Colin Pykett

Lord Kelvin once said that "when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind". I therefore hope that the Church will not implement these sorts of rather expensive change without knowledge of what it will do in terms of real, quantified energy savings. The organ is actually a good starting point for this kind of discussion since it illustrates some of the issues involved. A small single-phase single-fan organ blower might consume 1.5 kilowatts of electrical power, about the same as two small 'Henry' vacuum cleaners, meaning that the electrical energy consumed during a church service lasting an hour and a half will be 2.25 kilowatt hours (kWh) - energy equals power multiplied by time. This figure assumes the blower would be switched on all the time during the service. What matters here is the energy figure rather than power, because all of this except for the utterly negligible fraction which is converted into sound will get turned into heat (and so will the sound waves once they have whizzed past our ears). All energy eventually ends up as heat, which is the most degenerate form of energy. The blower motor energy will be completely wasted, because in the last analysis it will all percolate into the atmosphere outside the church regardless of how much carpeting and roof insulation, etc, it has, and therefore contribute to the ultimate heat-death of the Universe (Kelvin again), of which the more immediate climate change problems on our puny planet are but a harbinger of things to come. Insulation will not prevent the energy loss but merely slow it down, meaning that we might stay a bit warmer during the service but the church will still get just as cold a day or two later once the heating (and organ blower) have been turned off. But we might use less energy in getting the church up to temperature if the insulation is good, which is therefore a Good Thing. Nevertheless, having an organ blower switched on, like a fan heater at home, reminds us uncomfortably of the issues involved. There are lots of energy performance firms out there who ought to be roped in to provide quantitative guidance to dioceses on this matter. These are the sorts of firm which issue EPC certificates when you are selling your home. I am not saying this won't happen, merely that it's important to get specialist advice rather than just having individual bishops and PCCs wave their collective fingers in the air and say "let's put down a carpet or two to keep our feet warm and show the media that we are doing our bit". The issues are more complex and important than that. Global warming is serious stuff, and it's with us now. It's applied thermodynamics in action with a vengeance, and Kelvin invented a lot of this.

It's interesting that we've just had this exchange about noise. Only a few minutes ago I was listening to Classic FM where they broadcast Allegri's Miserere, apparently from an album recorded in St John's Cambridge. The background noise level was unbelievably high, sounding rather like a not-very-well-oiled organ blower. Yet why would this have even been switched on in this unaccompanied piece? I suppose it might possibly have been air conditioning of some sort, as the recording was made mid-covid in 2020 at a live concert or service of some kind according to the DJ (Aled Jones), so maybe they wanted to encourage air movement. The effect was made even worse by Classic FM's tiresome noise-pumping due to the dynamic compression they use. I cannot for the life of me imagine why this track had apparently not been run through even the most basic noise reduction app as part of the mastering process, since the noise level and its other characteristics appeared to be constant apart from the noise-pumping imposed during transmission. It probably wouldn't matter or even be noticed in the noisy environment of a car with its usual mediocre audio system, but listening at a realistic sound level on good equipment, as I was doing, it was a travesty. What a pity the performance was degraded in such a manner. PS A youtube recording exists with a similar problem, though I don't know whether it is the self-same recording I mentioned above. But to my ears it's equally unacceptable and not something I would want to spend money on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSjNp7BZ49k Very strange.

Julian Fellowes, he of 'Downton Abbey' fame, holds the title of Lord of the Manor of Tattershall among others. He is patron of the Friends of Holy Trinity, and in view of his record of philanthropy and interest in matters such as the problems of decline in rural areas, it would not surprise me if he has played more than a sinecure role in keeping this beautiful place going. The castle next door is also worth a visit while you are there, though it has no 'organ' connection as far as I know. You can park and get in free if you are a National Trust member.

