Big toys - planes, trains, organs - train spotters and the obsessed

[David Pinnegar]

Hi!

Perhaps none of us, when we have got the bug, can claim innocence from being obsessed by organs in some way - and personally, much to my wife's chagrin, speakers too . . . generally things that make a good deal of wonderful noise! What fun!  :)  ;)  :D ;D

There is in all of us a fascination that comes out of the human capacity to be in control of forces on a gigantic scale beyond that which we can imagine to be capable of ourselves - and it's in this that trains, planes and organs possibly have something in common.

The obsessions that we have can clear or cloud our views and certainly train spotting or plane spotting starting in childhood can lead to big things in later life. By repute cricket matches in which my youngest son was fielding had to be temporarily suspended whilst he identified whatever aircraft was flying overhead and within two or three years http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=history+of+aviation+in+alderney appeared from his desk, much to the consternation of his publisher in having the surprise of having to deal with parents on the signing of a contract for an under age author. Later http://en-gb.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=148526651853814 resulted. This obsession for aircraft and airlines is nothing to do with his parents but it was his Godfather who suggested to him that he write a book . . .

In this way, parents can end up having little influence upon the obssessions of their children, and just as we with children learn how to be father christmas to the young generation, so it is as adults we should all be as godfathers to the younger generation with enthusiasms. If guided well, they can go great places and far. . .

I hope that as a community we might be able each to guide and inspire younger obsessives and perhaps even if they don't play, perhaps they might go and be trained and apprenticed as organ builders . . . or otherwise utilise great knowkedge of the "what" and the "where" if not perhaps so much the "why" and the "how" to useful purpose.

It's so important for young people to find the path that leads them towards doing something useful in life and helping where we can is the factor that can make all the difference. People to whom "no" "no" "no" is said all the time can and do feel terribly boxed in and instead saying "what about . . . ?" can transform the world.

After all, isn't inclusion, forgiveness and understanding part of what Christianity in terms of love thy God (and all his Creation) and Thy Neighbour as Thyself of which the Organ in church is part is all about?

If this posting is not part of Organology perhaps this post should be moved to Atheists' Corner . . . ?

Best wishes

David P

[David Pinnegar]

Hi!

A friend responds:

I remember the cringeworthy moment at a concert in Lewes, when a young man with some form of ASD walked up to the pianist at the end and said, loud enough for me to hear from the balcony: "That was great! Pity about that B you got wrong in the second movement. And you made a mistake at the end as well, didn't you? Apart from that, it was all good." The pianist thanked him gracefully, said she knew she had made some mistakes, and went away.
Your anonymous complainant needs to understand this painfully acute need for accuracy, and lack of social awareness that Aspergers sufferers live with. To what possible end are they writing complaints?

One of the recipients of an anonymous letter sent to him regarding comments made by an Aspergers Syndrome sufferer on YouTube and other places about his performing responded:

Following yesterday's events, I really can't be bothered what this s***y [adjective editorially removed] little boy thinks of me. He's entitled to his opinion - evidently he has more of that than any worthwhile judgement. The initial reaction of some shock soon dissipated to indifference...

The motto imposed on a prep school by the now admissions tutor of Harrow School was "Be Kind. Be Kind. Be Kind."

The world should be a big enough place for all to live in it. . . .

A music student with significant obsession for music but great discernment that goes with it, and possibly skills approaching those of genius responds:

If it's of any worth, I should note that I have Aspergers, and higher spectrum autism too. So if you'd like any first hand insight on how to deal with it you know who to talk to. But I'll give you this, it's like being a broken record.

I'm coming to believe that possibly many people associated with the musical world may have varying alignments with these disability spectra - and indeed for those disabled from easy communication in the normal linguistic way, music becomes the very important channel of communication.

Clearly the performer who can ultimately not care about the opinions expressed by that boy of description beloved of Captain Manwaring is a bigger man, with a bigger heart, than the person who had sent to him an anonymous letter.

I have always felt that discussion boards such as this where there is discussion on a common subject can be greatly important in being able to transmit erudition, wisdom and experience from a generation who perhaps might not be around in 20 years time to the young generation who will be transmitting whatever information we can give to them to their juniors in 20 years time. The duty of those in middle age is to encourage that information transfer.

So I hope greatly that all who truly love the Organ and those with erudition, experience and wisdom to help the younger generation will enjoin here on Organ Matters together with the preciously small number of the younger generation interested in the instrument to discuss and transmit what they have to give.

I hope also that the writer of some very nastily intended letters over the recent week or so will also join here in the open and engage directly to influence any errant or silly opinions expressed by the inexperienced in life, and to give them ideas that are better.

