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Messages - Nicolette

#41
Quote from: revtonynewnham on May 13, 2015, 12:30:33 PM
Having had problems with arthritis for a number of years, and both hips replaced, you just need to adjust playing (and maybe avoid more challenging pedal-dependent repertoire) for a while. Tony
Thanks for this advice, Tony, which I will bear firmly in mind for when it's all healed!
Nicolette
#42
This is really helpful, Ian - thank you very much indeed.  My injury is healing  -  clinic appointment this week, so I'll find out what the progress is.   I've booked on to an intensive organ course in early July, so I'm hoping that I will be two-footed again by then.   Yesterday, I played for the Sunday service, using manuals and left foot only.  It was frustrating not being able to use my right foot, but wonderful to get the sound of the full organ again.  I played a Toccata by Bernardo Pasquini (C17 Italy) where the pedalling is fairly minimal and can be contained to the left foot.  (Nobody realised I was playing one-legged-ly, anyway!)   Thank you, also, for suggesting Baroque music from elsewhere in Europe, too.  Sweelinck - of course!   And I know what you mean about the opportunity that something like this brings to focus on other aspects of playing.   Every cloud has a silver lining!
Nicolette
#43
New Pipe Organs / Re: Buckfast Abbey - Ruffatti
May 15, 2015, 05:54:10 PM
Wow - so it is!   I could have done with exactly those for a James MacMillan piece I played in a recital last September.  This organ looks fascinating.  Roll on 2017!
#44
New Pipe Organs / Re: Buckfast Abbey - Ruffatti
May 14, 2015, 11:45:00 AM
Thanks Janner.  This will be one for my must-see list. 
Nicolette
#45
Quote from: David Wyld on May 13, 2015, 12:32:11 PM
Just switch to playing the Cinema/Theatre organ - they only ever used the left foot!
:o

:D
#46
Quote from: revtonynewnham on May 13, 2015, 12:30:33 PM
You work round it & keep going.  There's plenty  of manuals only repertoire out there if things get really bad.
Every BlessingTony
Yes, that's certainly true.  A volume I came across recently is "Bach - Easy Piano Pieces", which is actually a compilation of music by four of his sons - WF, CPE, JCF and JC Bach.  ("Easy" is sometimes a little short of the mark!)  It's produced by Editio Musica Budapest.  There are some absolute little gems in this collection and I'm certainly giving them a run for their money at the moment.  Several of the pieces beg some interesting manual changes and I'm having fun with them!   Would recommend.
#47
I thought I'd post this here, as only other organists would really understand my plight!  I've broken a bone in my right foot (the 5th metatarsal, to be exact) and the frustration it's causing me is BIG.   It happened just before Easter (loose-fitting, slightly heeled shoe meets wonky bit of pavement).  However, at the time, the opinion was that it wasn't broken, so I went ahead and - through the pain - played Vierne 1 (Final) on Easter Sunday.  Fast-forward and to cut a long story short, it turns out that it is broken.  So I'm now a one-foot-wonder and although I had the last 2 Sundays off, I'm back into action this week.  It's not as mad as it seems, though, because I'm going to compromise.   I'm hunting madly for voluntaries I could play with one foot, or at least adapt for the purpose.  Hymns are okay - if I make sure I play the main harmony notes with my left foot and do some left-hand doubling-up, all will not be lost.  The swell pedal is manageable, too - I just rest my right foot on it and flex it my ankle (not affected, thank goodness!) as and when required!    As for my own practising, well, it's a great opportunity to really hone my left-foot technique!   I wondered if anyone else had been through this sort of thing, and how they overcame it......exercises, repertoire, etc........thanks!  :)
#48
Quote from: Janner on April 20, 2015, 08:15:27 AM
Facebook? Personally I have nothing to do with it at all.J.
Oh good - a kindred spirit!
This forum covers so many areas of our specialist interest, while Facebook seems to look at anything and everything, right down to inane things like telling "friends" that you're drinking your fourth cup of coffee of the day..........Long may Organmatters survive!!
Nicolette
#49
To my mind, we need the power of the organ to reflect the power of God and to reflect the words of the traditional hymns containing, as they do, equal amounts of theology and worship.   

