Organ matters - Organs matter!

Dear Eric

Yes - I'm wholly with you in making up devices out of obtainable materials rather than simply for paying for the "name" of a manufactured object . . . and when people apply the adjective "mad" to myself, I take it as a great compliment. Microwaves and acoustics have waveguides in common . . . and many people do not expand thoughts sideways as the 18th century polymaths quite rightly did . . .

I think that there was a travelling organ of the sort you intend built in the 1920s which filled two lorries. I'll try to find details in due course. This sort of project is so worthwhile in bringing the organ to the people . . .

Best wishes

David P

WOW! It made rather a lot. Over 840 Eu. But there haven't been any around for sale in some time and an auction just needs two people to drive up the price . . . !

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Hi!

The seminal text on temperament in the modern age derived from an article in the BIOS magazine which was expanded into a book by Charles A. Padgham called The Well Tempered Organ.

The BIOS website has said "temporarily out of print" on rather a permanent basis for quite a time. It gives tuning instructions for a wide variety of temperaments as well as reports on experiments by Padgam, G K Parker and Peter Collins which, from memory, had been reported in the BIOS magazine.

In view of the continued unavailability of the book, in due course I will start to paraphrase condensed details about various temperaments detailed by Padgham and if anyone else with the book would like to help to do this it would be appreciated.

A few quotations appear relevant without further ado -

In 1879 Dr William Pole, a distinguished scientist and organist says of equal temperament "Under Handel's system an organ was a charming sweet harmonious instrument that it was a pleasure to listen to. Now, no matter how much skill and pains are bestowed on the voicing, the temperament converts it into an offensive harsh cacophony that drives peopole away." (Mackenzie 1979 (a))

The one problem with temperaments is that it's one thing to read about them, quite another to hear them and so I really encourage anyone with the facilities to tune an instrument or to switch a function on some electronic simulation to try them.

William Blood wrote in 1979 that the expression "wohltemperirtes Clavier" had been used for a quarter of a century before Bach's use of the phrase meaning a Well Tempered Calvier and that it meant a good temperament "whose circle of fifths was closed (wolf free) and thus playable though all the keys,and whose major and minor intervals (thords and sixths) varied in size systematically: in order to favour the more common scales and triads, the most heavily tempered of these intervals were placed in jeys with the greatest number of sharps or flats, and teh purest in those with the least. The effect of this irregular construction is quite striking; it enlivens the harmony and emphasises modulation by contrasting key qualities."

Padgham goes on to mention a few candidates to satisfy these criteria: Barnes 1979, Werkmeister III, Kirnbirger proposed by Herbert Kelletat in 1960, Herbert Kellner and Mark Lindley 1981 suggested as candidates Vallotti, Werckmeister III, Neidhardt I and 18th century French Tempérement Ordinaire.

I don't want to be distracted by the modern suggestions of Bradley Lehman, about which there has been ample controversy elsewhere, and quite rightly so as the temperament does not obey the criteria for  a "wohltemperirtes Clavier".

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Hi!

The other day someone happened to exclaim that the Big Bang was nothing to do with God. I happened to disagree. . .

"In the beginning was the word, and the word was with god, and the word was god".

Rather than the image of a big daddy   sitting on a cloud in the sky I choose the definition of god as   something like the omnipotent, invisible and omnipresent.

As a physicist   we are very aware of more dimensions than we experience directly, our   dimensions being but shadows of further dimensional space.

Our   exploration into the godrealm is looking around the corners of our   shadows to glimpse around into those further dimensions that we just   can't quite see directly. These are part of our space, nevertheless, and   all matter and all space flowed out from the conversion of energy into   matter at the big bang via orderly or orderly disorderly laws, "the   word", with which, all matter and energy has to comply in order to   exist. Our religions teach us how to be in harmony with that space,   matter and laws included within which are relationships with other   beings of the animal and human world, all created from the same matter   and laws. So really the Big Bang is not at all unbiblical. Let there be   light!

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Dear Tony

NPOR - Yes of course - blatant act of senile omission. Where do you suggest? The banner line with Hauptwerk, Organ Concerts and KA all fits nicely - I suppose the line underneath but don't want a great list

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Quote from: KB7DQH on April 16, 2010, 02:03:41 PM
This:
http://organforum.com/

Will have to trawl around and see if there is anything particularly useful there...

Hi!

Yes - it's very US orientated and has a lot of people arguing about whether Allens are better than Rogers.