I agree it might be best to discuss this elsewhere, but maybe a post might be acceptable. There are a number of members who are well qualified to respond to this, but for what it's worth from me, you will need to use an app which does noise reduction. I don't use Audacity so don't know whether it does. However the digitised file which it produced will be readable by other apps. I use WaveLab (excellent in almost every respect but rather expensive) and an old version of something called CoolEdit which was free - and presumably still will be if you can find it (later versions were not). It has one of the best, if not the best, denoising capabilities I've ever come across. It also has an excellent suite of other processes not relevant to your question which other apps do not. Anyway, when denoising, you must have a section of the file which contains noise only without any music or other programme material - the longer the better, although just a few seconds can often give good results. Using this noise-only part of the file, which you can select with the mouse or whatever, you first tell the app to derive a 'noise profile' from it. Then you tell it to use this profile to subtract the noise signal from the rest of the file. The noise must be constant (not varying in amplitude or in any other way) throughout the recording by the way, otherwise the denoising will be degraded. So it's possible that wow and flutter on the recording, which came from the original tape, might degrade what one might expect from a denoising process. However I'd be surprised if you didn't get a noticeable improvement nonetheless. This is the essence of it, though I might not have told you anything you didn't know. Best of luck!

Very true. However there is an upside to the way things have gone in my opinion, and that concerns what used to happen when things went wrong with a purchase in those days. As just one example, I bought a CD of the Lincoln organ many years ago from one of these types of shop we are talking about - I won't mention either the CD or the shop here. Having got it home, I found it had mains hum on the recording. At low level, but it was definitely there. It was particularly noticeable and irritating in the track of Franck's Andantino in G minor (the one that goes oom-pah oom-pah in the pedals), where you could distinctly hear 1 Hz beats between the quiet pedal G's at 49 Hz and the mains at 50 Hz. Taking it back to the shop, the owner put it on the mediocre system in the somewhat noisy store and declared (surprise, surprise) that he couldn't hear it. Result - no refund, and I'm still stuck with it. I did write to the manufacturer (again, no names, no pack drill) and got a reply which - rather to my surprise - didn't actually deny the hum was there, nor try to blame my system, but merely said that "the Lincoln blower is a bit noisy". Today, if you buy online from places like Amazon, you get the money back almost before you've requested it and sometimes they don't even want the item returned. This has to be a factor in the disappearance of the some shops of yesteryear, and indeed in the decay we see in our High Streets more generally. In those earlier times the downside was a widespread attitude of complacency, rudeness and couldn't care less for the customer on the part of many small shop keepers, who have now been well and truly hoist by their own petards nowadays. ---------------------- PS For the technically minded, I did do a test to see whether my equipment was to blame by doing a spectrum analysis of (a) the CD player output before a track faded in, and (b) during the quiet moment after the fade in but just before the music started. In the case of (a) there was no 50 Hz spike visible, but for (b) it was clearly there above the slight background 'presence' due to the blower and other ambient sounds. So the hum was definitely recorded on the CD itself, not that the said shopkeeper took a blind bit of notice of this evidence. Although this incident was a long time ago, it was not so long that I didn't have the means to do this easily in the shape of an early PC with an audio interface.

There used to be a music emporium occupying several floors in Nottingham called Kent and Cooper. I'm speaking of my schooldays now, rather more years ago than it's polite to mention. I don't know how long they survived thereafter though. It was the most incredible place, full of pianos for sale on creaking wooden floors which were winched up on an ancient lift. Somewhere near to the attics was a set of dusty gloomy rooms which were hired out for various purposes such as ABRSM exams, and while waiting in the anteroom I still recall the names on some of the doors - a Mr Mark Meller was one who presumably rented his room as a studio. I can only describe the whole place as a Dickensian hangover. Although electric light had been installed, it seemed as though the management only went as far as 40 watt bulbs, usually without lampshades. Having said that, the firm provided an excellent public service and you could go in there to ask for almost anything. Even if they hadn't got it, there was always someone who would offer advice. On one occasion I was renovating some organ keyboards and needed some thick felt. Since they did a lot of piano repairs and restorations, they had some of course, but it was red rather than green. But no matter, it added touch of class I thought.

Sadly, I heard this morning that Ernest Hart, founder of the Copeman Hart brand of electronic organs, passed away last Sunday, 16 January.

