyway, but it makes the point. So maybe mrbouffant's remark that the article presents 'a good argument against solid state electronics vs. more traditional technologies' is indeed worth thinking about more often when organs are restored. Notwithstanding everything said above, I send congratulations to those who got this organ back into speaking condition through their labour of love to the church.
  2. I was around in 1952 and can certainly remember nutty slack. However it wasn't long before it became illegal to use it with the introduction of 'smokeless zones', since it was the smoke from millions of domestic coal fires which contributed to the smogs in the first place. In the smokeless zones one had to use coke instead. What has this to do with music? Because in that year I started having piano lessons, and had to practice in a totally unheated room. Although most rooms in most houses had fire places in those days, only a couple of them were usually used during the week on account of the sheer slog involved in getting them going first thing in the morning - unless your family had 'servants' (what a dreadful word that is). So all other rooms, passage ways, etc were ridiculously cold in most homes. In these, one's breath steamed out of one's mouth like ectoplasm at a Victorian seance, and in the bedrooms a hot water bottle shoved under the sheets caused them to gently steam as well. As for trying to play the piano, I knew when it was time to give up when my hands got red and blotchy with imminent chilblains and I started to lose the feeling in my fingers. No exaggeration.
  3. Are you lumping Advent in with Christmas here? I have sometimes played two short chorale preludes on the same words (i.e. with the same title) consecutively, the first by Buxtehude and the second by Bach. Examples: Nun komm der Heiden Heiland (BuxWV 211 followed by BWV 599); Herr Christ, der einig'ge Gottes-Sohn (BuxWV 192 followed by BWV 601). In the first example I play them both quietly, before the service. In the second I play the Buxtehude quietly while everybody processes out at the end, then launch into the Bach using a more assertive registration and tempo - as Helmut Walcha did on one of his recordings when he played it fff. Or sandwich something else inbetween the pair. Note that I'm a fan of John Furse's idea which he mentioned above, of introducing Buxtehude perhaps more often than others might. Another suggestion is Bach's In dulci Jubilo, the BWV 608 version being played quietly before a service (if you have a suitable stop for the pedal solo), and the BWV 729 version played more loudly at the end. Yes, I keep that in mind as well. Occasionally it happens that someone will stay behind at the end until one finishes playing. Once I noticed that the gentleman in question then nodded to himself, apparently appreciatively, before rising from his pew. But in general I suspect that most people who go to church at Christmas enjoy hearing the 'usual' repertoire rather than anything too way out. We don't really like the Christmas experience to change too much, do we, and in these darker times perhaps it's almost a public service organists can offer by giving people a reminder of something eternal and changeless which they can hang onto ...
  4. The main problem is that, like so much today, more is less - there's too much choice! You might know what I'm about to say, and if so, I wouldn't want you to feel you are being preached at or talked down to. But basically, all you need is a keyboard which provides a MIDI signal to your PC. Virtually all of them do. There are two types of keyboard - those which make sounds on their own (usually via a nasty little speaker(s) in the case, but which can nevertheless be quite useful), and those which only provide MIDI signals. But the first type will also provide MIDI as well as make sounds, except perhaps for a few of the very cheapest or some very old items. The second type of keyboards are often called 'MIDI Controllers' because they only control what something else does (e.g. a PC) rather than make musical sounds of their own. The second type are those you might focus on as they are used by professionals or others who are into digital music in a serious way. For more on MIDI itself I suggest you get that from the web if you need a tutorial. But MIDI connectivity is an issue. You will usually need a MIDI cable of some sort. I say 'usually' because some keyboards can communicate wirelessly. MIDI cables are widely available if they don't come with the keyboard you buy, and they usually plug into a USB socket on the PC. There is a second type of MIDI cable - also widely available - which has 5-pin circular DIN plugs instead of USB plugs, and these can be quite useful for interfacing to things like hardware synthesisers rather than computers. MIDI was originally developed using the DIN method, and if you get a keyboard with both USB and DIN sockets at the back then you have the best of both worlds. As to which keyboard you should get, I hesitate to be too specific, but will nevertheless do so. The M-Audio Keystation range of keyboards have a good reputation, as they sit between the cheap end of the market which are little more than children's toys and the pro end (where you can spend a lot of money with diminishing returns). Typical prices are around £130. You will probably want a 61 note version since they offer other compasses, so make sure you order the right one! I think I'm right in saying that they have both USB and DIN output sockets for MIDI. Personally I'd avoid buying second hand as a lot of this type of gear gets roughly treated. I've written enough, probably too much. Is this any help? But before buying anything at all, you might also consider trying your Viscount as a first step. It will almost certainly provide a MIDI output (probably via a DIN socket somewhere round the back - use one labelled 'MIDI Out' if there are several). However I can appreciate that you might find it rather a sledge hammer to crack a nut. But it might help to ascend the learning curve.