I hope that in providing some fairly focussed topics here we're engendering a slightly more academic and reasoned direction with the intention specifically of raising awareness and enthusiasm for the pipe organ and the aural heritage that it represents.

In this way, this forum will become more than a mere chat-place, although chat is always welcome and can spawn ideas, and result in enthusiasms developing for the best of pipe organs. Tools to do this can include electronics but electronics should never be regarded as more than tools to the purpose of encouraging interest in pipe instruments . . .

In recent days I have been working with a pop group who are somewhat different to the norm. They've used a real harpsichord in their work and they sampled a foot-blown one manual 4 rank pipe organ. This was extraordinary as cutting the initial pipe-speech artifacts and with odd pipes out of tune, it sounded like a surreally interesting Hammond and, with the starting transients and roughly put into samples without exactitude of normalising the speech transients and delays before coming fully on speech, it sounded like a fair organ. So they are discovering that incorporating real instruments into their work sounds ever so much more interesting than the commercial electronic substitutes.

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Quote from: KB7DQH on April 17, 2010, 02:11:17 PM
We are talking about "small" organs, right ??? ??? ???
Will have to give this one a listen one day...http://members.cox.net/subbass16/opus8.htm
The "post-accident" rebuilt instrument came in at USD$125,000 8)

Hi!

Interesting. It would be super if you might be able to quote a stop list.

So can anyone reduce my bigger "smal" spec and still retain diversity and excitement?

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Hi!

I'm wondering if one can design a really exciting organ with minimum spec?

Recit
Salicional
Voix Celeste
Principal
Cornet V - in seperately registerable ranks
Trompette
Bombarde

Grande Orgue
Montre 8
Principal 4
Bourdon 8
Flute 4
Fifteenth 2
Sifflot 1
En Chamade trumpet 8

Positif
Quintadina 8Flute 8Flute 4Tierce Piccolo 1Cromorne 8

Pedal
Bourdon
Bombarde from Recit

Oh dear - that comes to over 20 ranks . . . £500k ? One might enclose Recit and Positif . . .

Temperament - Kellner or D'Alembert?

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Albi cathedral, north east of Toulouse, France
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/ass.christophe.moucherel/

Bouc Bel Air, near Aix-en-Provence, France
http://www.orgueboucbelair.com/

Rieti, north of Rome, Italy
http://www.organosandomenicorieti.it/
http://www.musica-classica.it/forum/index.php?showtopic=8623

St Mary's Metropolitan RC, Edinburgh
http://www.matthew-copley.co.uk/portfolio7.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esggNCB8LWw

St Maximin, capital of organdom and the middle of nowhere in Provence, France
http://www.orgue-saintmaximin.com/

Quote from: wjoefox on April 16, 2010, 11:04:47 PM
Hello!
My church on Yorksire, are looking for a pipe organ to replace a harmonium.
Does anyone know of a redundant organ to fit this space: height: 20', depth: 6', length: 8'?
At the moment, we don't mind about its specification.

Thank you.

Hi!

Brilliant! It's nice to have such a height available. Any idea what budget might be in sight?

Last year on the St Maximin organ course we went to Bouc Bel Air in France near Aix to see a new organ - http://www.boucbelair.com/boucbelair.php?rub=173&prt=35 and
http://www.orgueboucbelair.com/ and imaginatively placed in a corner with the blower and wind reservoirs in another room behind. The instrument was very interesting with a system of allocating stops to either manual. I did some video of Philippe Bardon playing it but he didn't like it on YouTube. I might have some of Peter here on this forum playing it and if so if he doesn't mind I might put it on.

This was an imaginative project, as is the Dom Bedos organ in Italy, which attracted grants and funding on the basis of bringing culture and community together and this can be very good for the economics of an area. Certainly on account of the organ festival in Rieti ALL the hotels were booked to capacity, of course to be dumbfounded on account of the volcanic prevention of anyone getting to Rome airport.

So whilst such outrageous suggestions might seem absurd, perhaps it might fire imaginations in your parish . . . ?

Of course the ability to rescue an old instrument is wonderful, but sometimes apparently extraordinary things can come together.

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Hi!

There's a pop group working at the moment who sampled a small chamber organ. The organ was in Meantone temperament and the sliders cause tuning problems between the ranks so some notes were beating offensively. They sampled every note with all four stops drawn, ensuring that there was out of tune-ness on each note! Two members of the group processed the samples in different ways - one kept the whole sample of every note and the result when played sounded like a recording of an organ. The other split off the pipe starting transients - wind and transient note, and without these transients, an pitch processed into equal temperament, the result sounded like a slightly skewed Hammond with Chorus generator.