Thank you Tony, and also for your advice privately earlier this year about making youtube videos. My camera, though good for pictures at resolutions up to full HD, is utterly hopeless for sound. So I now record a separate high quality sound track on a Zoom machine as a WAV file and then marry it up post-production in a video editor using the time honoured syncing method of a handclap. I've found the free version of VideoPad to be excellent, in fact unbelievably sophisticated for freeware even though it does not offer the full capabilities of the paid version. Sorry to bore everyone with this, though my excuse is that there might be some with similar interests.

I was privileged to have known Mr Warrell when reading physics at King's College London. I refer to him rather formally because almost everybody seemed call him something different! He was kind and welcoming to me, a mere amateur among many common oiks with whom he came into contact, even though there were a number of very good players mainly within the music and theological faculties. As an undergraduate he tolerated me accompanying his lunchtime rehearsals of the King's Singers, and when I stayed on to do a PhD he let me have a key to the organ. This fitted in well with my student-y working hours between getting in and going home very late. In any case, it was virtually impossible to use the organ during the day without attracting howls of protest owing to its position above the Great Hall and below the medical faculty. I still treasure memories of playing in the deserted chapel late in the evening when everyone else had gone home. Well, not quite everyone, because an occasional visitor would sometimes creep into the gloom and listen. Among them was the then-Dean, the Rev Canon Sydney Hall Evans (another nice man I might add). Thank you, Ernie.

Niccolo, I read some of your recent posts with some dismay, and although computer problems prevented me responding at the time, I'd still like to say what I had in mind. In my view, internet forums can be compared to a bunch of like-minded people sitting comfortably together in a room and having a chat. In all probability drinks will be on offer, just as they are, no doubt, to the individuals who sometimes post here (!). So in this sort of setting people will sound off at random about the subject under discussion, with some agreeing and others disagreeing with what is said. Sometimes one person might raise a subject which gets no response at all, perhaps because somebody else interjects with something completely irrelevant yet which attracts interest. So the conversation veers all over the place, and (not to put too fine a point on it) some of what is said will be utter nonsense to be taken with a large pinch of salt. However, it might also be entertaining at the same time. If there are disagreements, they will mostly be fleeting and forgotten within a minute or two even if they were expressed forcibly or even rudely. It is much easier to to forget the spoken word than when the remarks are written down, as they are here. People will tend to laugh when together in a room rather than get too hot under the collar, and it is also possible to read their body language whereas on a forum this is impossible. So for what it's worth, my advice to anyone who posts on a chat forum is that they should not take it too seriously. Being more specific, Niccolo, I have always followed what you have said with great interest, and although it's some time ago now, I found your posts on house organs particularly stimulating. Having said all this, there are a few people here who do post offensively. In these cases I apply the dictum that "we are what we write". In other words, their posts say more about them than anything else. The worst thing one can do is to take their remarks to heart. Best wishes Colin Pykett

Many thanks, bigwold. I'll try posting something later, cookie problems permitting.

Thank you, kind sir! Thanks also to our Webmaster for help in sorting some problems I was having. If anyone's interested, the solution was to delete all cookies with 'mander' and 'invision' in their names. Sorry that the whole world had to know about it though.

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I feel moved to say something in response to this. Although there are indeed acerbic members on this forum, I had not got you down as one of them, SL. Having said that, it's no particular sin and it doesn't matter to me as it's a trait which adds colour to the discourse in my view. And with Ph.D., M.A., B.Mus., F.R.S.A., A.R.C.M., yes, you are indeed 'slightly well qualified', which is one of the reasons I've enjoyed reading your posts, often learning something from them as well. I'm sorry we won't be 'seeing' you again. That's yet another of the losses of this sad situation. All good wishes to you for the future.

It's a good question which I've been pondering on as well, doubtless like many other members. This is the only forum I belong to, so if I want to continue to air my views I'll have to find another I suppose, though this is an obvious opportunity to consider whether to join one at all. However, I like the ABRSM affiliation of their 'Viva Organ' forum, and have often wondered why it has been so little used for quite a long time. Some members here post on it occasionally. As far as I can see it also exists without having to rely on advertising, other than the ABRSM banners. The Magle forum is also a possibility, but IMHO it suffers from the opposite problem - it could be said to be over-subscribed. Both forums cover a wider field than this one if only because they permit discussion of digital organs for those so inclined, without being dominated by them as at least some of the alternative options seem to be.

