Jonathan Lane

That's why my wedding fees are so high!

Having read the original comment (or rather my wife having read it to me) and not having seen the replies (yet), I would like to put forward my opinion. When I was a Director of Music, and now in a freelance capacity I have a simple policy with wedding couples. It is their day, and we will provide anything they want, provided it is both legal and moral to do so. I often suggest that if they want something that might be better from a CD, maybe they would like this, I have no objections to this (we get paid anway!) However, we have been required to sing and play all sorts of things, such as the choir singing Wonderful World, and Star Wars and Indiana Jones on the organ. I aim to offer an efficient and comprehensive service to wedding couples, albeit at a price (I have set fees, and they're not cheap!) Jonathan

There's an organ I play regularly where I just won't draw the Great Mixture, as it feels like it was made and voiced for a much bigger building, it just screams, even at the back of the nave. The rest of the organ is very pleasant.

It would be a crying shame if it were not.

Or even schools, I played at Cranleigh back in November for the school chapel service one morning, and the GDB there, which is a very fine instrument, is totally useless at supporting the sounds of 800 lusty young voices, and the DofM advised me they weren't even singing particularly well. However, they have, I understand major developments in that area. Jonathan

I absolutely agree, but I'm sure Cynic would agree too that the best organ builders manage to provide a good accompanimental instrument as well as one capable of large amounts of the repertoire very successfully. J

Like Pershore, now no longer going back. Is there any committee or anything working to have it reinstalled and restored?

Isn't it supposed to be going back, and fully restored, in proper Bill Drake manner, at some point. Jonathan

Excellent, and how enlightened a council! Jonathan

Sadly, I think you're right, and is probably symptomatic of the position the organ holds in the cultural life of the country as much as anything. Jonathan

I like improvising on slightly (and sometimes very) unusual themes, but they are mostly so obscure that only those in the know spot them. These improvisations are more often spotted as being in the style of other composers, eg Langlais. I've improvised on the theme from 'The Simpsons', 'Blackadder', and a combined improv on two Queen songs, Another one bites the dust and Don't stop me now, to name but a few. Jonathan

The existing organ I found a pleasure to play, and so much easier to get the right effects out of than that down the road at Holy Trinity. It may be a little unusual in composition, but I think is beautifully balanced to the intimacy of the chapel. I do hope a good home is found for it, it would be a great shame to lose it completely. Jonathan

Hi Tony, I wasn't searching for Forest School Horsham but found it by accident. I'm always using the neighbourhood search function, it is very useful. Jonathan

NPOR says organ was destroyed by fire in 1976, was this the old organ or the new one, or totally inaccurate! Jonathan

Another one that has just come to my attention, after reading your post actually, is Forest School, Horsham. I did a simple search on NPOR putting school into the search box. After that you have to sort out the list by a more tedious means, but once you weed out public/private schools, and those organisations that have school in their title, i.e. RSCM, the list is very interesting. Jonathan

That's what the tell me!It's interesting, that as we are on a business server there is no slow-up at the times you would normally expect. Jonathan

I'm not that sure there are many people online between midnight and 2.00 a.m. when the problem usually occurs. Most of the time it is instantaneous. We're on 8 Meg and its a business server, so there are not a lot of people using it at that time I suspect! Jonathan

Every night this week I have had a period of ten to fifteen minutes when almost all websites have been slow loading, and those with any sort of graphics unable to load at all. I put it down to maintenance on the ISP server. We're with Brightview, which is owned by BT. When the server needs maintenance, they sometimes need to switch it off, as they are a business server, it tends to happen early in the morning, between midnight and 2.00 a.m. If the Invision server is on a similar server (which I suspect it is), the site specific downtime people are experiencing would be explained. Jonathan

There seem to be some discrepancies between the NPOR entry and the BDOA details, most notably the issue of the Hautboy, which is claimed to have been installed by Daniels, and the Twentysecond, which again is claimed to have replaced a Vox Humana (what a shame!) It is also claimed that Daniels added the Clarion, one wonders what was there before. The other implication is that the Great reed is a Posaune 16 not 8, which of course would explain the existence of the now removed Trumpet, again one wonders if this has been remodelled to 8' Food for thought, and a fascinating instrument. Jonathan

Absolutely!

Thanks David, this is very useful and answers some questions for me. I must admit the study of mettalurgy as you present it makes it and awful lot clearer than when I first tried to understand acoustics some ten years ago, I got lost on the first page. My background is in nuclear physics and communications engineering, so the fields seem like opposite ends of the spectrum, but I suspect I am actually closer to understanding the science than I thought. Anyway, thanks again, I understand much more about this subject now! Jonathan

As I said earlier, there are many aspects that go into the sound a pipe can produce, and as I also previously said, I wouldn't want to decry the work of the voicer, who is ultimately key to the whole sound, as he has the final say. But I think to ignore all the aspects in favour of just the work of the voicer is wrong, and sometimes a one percent change in sound produced by the pipe can be what the client is looking for so I would never rule this out, at the end of the day we rely on our clients, and whilst they should take experienced advice, they at the end of the day pay our wages! I don't pretend to be experienced in pipe making, in fact, I have never made metal pipes, and am learning as much as I can before I start. There must be a reason though, other than appearance why an organ builder would choose a particular composition. I would be interesed to see the Florence organ though! Jonathan

As far as I can see different hardness of metal actually changes the sound. Jonathan

I didn't say that Terry Shires had made those assertions. Jonathan

Thanks Alan for passing this on. It is good to know that Ian Bell is advising, as there can be none better to give the right advice. I believe Ian's comments show that Warrington Council take this seriously, and that they are being very thorough. Perhaps we should really be petitioning the government to set up funds (probably not forthcoming in our current economic climate!), to help save and restore historic instruments such as this. Are we the only country in Europe that doesn't take our (and in this case our neighbours) organ traditions seriously. I know this is wishful thinking, but what you don't wish for you don't get!! Jonathan