  5. The above is quoted from a rather old post above - please humour me. It concerns the common problem of why some CDs won't play properly in some decks, an issue I've struggled with ever since they appeared, as have many other people. Recently I think I might have discovered something I haven't noticed before, and it might be of interest. While observing one of these 'awkward' discs playing in a deck with its top cover removed, I noticed the sled (the moveable bit which contains the laser and does the job of actually reading off the data from the disc) physically wobbling back and forth quite violently. At one point the disc suddenly stopped playing and the oscillation then stopped. It dawned on me that some discs might be too eccentric for the servo system which controls the sled to cope, so it presumably just gives up trying. Removing the disc and looking at it revealed that this was the case. However it wasn't that the hole was off-centre with respect to the plastic; the problem was that the metallised layer enclosed within the plastic was off-centre, which is a different thing. Spinning the disc while supported with a pencil proved this - I could see the eccentricity plainly. When I examined a few other discs, none were not nearly as bad as this one, and they all played OK, with negligible sled wobble. So the problem seems to be related, partly at least, to quality control (or lack of it) during disc manufacture. The above might also explain why another deck will sometimes play an 'awkward' disc satisfactorily, probably because it has a more tolerant (or better-adjusted) servo system for keeping the sled in position. Of course, there are other reasons for the problem such as dust on the optics, so the above is just another possible one which I hadn't seen mentioned before.
  6. In the 1980s I built a 3 manual console which used a pair of drawstop jambs which had been advertised as having been pulled from the HTB organ. It is certain that they were those listed in NPOR ref N18033 since the stop names are identical. However none of the couplers (apart from the Gt/Ped piston coupler) and the Positive division of 4 stops were included on the jambs, so perhaps these were on stop keys or tablets elsewhere on the HTB console at the time. It is possible (likely?) that the jambs were from the 1944 Kingsgate Davidson console, which might have been modified in 1966 by an unknown hand before I got hold of them. The jambs displayed excellent workmanship, with solid ivory stop heads and bushes, though I replaced these with new to suit the stop list that I wanted for the new instrument. (In case you were wondering, I donated the old ivory ones to the organ builder who had kindly ordered the new ones for me from Kimber Allen, who would not deal outside the trade at that time). As part of the deal I also had to take away a 3 manual keyset which was also said to have come from the same instrument, though I did not use it (apart from saving the contact blocks and thumb pistons) as it was quite a different animal in terms of build standard. I can quite see why Terry was called out frequently to the organ if my experience with the keyboards was anything to go by - the keyframes were ridiculously flimsy, resulting in stuck keys occurring all the time plus other sundry faults, and in the end I just took them to landfill. The console with its handsome (KD?) jambs can be seen at : http://www.colinpykett.org.uk/#3decker However the keyboards here are ex-Compton ones, not the awful ex-HTB ones. But thanks for the memories and for filling in a few extra pieces of the jigsaw, Terry!
