handsoff Posted April 30, 2010 Share Posted April 30, 2010 Reminds me of the organist who decided to clean the comsole during a sermon - somehow managed to touch the 'full swell' piston while dusting the swell keyboard from top to bottom, glissando style! The last thing my teacher said to me before I took a position (my first) at a small parish church was "Turn the blower off before the sermon if you're going to fiddle...". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
innate Posted April 30, 2010 Share Posted April 30, 2010 The last thing my teacher said to me before I took a position (my first) at a small parish church was "Turn the blower off before the sermon if you're going to fiddle...". Stop me if I've mentioned before the time a visiting organist at Guildford Cathedral discovered during the sermon one summer Sunday morning that the Solo Unison Off coupler didn't affect the Tuba... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcnd5584 Posted April 30, 2010 Share Posted April 30, 2010 Stop me if I've mentioned before the time a visiting organist at Guildford Cathedral discovered during the sermon one summer Sunday morning that the Solo Unison Off coupler didn't affect the Tuba... In fact, since the action of this instrument was partly renewed a few years ago, neither of the Unison Off stops works without either the relevant Sub Octave or Octave coupler being drawn as well - on any speaking stop on the Swell or Solo organs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Clark Posted May 6, 2010 Author Share Posted May 6, 2010 Or you could do what the RCO used to do and refuse permission for any pistons to be changed… I would never refuse a visiting organist - particularly if he or she was giving a recital - permission to change the pistons, but I woull request that they take note of the exisiting settings and either restore them after the recital or leave a note saying precisely what was changed. The strange thing is that in the case I reported above, the first two pistons were left intact and they are setting specific to a particular piece which I would not have thought of as appropriate to what was actually played! Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiffaro Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 I'll think I'll have to introduce this forum to a colleague of mine with whom I have an arrangement whereby I practice a couple of days a week on his mechanical action organ, and he is preparing for an exam on my more English eclectic electric action instrument. I always return his organ bench to the height he uses, trying to get the same distance from the console, and I've walked in to play for a service on my instrument to find I have to change over the blocks under my organ stool and shift it forward again. It's the little things... Notice the personal pronouns, even thought organs aren't really ours! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest drd Posted May 13, 2010 Share Posted May 13, 2010 Quite! It is indeed the little things. Being human, subject to human nature in all its frailties, the little things when repeated can assume quite sizeable proportions - I know I am subject to this particular frailty - but I do wish others were as meticulous as one tries oneself to be when visiting someone else's place of work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Roffensis Posted May 13, 2010 Share Posted May 13, 2010 Well I fondly remember, some years ago, carefully and thoroughly setting the pistons at St. George's Hall in Liverpool (spare channel) for one of my many recitals there, only to return an hour or so later to play and have to register the whole lot by hand because the pistons decided to reset themselves in the meantime! It wasn't easy either. Of course............ R Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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