What a shocking thing it is whenever a source of any ancient craft disappears. Apart from anything else, its practitioners thereafter can rapidly cease to exist. Voicers and their incomparably skilled colleagues cannot just be brought off the street when required by placing ads in a local job centre. It's not unlike the almost complete disappearance of mechanical (clockwork) timepieces. Politely disregarding the output of the Beijing watch factory, a few of these are still made commercially at enormous cost for the more discerning super-wealthy, but mostly the art is kept alive within the wider horological community which still pursues things like ever more accurate pendulum clocks as a subject with its own fascination. The late mathematician Philip Woodward with his W5 clock was a leading light in this activity, whom I was privileged to know in the early stages of my scientific career (and he was an organist too, playing at places like Malvern Priory from time to time). But a big difference between mechanical horology and organs is that the latter are still broadly useful to the wider community and they serve a purpose as well as bringing a lot of pleasure to a lot of people (not that I'm for a moment decrying the pursuit of clockwork as a beautiful intellectual activity with roots in pre-Galileo days). Like others who have posted above, I hope that a positive solution might emerge to rescue the firm.

I don't know which source(s) Cantoris had in mind, but one answer to Rowland's question is: https://religionmediacentre.org.uk/news-comment/religion-news-7-july-3-2/ I came across this a couple of weeks ago or so. It does seem that there is some basis for the story, though it doesn't mention the music specifically.

The original and quite popular Compton Miniatura was later sold in two versions: an 'A' model and a 'B'. According to one advertisement the synoptic stop list of the 'A' was Ped 16.8; Great 16.8.8.4.2; Swell 8.8.4.2. That of the 'B' was Ped 16.8.4; Great 8.8.4.2 2/3.2; Solo 16.8.8.4.4.2 2/3.2. According to the makers, 'A' was intended for leading the worship of '150 voices', and 'B' for the 'practice and performance of polyphonic organ music'. The ads also said that it was 'more quietly voiced than Miniatura A and is therefore more suitable for practice rooms and private residences'. 'A' had 2 ranks: stopped flute and principal. 'B' also had 2 ranks but stopped flute and mild string. However it is likely the latter became more principal-like towards the top of its range in some instances, or an additional principal rank might have been added in others. This is because clients were invited to customise the stop list to their requirements within certain limits. (The Compton Electrone model 348 of 1948 was more or less an electronic version of the 'A' model. Its fully-preformed complex waveforms were engraved directly on the rotating electrostatic generators rather than as the sine waves used in other Electrones (from which the desired tone colours were derived by additive synthesis - mixing the various sine waves as desired). I once owned a 348 and in my opinion this feature gave its sounds a considerable freshness which I never thought the additive synthesis models achieved, which sounded rather cloying in comparison to my ears). There was also the 'Augmentum' available as a 'first stage' with one manual and pedals and again 2 tone colours - stopped flute and principal, though it seems this was a straight (not extended) instrument of 4 manual stops, but with all 3 pedal stops derived from the great 8 foot flute. It could be converted into a 'second stage' which had a second manual and 6 stops. Again, this did not seem to use extension since the 3-rank mixture had its own 183 pipes, and there was even a celeste. The 'Cecilian' on the other hand was smaller than the Miniatura, having only one 49-note manual with a 16 foot automatic pedal bass operating over the lowest 1 1/2 octaves. Its stop list was almost identical with the swell organ of the Miniatura 'B'. When you consider this against the similar ranges of small pipe organs available from other contemporaneous builders as mentioned by Tony, the prospective customer was pretty much spoilt for choice in the mid-20th century when it came to house organs.

I don't think I can add much to what I said previously, but would like to emphasise should there be any doubt that in no way was I intending to slight or criticise Professor Wilkes. In fact his lecture sounds very interesting and I wish I had been there to enjoy it.