  7. I've floated the idea before (maybe not here - I can't remember) of using a digital organ as a relatively cheap and flexible way of trying out various tonal options before signing a contract for a new pipe organ. However it's difficult to get people to understand that this does not mean a digital organ will actually be purchased rather than a pipe organ, consequently this misconception raises all sorts of unhelpful and irrelevant froth which misses the point. What it does mean is that you can try out the effect of various combinations of stops at different points in the building to see whether the general effect is what you are seeking - or not - when a pipe organ having similar types of stops is finally installed. And you can also try things out with the building empty or full of people, or even assess different carpeting options! So it merely uses a digital organ as a flexible test bed, the flexibility arising from the ability to site the loudspeakers as well as the console in several different places at relatively low cost. As part of the exercise an optimal position (or positions) for the console can also be addressed. It's not all that different in principle to measuring the frequency response of a building by radiating white or pink (or any other 'colour') noise from loudspeakers, recording the results and then analysing the signals. This is sometimes done, though the use of signals which are so far removed from real, organesque, sounds is a legitimate criticism. However I know of several cases where a scaling, regulation and voicing strategy for the major choruses of a pipe organ has been based on such studies. But using sounds which are more directly related to pipe organ sounds, which a digital organ will provide, seems a better way to go in my opinion. This isn't just idle musing. Over the last 15 years or so I've taken my virtual pipe organ, which has a standard 2M&P stop key console which any organist can play, into various buildings often enough to have convinced myself of the virtues of this approach. So have other people to whom I have given or loaned various sample sets to use in theirs. On one occasion the audience consisted entirely of a bevy of organ builders, among whom animated conversations ensued about the idea! You don't even need to physically cart the digital organ into the building. By making enough intelligently-chosen dry recordings of various groups of stops where the organ happens to reside, these can then be replayed into the building to enable practically the same results to be achieved (apart from helping to site the console of course). It's certainly better than doing nothing and hoping for the best when the pipe organ finally arrives.
  8. The link below (a page within the website I linked to in my earlier post) seems to identify the chant you are looking for. (If you click on the 'chant' heading and then any of the numbers below it, a MIDI file downloads and starts playing - at least on my laptop). The page lists several sources but they, except perhaps the Lichfield Psalter, might not be widely available - the Anglican Chant Appreciation Society; the Neville Richards Private Collection; and the Society for the Promotion and Discussion of Anglican Chant. https://www.anglicanchant.nl/chants/base0237017896.html
  9. Does this website help? https://www.anglicanchant.nl/index.html
  10. When I've needed custom items made in wood which were beyond my capabilities I've found that funeral directors' workshops (where they actually make the coffins) were quite helpful. The last time I went to that source they made me some long thin wedges in oak to allow me to slope keyboards towards each other. Amazing how quickly they did it on the machinery while I watched. However this was some while back now, and perhaps they buy coffins to order from China or wherever these days. Or on other occasions ships chandlers on the quay at Weymouth (where I lived at the time) were equally helpful, both in making said bits and pieces and in supplying hard-to-get things like oak-faced blockboard panels. Or organ builders of course. I've usually found them very patient and helpful whenever I've turned up over the years with a scruffy bit of paper showing what I needed. Piano technicians also used to be good in the past, but are a vanishing breed nowadays, mirroring the lack of interest in acoustic pianos.
  11. I think I've finally sussed how Haskell pipes work: http://www.colinpykett.org.uk/helpers-and-haskells.htm#HaskellPipes Hardly of earth-shattering importance considering that they've been in use for over a century without anyone really understanding them, including Haskell himself from what I can see. But may be of interest to some.
  12. Surely that must always be the case? When we go to church, even though the building might be a cathedral, surely the main reason for being there has little or nothing to do with the music? So I really cannot see the relevance of your remark! For what it's worth my opinion was rather different, in that I was moved by the rapt attention that the congregation paid to what was going on, music and all. The expressions on their faces, as the camera panned gently across them, said all that was necessary - to me at least. I do however agree with you about the intrusiveness of BBC commentaries, not only on this solemn occasion but on almost every other outside broadcast such as Wimbledon (to take a random example). They seem to have no sense of occasion at all, given that they think the sound of some commentator or other continually droning on adds something to the proceedings. It is a blessing that today's alternative video feeds give one the option to do without it.
  13. I have been informed by a Hope-Jones historian that the correct position is with the curve at the rear, otherwise you can't hook your heels over the rail under the seat when not pedalling.
