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nazard

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Everything posted by nazard

  1. It is obvious that a west organ as at Westminster Cathedral is a dead loss for accompanying the choir, but the original question was about nave divisions. Surely a nave division is for recitals, volutaries and goading the congregation into singing hymns? I stick by my point that the west end seems best for that. Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral is unusual in that the building is about as wide as it is long, so its admirable solution is not likely to work in long, thin medieval buildings. I have heard suggestions that a large pipe organ is an effective sound baffle and absorber, which stops the wall behind it echoing. I assume that for this to be true the organ has to more or less cover the wall. Does anyone know if this is true? If it is then installing a large west end organ may significantly alter the acoustic of the building. Would that be a benefit or a tragedy in any of our cathedrals?
  2. I think Westminster Cathedral makes the point very successfully: the west end it has to be.
  3. nazard

    Misprints

    Please do - it would be a Godsend. Don't forget the easy stuff, which us poor mortals find difficult. Popular contemporary hymnbooks seem to be peppered with errors just as much as organ music. If you do write to publishers, would you point out that I can't turn over with my feet? Quite a few seem to think that so long as there is a rest on one of the staves he/she can put a page turn in?
  4. How long would Mr Mander have to wait and under what conditions should he store the said piece of sheepskip before coming to a conclusion?
  5. I had a glorious experience with this one. Our PP, who had a powerful singing voice and an unfortunate excessive self confidence, wanted to solo the verses, to an organ accompaniment, and the choir/congregation would sing the choruses. Each verse starts with a left hand chord in the organ, and after a beat's rest, the melody comes in. As soon as he heard the chord our PP paniced and started. I gave a quick skip to get into time, he thought I wanted to go like the proverbial bat from the place we don't mention, and off he went... Ever since then our choir has called that number "The painful kyrie." (The first verse goes "Look around you, feel the pain...") Ever since then I have decided that if ever I get the opportunity to specify an organ rebuild, I will ask for an extra non speaking stop called "PA mute". The knob will just switch the PA off, but it will have all the bits and pieces it needs so that you can include it in combination piston settings.
  6. When singing some of these dreadful hymns, it can be helpful to remember the words of on older version of "Hark a herald voice is calling." In the first edition of the Westminster Hymnal the words read "Hark ! an awful voice is sounding." Quite a few choirs and music groups I have encountered could make this their signature tune. To get back to dreadful hymns, my own nomination is "Peace is flowing like a river." It doesn't mention God, it oozes conceit, and has the melodic interest of a badly oiled door swinging in the wind. As for the harmony, I can't even recall it. Why is it in hymnbooks at all?
  7. The idea of attracting the young is fine, but the problem is how. I am speaking of the RC church, but protestant friends tell me that they have the same problem. The young do not seem to be attracted by the "music group" style of worship which seems to many to be based on 1960s pop. Contemporary pop idiom does not carry religious sentiments at all well, and young people often agree with this view. They are content with traditional church music, which they sum up with the sentiment "at least you know you're in church". The catholic chaplaincies at Oxford and Cambridge, which thirty years ago were guitar dominated, now have organs, gregorian chant and polyphony. However, local parishes are dominated by people who pushed guitars to the front in their youth, are now in their sixties, who will not accept that the music which attracted them in their youth no longer attracts young people. I always try to ask the children what they like in church music, and the answer seems to be not much, but it does have to be loud. They do like "Woodlands" and "Cwm Rhondda." Does anyone know of anything else ten year olds actually admit to liking?
  8. Vox, The problem I have is the occasional lost packet, I assume due to a poor signal/noise ratio giving some sort of checksum error. The result is occasional clicks or short silences in the sound. However, in between, the quality is good, and my digibox has a sound line out. I assume that in good reception areas there will be no problem except for a slight loss of bandwidth compared to fm.
  9. Denon hi-fis are a bit pricy for most of us, but a relatively practical solution for many people are the digital set top boxes which record digital tv on their built in hard disc drives. The freeview television system carries a selection of radio stations, including radio 3, and set top boxes which record cost about £100. Mine can even be set to record every week at a single set up session. Where I live is a long way from the tv transmitter, and quality is not quite as good as fm radio, but it is a lot better than the net. Perhaps someone who lives in a good tv reception area would like to comment on the sound quality? You can even convince the wife that such a box is £100 well spent because it can record the Archers/Coronation Street/Emmerdale... etc while you are on holiday. Back to the original issue, Wednesday evening choral evensong has been the highlight of my commuting week for many years. If it has to be moved to Sunday, could we have choral vespers on Wednesdays instead? The rest of the week's four o'clock programmes are pretty dire.
  10. I have ludicrous size feet (12 1/2 H) and I cope with the problem by playing without shoes. To keep the choir from moaning, it is best to change your socks immediately before playing. An extra pair of thick wooly socks from a hiking shop is handy for the winter. Otherwise I get my shoes from Harland and Wolf... People with enormous feet have usually got them on the end of very long legs, and getting rid of the shoe heels makes your legs an inch or so shorter which helps to get them under the lowest manual. My organ playing kit includes pieces of wood for putting under the legs of organ stools. With a judicious selection of thicknesses ( 10mm, 20mm & 40mm) I usually manage to get the bench height about right. The other problem with big feet is crossing over, but if you practice obsessively until you can manage it you learn eventually. Try using alternate feet for alternate notes even when it is not really necessary. You soon stop tangling up. The bonus of big feet is that you can heel to toe intervals other organists can only dream about... My teenage soon has more or less identical feet, and plays the same way. He learned very quickly, much faster than I did, but I left it until my mid forties to start. Please give your son my encouagement.
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