The internet, and forums such as this, can be to the greater good and that is better achieved through interaction rather than censorship. On YouTube, a few of my videos are always subjected to a battering of negative comments, to which I respond appropriately rather than deleting. I normally direct nay-sayers to videos of indisputable quality of recording and expertise of playing . . . and it's very amusing to see how many of the nay-sayers cannot have a heart big enough to make good comments on those good videos or even to stick to their guns making continued negative comments - "there - told you so - yes it's bad for this or that reason . . . " .

Can anyone imagine living their life like a "broken record"? It's up to us to make the world a nicer place.

Best wishes

David P

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

Very true, David.

My enthusiasm for the organ as a youngster (almost 50 years ago - yikes! - I realised yesterday that this year marks 50 years of involvement in Christian music, having started playing recorder in a church music group (a rare thing in the very early 1960's)  Led to training in electronics, and subsequently recording etc.

Withoput the help & support of others I doubt that I'd have got very far.

Must go now - Morrison's beckons!

Every Blessing

Tony

[KB7DQH]

 :o Someone has been looking at my Youtube favorites ??? ::) 8)  ;D ;D ;D ;) ;)

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

I should add that I also have an interest in railways - preferably steam - but having grown up on the South Coast, in the heart of "Southern electric" territory, I'm not steam only.  Also other things mechanical.  I can't really claim much interest in aircraft - except as good engineering -but it was rather fun when we lived in North Essex to see Spitfires and the like on test flights from the local company that restored the things.  Not exactly an everyday occurrence, but frequent enough.

I also like vintage transport & machinery - and canals.  It's just a pity that most events featuring such things are either on a Sunday, or expensive, or both!

Every Blessing

Tony

[KB7DQH]

Within a day's drive of here there are around a half-dozen or so "steam tourist railway" operations
which typically operate through the summer months, some even run "Christmas specials" on weekends in December... so lots of opportunity to either ride along or photograph from trackside...

Much more rarely but far more spectacular, the local "Railroad Historical Society" will fire up one or more of the locally housed "big engines", usually pulling a long passenger excursion... and on the main freight/passenger lines!  I have hours of video footage and slide photographs, and a decent hi-fi audio recording or two of such operations...

As far as aircraft go, it isn't nor hasn't been an obsession, however living much of my whole life near the "birthplace of Boeing" hasn't hurt either. I have even had the occasion to meet a fascinating fellow that in his youth worked for a small company which delivered mail to the local area from Seattle using a non-airworthy float plane, much like a crude but effective "hydrofoil"... in the early 1920's...
That outfit grew to become Pacific Air Transport Company, founded by his buddy, Vernon Gorst...
A small crossroads in the County here is so named...  Pacific Air Transport later became what is now United Airlines...

My  talents in most things mechanical, electric and electronic? Those, if genetic, "skipped" a generation... My paternal grandfather, a teacher and inventor judging by at least one US patent issued to him, died long before I was thought of... and I had only briefly met my maternal grandfather shortly before his death... 

It is however from my father I learned an appreciation for GOOD music...  For much of my early childhood "rock and roll"  was something "other" people listened to...  and I still have his LP collection...  Mostly choral and orchestral works, but a couple organ gems reside there also.
One of these, recorded around 1962... Glen Gould playing the Casavant organ at All Saints' Church,
Toronto, Canada,  Bach:  The Art of the Fugue, Vol. 1/ Fugues Nos. 1-9,
  and a slightly more "controversial" (because the organ's pipework in its entirety was trimmed and fitted with tuning slides, to bring the instrument to 'concert pitch' and allow it to be retuned to its 'historic' pitch after the recording session :o   recording  of "The Organ Concertos of Handel, Nos. 1-6, Op. 4"  with E. Power Biggs, organist, and Sir Adrian Boult, conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra...  using the organ of the parish church of Great Packington.
The Columbia Records liner notes for that one run into 9 pages and are a fascinating read in and of themselves.

One must bear in mind E. Power Biggs and other organists featured prominently on the local Classical music radio stations--all two of them-- 40 or so years ago... so lots of opportunities to (sort-of) hear what a "real" pipe organ sounds like ;)   

Fast-Forward a third of a century and be darned, can't find much anything in the record stores
nor on the last remaining Classical Music station left to us here in the Seattle area... in the way of Pipe Organ music. >:( :(

So... Where did it all go ??? 

Enter Youtube... and the one-hour program on Sunday evening on KING-FM, The Organ Loft-- hosted by the associate organist at Saint Mark's Cathedral in Seattle... Roger Sherman...
Thus stoking the fire of yet another "obsession"  :o ;D

Eric
KB7DQH

[KB7DQH]

To get "back on track" I found thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyut5Wt4kM4 8) 8) 8) ;D

After viewing I thought if your favorite railroad wasn't running Steam and a suitable cinema organ was available, one might have a go? :-\ ???

Bear in mind the age of the organist :o 8) ;D ;)

Eric
KB7DQH