  14. Belatedly, another response to this topic: According to the NPOR the tiny Hope-Jones organ (1 M/P) at Scofton, near Worksop in Nottinghamshire, has a pedal Sub Bass stop available in two powers by varying the wind pressure. See: https://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=D07699 This stop is also available via second touch on the manual when using the Pedals to Manual coupler. There is a youtube video of the instrument at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLPJnYHqGCc
  15. Something which is currently occupying my few remaining brain cells is Haskell bass pipes. Nobody seems to know how they work, including Haskell himself, at least on the basis that he never ventured to say so as far as can see. There's a mathematical paper in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America from 1937 by one A T Jones, but like so much in theoretical acoustics, it doesn't really explain much beyond coming up with an equation which sort of fits the facts. One of those papers which seem to say 'see how clever I am' to my mind. It seems to me that Haskell pipes are not much different in concept to ordinary, separate, bass helper pipes, which are cheap and can work well at least in small to medium sized organs. The stoppered insert tube provides the fundamental in the same way that any stopped pipe does, and the open pipe surrounding it is in effect the helper, sounding an octave higher and providing the even numbered harmonics which the stopped pipe doesn't have. The clever bit is that the two pipes share a common mouth instead of being physically separate. So I think that's pretty much it really. Or am I wrong? I'm surprised it ever had much traction though, because the helper idea with only 12 small (4' pitch) separate Dulciana-type pipes in the bottom octave is surely much cheaper and more straightforward in other ways to give a good 8' Open Diapason sound together with a Stopped (8' pitch) rank? Although you can apparently buy Haskelled pipes, they must cost a fortune. On top of that they only give a stringy sound, and are difficult to voice, regulate and tune. Not surprising when you consider that you are trying to voice and regulate at a single mouth optimally for two different pitches and timbres! The same arguments must apply even more strongly to deriving 16 or 32 foot tone via Haskelling I should imagine. But maybe separate helpers sometimes aren't man enough for the job in a large organ, meaning that Haskelling has to be considered? There's a beautiful Tickell organ in West Sussex which I was recently invited to play through the courtesy of a member of this forum, and it only has a swell box 4 feet high. But it uses helpers to derive an 8 foot Open tone from the Stopped rank which is entirely convincing - you simply can't detect the 'join' as you go below tenor C into the helper region. It's also a wonderful piece of work in other ways, as you can couple everything up and the touch remains so good that you forget it's tracker action. I think John Norman also had a hand in its design. A tragedy that its builder died so suddenly in his prime.
  16. I agree! He's using it as a vocoder, an amazingly original idea. Quite straightforward, conceptually, using today's digital music software but nobody else seems to have thought of it. But 'conceptually' is the deceptively simple word here - to have got it working he will have had to do an awful lot of hardware work, no doubt burning the midnight oil while wielding a soldering iron after having designed all the interface electronics, which itself is not exactly the sort of thing you could buy off the shelf. ("Hey Mr Amazon Market Place, excuse me but do you by any chance have a hardware interface between iZotope and a pipe organ?") Not many today would have the imagination to think of it in the first place, let alone have the determination to see it through. (In writing this I'm just making plausible guesses at the details of his system - I can't seem to find out much by following the links from the actual video on youtube. Maybe they weren't working properly when I tried them. Pity.) I hope some employer somewhere has had the insight to have given this guy a job with the salary he deserves. I wish I'd had the opportunity to have interviewed someone like him for a job back in the day. I wager he'd have shaken us all up!
  17. The history of H-J's activities in the USA is fairly well documented e.g. in David H Fox's book 'Robert Hope-Jones'. I got a copy of this some years ago from the the excellent OHS and they might still have it. It also covers his prior work in Britain, though in less detail and unfortunately with some errors and omissions which you have to be on the alert for. On the whole his work both at the time and since seems to have been rather better regarded over there than here, at least in the sense that it is appraised more objectively by and large, and with less of the inflammatory excesses of criticism which have often characterised its reception in Britain. A particularly interesting video exists of Farny Wurlitzer addressing the American Theatre Organ Enthusiasts (later the ATOS) convention in 1964 which is entertaining and often amusing in its references to Hope-Jones, whom Farny W must have known very well half a century earlier. The passage of time did not seem to have dimmed his views about H-J and he pulls few punches, though at one point he says words to the effect that 'he was one of the most charming fellers you could ever meet', and that 'he could always convince you that black was white'! Even so, Wurlitzer could not have been the success that it was without H-J's enabling technology, notwithstanding the awkwardness of the relationship between them. The video is in four parts at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoYKO7X8Duc and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMqT5vqAahE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK3Uaeq74gA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJUNlXk0l8s Quite an important historical document in my view for those with interests in this direction.
  18. Those distinctive benches with a raised centre section of unsymmetrical shape seemed to be a feature of Hope-Jones's organs in the UK. There are two other consoles at the Hope-Jones museum maintained by the Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust in Manchester, and they are the same (both large 4-deckers, from St Paul's and St Modwen's in Burton on Trent). I haven't enough playing experience of H-J's organs to have formed a view as to whether there is a 'correct' orientation though. So not very helpful I'm afraid. Next time I come across one I'll do some experiments to see if the matter can be settled.