And isn't it significant that Messaien composed "Apparition de l'Eglise éternelle" for the organ?
Nicolette
#50
Well, our daughter - who doesn't go to church regularly, I'm sorry to say - came with us yesterday to the Easter Sunday service and turned pages for me in the Final of Vierne's 1st Symph., so you could say she had two experiences for the price of one!
Happy Easter,
Nicolette
#51
Organs in danger / Re: York
March 18, 2015, 12:34:59 PM
Yes. I wouldn't like to see this forum go.
#52
Many thanks for this.  An interesting stop tour and some super reeds.
Best wishes,
Nicolette
#53
Hubby and I are thinking of going to France - not sure which part yet - in early May, partly (well really, mainly) so that I can try out organs of interest while we're there.  Can anyone recommend any organ/church, anywhere, that is known to accommodate visiting organists?   I'm not necessarily looking for organ crawls as such, but I'm open-minded. 
Thanks! 
Nicolette
#54
For the foreseeable future, we'll have to stick with what we've got and suit the music to the instrument.   It is versatile and the Great is full-toned. 
I often play music from the French romantic/late romantic repertoire, coupling full swell to the great where required, which gets the desired effect.  Thanks for the advice and thoughts on the matter!
#55
Thanks David -  I'll have to keep this in mind for the future, but it sounds like an interesting option.
Nicolette
#56
Quote from: pcnd5584 on February 12, 2015, 09:48:38 PM
Quote from: Nicolette on February 11, 2015, 09:56:07 PM
I think a Great Mixture would certainly have to be in the specification.   Since its renovation last year, our 29-stop Rushworth and Dreaper (Inverleith St. Serf's, Edinburgh) has been attracting acclaim for its beauty of tone and the church's beneficial acoustic.    The Great 8ft Flute and Tromba, Swell reeds and Stopped Diapason, and the Choir Clarinet add a lot of colour and versatility to the organ's strong foundation.   We also have a meaty 16ft fagotto and a helpful 32ft Acoustic Bass in the pedal department.   However, while there is a Mixture on the Swell, there isn't one on the Great.   The inclusion of a Great Mixture would, I feel, have made an already-versatile-and-attractive instrument even more so.

Granted - although the instrument you mention is somewhat larger than the parameters for this thread.

Out of interest, what is the stop-list for your G.O., please? (I wondered if there was anything which could be ditched - preferably near the tuner's passage-board - in order to accommodate a compound stop?)


I know, our instrument isn't all that small, although it's under 30 and the smallest of three by R. and D. in Scotland.   

I have actually been thinking about the G.O. and what (in an ideal world) a mixture might replace.

The stoplist is:
Bourdon                        16      
Open Diapason 1        8   
Open Diapason  11       8      
Salicional                        8      
Claribel Flute                8      
Tromba                         8   
Wald Flute                   4   
Octave                         4         
Fifteenth                       2

Probably, if anything, the salicional, but this would have to be a pipe dream (sorry!) for the future.   I can dream!
#57
I think a Great Mixture would certainly have to be in the specification.   Since its renovation last year, our 29-stop Rushworth and Dreaper (Inverleith St. Serf's, Edinburgh) has been attracting acclaim for its beauty of tone and the church's beneficial acoustic.    The Great 8ft Flute and Tromba, Swell reeds and Stopped Diapason, and the Choir Clarinet add a lot of colour and versatility to the organ's strong foundation.   We also have a meaty 16ft fagotto and a helpful 32ft Acoustic Bass in the pedal department.   However, while there is a Mixture on the Swell, there isn't one on the Great.   The inclusion of a Great Mixture would, I feel, have made an already-versatile-and-attractive instrument even more so.
#58
There are three things I'd like to say about my faith and the organ:
(1) Playing the organ definitely helps my faith.  When I accompany the hymns on Sundays, I always aim to reflect the text in my choices of registration, which in turn reinforces for me the message behind each verse.
(2) I am in no doubt at all that my ability to play the organ is something I've been gifted with in mid-life.   
(3) And I would really love to play the organ in the Berlioz Te Deum, and/or in Mahler's Resurrection Symphony with its faith-affirming last movement.

Thanks for the opportunity to say so!
#59
Quote from: pcnd5584 on February 08, 2015, 12:34:57 PM
Quote from: revtonynewnham on February 08, 2015, 10:02:22 AM
Hi Nicollette

Welcome to the forum.

Every Blessing

Tony (one of the moderators - not that I've had a lot to do for a very long time)



Welcome, too, from me - another of the moderators.

(Actually, I am quite pleased that there has been little in the way of admonishing to do lately - so much more civilised.)

Sean
(pcnd5584)


Thank you!
Nicolette
#60
I see the last post on this thread was a year and a half ago - so I hope it's still okay to post here!
I'm a mid-life piano-to-organ convert, having converted seriously to the organ nine years ago in 2006, when I started taking lessons.  (I'd been lucky enough to have 4 lessons from the late Ralph Downes ages ago, in response to an emergency request to accompany a choir, but that's another story!)  I absolutely love it - as "the instrument of my life" - and have now become professionally qualified.   I'm now the regular organist at Inverleith St. Serf's in Edinburgh, where we have a lovely 3-manual Rushworth and Dreaper organ that has just been beautifully renovated by Principal Pipe Organs.