It's a book of two halves by two authors with two rather different perspectives. They make no secret of this, saying in the Preface that " ... we naturally do not see eye to eye on every detail. For instance, we differ somewhat on the merits of organs built before about 1850". They also say that "it may seem the height of presumption for the authors, neither of whom could, by any stretch of the imagination, be regarded as a competent organ player, to attempt to deal with Registration". Quite. But also honest. It does what it says on the tin. I enjoyed reading it the first time I came across it, which is more than I can say about some other stuff authored by this pair, and pick it up from time to time to find the enjoyment undiminished. It's a useful reference work if read against the spirit of its time in my estimation.

"One could ask 50 organists for their thoughts on any piece and probably get 51 opinions. It's a very interesting discussion though." Yes, it is interesting, and the same seems to apply to any other discipline. Physicists and mathematicians are regularly asked to vote for their most beautiful equation. (FWIW, Euler's identity often comes out top or very near to the top of the list ... ). 'Beauty' pervades all human experience. It's fascinating that even in something so apparently black-and-white as physics or maths, exactly the same emotions are aroused as they are in music and all other endeavours.

Yes Stanley, I'm sorry, but I have to agree with SL here! But never having been one to let go once having got a rat between my teeth (a bit like Stanley in this respect I think, and I know he won't mind me having said so), how abouts a bit of the truth about at least some professional organists? I'm of an age when I was lucky enough to be have been able to attend the weekly organ recitals at the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesdays at 5:55 (because I spent 7 years at King's just across the river in the 1960s/70s). So twixt then and now I've attended an awful lot of them, and not only in this country either. Here's just a sprinkling of the less impressive memories. I'm naming only those who can't sue me. It's far from a complete list. Jacques van Oortmerssen: shuddered to a dead stop in the middle of 'the' toccata at the Royal Albert Hall. Slow hand clap at the end. So embarrassing but, as the unknown guy sitting on my right said, "I'll be asking for my money back". Robert Joyce: casually let his foot produce an extended pedal drone, which is not in any edition I've seen, during the Pastorale of Guilmant's 1st sonata at Llandaff cathedral. Knowing glances between knowledgeable members of the audience. A cathedral organist, not performing on his home instrument, who accidentally brought on full organ (or something approaching it) in a quiet movement of a Mendelssohn sonata. To be fair, it might have been his registrant who was performing near-lunatic acrobatics at the console. (And as an aside, how many other instruments need more than one player? Might this have anything to do with the low esteem in which the organ is held by many other musicians?). I could go on - at length. However to counter all this, we need to remember that the perfect renditions we hear on recordings are largely synthetic and unrepresentative of reality. The average CD contains over 1000 edits. Some recordings are produced by snipping the best bits out of, and then replaying via the instrument itself, several MIDI recordings which many modern pipe organs facilitate. None of this is ever made clear to Joe Public who has to shell out hard earned cash to buy the result. Prior to the days when such things could be done, Walter Alcock at Salisbury Cathedral was said to cough discreetly when his blemishes appeared on his 78 rpm recordings when friends persuaded him to play them. We simply cannot demand this level of flawlessness in live performances and it is unreasonable to expect otherwise. But by the same token, I would respectfully ask that some of these self-styled paragons of virtue might therefore temper their criticisms of the amateur, without whom Christianity as we have come to know it in countless thousands of churches and chapels across this country would be the poorer. There is a parallel forum to this one where there is currently and regrettably not much activity, but quite often amateur organists (who typically style themselves 'reluctant pianists') ask for, and receive, a lot of assistance from kindly professionals without a hint of the cant which I am afraid sometimes surfaces here. Wouldn't it be nice if the reluctant pianists felt able to join our ranks?

I find it odd to hear the pejorative remarks aimed directly or indirectly at amateur organists. We've had quite a few of them on parallel threads recently, and there are hints on this one as well. It often seems that this breed of musician is thought to be uniquely associated with the instrument, and as though amateurs do not exist in connection with any other. It's nonsense of course. Of those who attempt to learn any instrument, how many become professional in the sense that they succeed in making a living by playing it? Surely the answer has to be only a minority in all cases? Therefore, why single out and pillory the poor amateur organist when the majority of those who play all other instruments are also amateurs? The answer, of course, is that it is only the courageous amateur organist who has the temerity (please read this as guts) to regularly play in public for the benefit of their community. To do something useful, in other words, and often for nothing - quite unlike the professional I might add. But by doing so, they necessarily reveal their shortcomings for all to hear, and to be reviled for it. A professionally qualified organist wrote yesterday on this forum of the cliqueiness of the organ world. How right he is.