  19. Thank you Dafydd for this first hand information. I've never played the Llanrhaeadr organ so found your impressions very interesting. The Pilton Viol d'Orchestre is just as you described for the Llanrhaeadr one - it could slice bricks at short range. There's no Flute d'Amour though, but a Viol d'Amour instead which is exactly the opposite of the Viol d'Orchestre, being quiet and reticent. As you confirmed, one can do a surprising amount with these little instruments, partly because of the highly differentiated tone colours as opposed to conventional organs where achieving blend was the watchword. It would have been interesting to have sat down at one of the big ones, e.g at Worcester cathedral: https://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=R01239 Note the two versions of the Cor Anglais using free and beating reeds. One imagines that an immense amount of quiet colour could have been obtained from the instrument.
  20. To answer that I guess one needs to have played them. Unfortunately that's been next to impossible for a very long time. However there's a small 2 manual at St Mary's in Pilton (Devon) which has retained its original pipework despite having had various modern accretions built around it. This link shows what the original instrument looked like when built in 1898: https://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N10506 I've played it several times, though not for a service, and for what it's worth I formed an impression that it would have been a serviceable liturgical machine. I even played Bach on it, such as Vom Himmel Hoch (BWV 606) using the boldly voiced swell 4 foot Quintadena and the pedal 8 foot flute, i.e. an octave higher than written. Helmut Walcha used to do this, using a 4 foot flute plus Larigot which sounded similar to a Quintadena, so I was in good company. However a friend told me that although the organ was still there when he visited recently, it looked as though it was rather unloved and possibly not in use any longer. For such a small thing you could draw a surprising amount out of it, and full organ was immensely powerful with everything coupled up using all those couplers. There's an even smaller one (1899) at Llanrhaeadr in near to original condition, but even this one had to have its pedal Diaphone! See: https://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=H00091 A conference of Diocesan Organ Advisers stopped by this church some years ago, and the write-up of the visit mentioned that the Diaphone had been 'well trodden' by that august community before it departed!
  21. That's brilliant Martin. Thank you very much. Quite a little gem for a quiet minute or two in a service, but I've never been able to track it down until now.
  22. Having answered Martin's original question, I wondered if I now might pose another. I have a piece on an old tape played by a friend who has now passed on, and the simplest way I could think of to enable members to hear it was to put it on my website at: www.colinpykett.org.uk/unknown.mp3 It's bugged me for ages as to what it is. Although of no relevance to the question, my friend made the recording some 40 years ago on an electronic organ. Many thanks in anticipation of your help.
  23. Here's further evidence that such things can happen (i.e. that working inside an organ can be potentially dangerous): https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/firefighters-rescue-organ-technician-trapped/ I recall once stepping onto a passage board high up inside a large instrument. The organist then decided to follow me and, to my alarm, I heard the boarding begin to creak under the strain of both of us. I shouted to him, instructing him to remove himself in no uncertain terms, to prevent both of us falling onto the pipework and pneumatic tubing of an entire division below. This served to demonstrate that when an organ has got into a parlous state, so has everything associated with it including ladders, passage boards, trapdoors - in fact, the whole works. Even the building frame itself can become dangerous; I once came across one which had degenerated so badly that you could wobble the whole structure of the organ - soundboards, mechanism and all - just by pushing it gently! So don't be taken in by the apparently comforting appearance of those massive baulks of timber as they can be in an equally parlous state as everything else.
  24. I sort of concur in the sense of knowing what you mean. But both he and others in that era deliberately wrote (because they had to) for the burgeoning population of amateur organists with little technical attainment - hence all those dreary and interminable Adagios/Andantes. If you need to make a living you must keep an eye on your market. (Elgar anyone - the Vesper Voluntaries?) But is it also something to do with their limited compositional toolkit - sequence-heavy, interminable tunes that seem to go nowhere, oompah accompaniments, continual descending sevenths, etc. As an antidote I sometimes have to switch to Bach to clear my head (and definitely after too much Wagner). But even then I eventually tire of all that restless polyphony - why didn't he just keep still for a while and stop jigging about! I think the bottom line is that it must be me - I'm never satisfied ...
×
×
  • Create New...