Organ matters - Organs matter!

I'd very much like to contribute to this thread but, unfortunately, I lack the skills needed to play!

Nevertheless, I look forward to benefiting from others' experiences.

Why not "Best organs"?

I'm sure may organists will assert that the best organ is the one they regularly play(!), but if contributors could explain WHY it could be a very interesting topic.

I visit this forum every day and had noticed that it has been unnaturally quiet!

Let's hope things pick up again.

Lunacy.

I was just reminiscing about early days and recall being invited by BB to have a play with the Redditch organ.  He explained that they had recently had a break-in and parts of the organ had suffered the consequences including, sad to say, the young gentlemen having urinated into some hooded reeds.
Perhaps worse, they had attempted to prise open a steel safe using a LEAD pipe!  Unsuccessfully, needless to say.
Of course, it goes without saying that most of our criminal fraternity are 'intellectually challenged'.  I suppose that's why they are criminals: too dim to do anything else.

Thanks anyway.  It was a long time ago, when Barry was teaching at the University of Central England.

Quote from: Barrie Davis on June 09, 2015, 10:20:43 AM
You are right it is 8ft.

I understand that the leather motors are in a bad state and have been for some time.

Do you happen to know whether Barry Barker and his wife (sorry, forgotten her name - she was the organist, I believe) were still involved until the closure?

Quote from: Janner on April 20, 2015, 08:15:27 AM
I often wonder about those who seem to spend half their lives peering at the screens of their mobile devices, or have them welded to their ears, and are completely oblivious to their surroundings.

Yes, it makes me laugh to see them walking down the street with their phone to their ear.  Some do this for a considerable length of time and seem to prattle on about nothing (not that I've been earwigging, of course), so I presume they are not short of money!

Needless to say, that is something I never do.  If I really need to speak to someone about something important, I make a quick call and have done with it.

I see discussion fora like this and Facebook as two distinctly different things.

I visit this forum every day on my computer; I visit Facebook most days on my mobile phone, and each for quite different reasons.  In my opinion, the internet forum is far from dead.  Perhaps this and other organ fora are relatively quiet, but that reflects the fact that the organ is a minority interest.  However, other fora I visit are far more lively yet some are equally specialist.

I must admit that it has never occurred to me to visit this site on my mobile phone.

I agree.  Fora are much preferable if you want to follow individual threads.

Sadly, fifty would be a typical attendance for many organ recitals in this country.  I may have mentioned before (poor memory, I'm afraid), but when I attended a recital in Cologne Cathedral a few years ago, the place was full - that's in excess of a couple of thousand - with many bringing camping chairs and sitting in the aisles because all the pews had been filled.  And that was for Messiaen!

Why not here?

Texting and Facebook are OK and can be quite useful...

...the rest I agree with!

I completely agree.  I'd be very interested to learn which church this was, but I expect their identity will remain a secret.

Dumbing down.

That looks lovely.  I wish I had that sort of money too, though it would probably cost as much again to have it transported here.

I'd be interested to hear what the pedal sounds like.  I presume the Sordun 16' (presumably not a misprint for Bordun) is a fractional-length reed, and no 8' stop either.

The rest of the specification looks useful, though.

 ;D

I can just imagine the organ builder's staff, having just carefully glued and screwed the inner and outer leaves of the swell box, when one of them shouts, "Oi, who's got my sandwiches?"

I wish I'd been there to see his face!

Quote from: David Pinnegar on June 19, 2014, 11:20:58 AM
Hi!

Glass pipes could be used quite easily as the resonators mounted on conventional metal to the languid . . . sitting on a rim soldered on. The effect could be extraordinarily beautiful and Helmholtz would have approved.

Plastic drain pipes were used by an amateur in the 1990s in Hastings - sadly I have lost his details - but he made a home organ with such pipes as well as a more extensive church instrument for a church in Czech Republic where metal theft was feared.

It would be interesting to see someone else take on the idea. They were plastic drain pipes from the local builders' merchant

Best wishes

David P

That's interesting.  How did he get around the variations in scale?  Or did the sound get very much more 'flutey' as he went up to the top of the keyboard?!

Quote from: dragonser on June 19, 2014, 01:19:37 PM
Hi,
I wonder if it would be possible to obtain a Harmonium / Reed Organ and then renovate this instrument. I would think that some of the techniques such as woodwork, felt, releathering would be in common with a Pipe Organ ?
there is also the tuning and regulation of the Reeds which might actually be more complex than Tuning a Pipe Organ.
the Logistics of moving a Harmonium / Reed Organ is probably easier than moving a Pipe Organ ?
But I stand to be corrected !

regards Peter B

I'm sure that some such skills can be applied to both instruments.  I was told that harmonium reeds don't go out of tune, though.

As for moving them, that put me in mind of when I was a child and the local church decided to dispose of its harmonium.  I remember it being in the choir's robing room, but I never remember it being used.  (The church has a pipe organ as well, although I understand it is no longer working properly.  Probably not many in the congregation these days - it's in a 'white flight' area of Bradford.)

Anyway, despite it weighing a ton (not literally), my dad and his mate managed to move it along two streets to our house, and then up two narrow flights of stairs to my bedroom in the attic.  I can't imagine how they managed it, but they did!  I remember learning quite a lot about the internal workings, through 'experimentation'.

Edit:  Btw, very nice to see a young child taking an interest in the organ (picture above), especially a girl.

Quote from: hjtib1 on May 28, 2014, 05:16:52 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS8MJi0B76s - Paul, Explain this then?

That's classical music?   :o

Quote from: DemeterOphelia on May 27, 2014, 04:00:17 AM
I would think a capacitor, but I'm no expert (hence why I'm asking on here).

Sorry to butt in here, but I think you may have hit the nail on the head.  I'm no expert either but, from what I've read, of all 'solid state' components capacitors are probably the most likely to 'go'.  You can often tell if one has blown simply by looking at it.

Don't just take my word for it, though.  I should google something like 'failed capacitors' and read up on how to test them and diagnose a failed one.

Good luck.