It's odd isn't it, the empty church syndrome, considering the number of people who nevertheless seem to have an interest in organ music as per my original post. There were 7530 downloads of my so-called Top 20 titles alone, which was just a small fraction of the total in the stats I analysed. And that's just for my humble minority-interest site buried within the detritus of the billions out there. But of course it's much more of a commitment to actually go to a venue and pay to hear the music. So why does live pop music attract such crowds? One reason might be that it costs money however you do it (if you stream it legally), so the lazy internet option isn't so financially attractive as it is for the out-of-copyright material which comprises the bulk of most organ recitals. And bedroom downloaders get none of the herd attractions of actually being at Glasto etc. There are instruments for which the situation is even more dire than it is for the organ. The bassoon is one example. What sort of career, if any, is on offer for a young aspirant bassoonist? Or a violist? So maybe the situation isn't quite as negative as we might think. A degree of latent interest seems to be there if my stats have any meaning, which is some small comfort perhaps. But it's nonetheless going to be an uphill struggle to get people to go to recitals when they can hear the same stuff for free on the internet or Alexa, etc. Come to think of it, maybe it's people like me who put stuff for free on the web who are actually making things worse for live music events.

Some recent posts have discussed things like youtube performances and various pieces of organ music. This has reminded me of a related topic I ponder about from time to time, which is how to construct a recital programme. There seem to be several aspects|: 1. Who are we playing to? Sometimes it might be an audience 'of the cloth' so to speak, in other words made up largely of organists. Such occasions will include recitals given to organists' associations. Compiling a recital programme for this sort of audience is probably not seen as particularly difficult by most players. But at the other pole, if we want to attract an audience from a wider and more catholic musical background, or those who are merely curious, which pieces should be selected? Perhaps another way to pose the question is to ask what organ tracks would you choose if you were hosting a Classic FM radio programme, where the advertisers have a keen interest in maximising the listening figures? Should we attempt to educate audiences by instilling into them our own (possibly arcane) preferences, or include a selection of lollipops perhaps? Should the programme be all lollipops? These questions seem important, because they are related to the very survival of the instrument at one extreme. And getting people through the door is also advantageous to the church, town hall, or whatever because it enhances the weight of the collection plate which helps to pay for the upkeep of the instrument and the purchase of the next one. 2. How do we know what people's preferences are in the first place? Has the audience research for organ music ever been done? If so, are the results available in the public domain? As it happens, I do have answers to such questions. Whether they are the right ones might be debated, but on the other hand, who could say whether they were 'right' or not? And if they were thought to be wrong, where are the alternative answers to be found? For what it's worth, I analysed the download statistics relating to the organ music tracks on my website over a six month period during which many thousands of people across the globe listened to (or at least downloaded) them. I could even give you the IP address of each individual download in theory, from which possibly interesting geographical and even demographic information could be extracted if desired. Several hours' worth of music is available on the site, played on various types of organ ranging from Arp Schnitger to WurliTzer and representing music from the 15th to the 20th centuries. From these stats, I compiled a Top Twenty list which had some interesting properties, including: 1. J S Bach did not appear, even though the number of items by him on the site is five times larger than the next most common composer. (This does not mean that nobody listened to Bach; merely that the number of those who did were not able to propel him into the Top Twenty). 2. People strongly preferred romantic music played on organs from the romantic era (19th & 20th centuries) rather than earlier music played on baroque instruments, no matter how interesting people such as us on this forum might regard it. Somehow I feel that this information has to be at least slightly useful. Firms and broadcasting organisations spend huge sums on similar market research, and precisely for this reason they are not about to throw their hard-earned data into the public domain for their competitors to see. But I think the bottom line is that recitalists might consider paying attention to results such as these, even if they do not reflect them in their programmes in every particular. Nobody likes playing to an empty church - do they?