Very effective imitation of a Hammond . . . so if a recording of a pipe organ can imitate a Hammond it shows how the Hammond can have been considered so very effective 70 years ago.

That's not to say that I like Hammonds that so very much . . .

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Hi!

Here's a possibility:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170472080139
With a 16ft, it's almost what might drive me into green eyed salivation . . . but it's got the piano-frame brace structure. If I'd want to change, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eyho0P0rxw&feature=PlayList&p=98A6E31D91961DB9&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=1 is the sort of instrument that I'd really drool over . . . but that sort of guitar case construction, when it goes wrong, can lead to the sort of work that you see there. The piano frame type is as solid as a rock and in fact my Morley http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCjjaP4tW-A I have not tuned in 3 or 6 months and it's still in tune . . . . so the Feldman is worth auditioning. The later restoration videos show the sort of thing that attention to jacks will involve.

I'm sure that the seller was selling a harpsichord last year on the grounds of overcrowding and cruelty to his living room saying that it was either the wife or the harpsichord. I told him to get rid of the wife . . . but he's clearly been brainwashed since . . .

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Quote from: ftigli on April 08, 2010, 03:43:32 PMWe started this project as and idea, to join a "Art du Facteur d'Orgue" III-IV project and the Buffet of Grand Organ from Andreas Roubo "Art du Menuissier-Carrossier".
So , the idea to rebuild an ancient organ but never buillted have a great success on our autorities, that decide to sponsor us.
So, the project starts and we now have a great organ from the ancient centuries..
About music, Marc pinardel plays "Summertime" with a singer the other year  .. ;-)
The sound is impressive and it is really a organ fest, with 17 stops reeds and Bombarde 16 to III manual plus Bombarde 16 to pedal ...  ::)

Hi!

:( >:( :'(

It's so very frustrating. Bags packed . . . and stuck. Unless by some sort of miracle it's impossible to fly to Rome today or tomorrow on account of the volcanic eruption . . .

So PLEASE can you do some videos of the talks tomorrow and the concerts and put them on YouTube and place links here?

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Hi!

Hopefully this is now mended. There is an arcane difference between using a windows text editor to edit one particular template file and using an ANSI editor straight on the server. Very strange.

If anyone has further problems with this please let me know!

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Dear P

THANKS so much for alerting me on this - I went through the new member registration process and found the same thing . . . but was able to "Listen to the letters". I'll try to see how the problem might have arisen and how it can be fixed . . . but it might be easier said than done.

antespam@gmail.com will get through to me in the meantime

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Quote from: Jonathan Lane on April 13, 2010, 10:24:46 AM
The problem here appears to be a lack of knowledge in certain quarters about being able to sell (or give) organs on.  I spoke to the seller who has only acquired the material post breaking up, so its not all available, but of course if we had known about this in advance of the organ being removed maybe something could have been done.  The seller is doing a fantastic job of making sure the remaining material is preserved.

Hi!

Thanks for this info. That's the real reason why a forum like this can really make a difference with a place that's likely to be well searchable as a place to buy or sell organs in order to assure their rescue. However, searchability is really helped by lots of people posting about lots of different related subjects and in this way, if people can support this forum in this way, it might have a chance of achieving its intended purpose. I don't want to see any other organs go this way or worse, that of Staplehurst convent.

Jonathan - many thanks

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Hi!

The 50th anniversary of the EOCS went well in London at the weekend - but there   were no Hauptwerkians. It reallly would be nice to have operating system   based technology people included in the Society.

"Why bother?" -   seems to be the tacitly asked question. . .

There is a lot of expertise there - and expertise in a generation who won't be about in 20 years time . . . and if we don't capitalise on their knowledge, we will be accursed to reinventiung wheels. We heard from   a near founding member too aged to make it to the meeting. He told us   in a recording which he sent in about the first decade of the society -   the fact is that all the commercial producers of electronics organs were   members - the founders of Makin, Wyvern, Earnest Hart of Copeman Hart -   and so the society was and is on the cutting edge of electronic organ   technology.

We heard from two people programming PIC   processors to play notes - could we get Hauptwerk on a PIC or collection   of PICs? We heard from a member solving keying problems and converting a   keyboard for digital use, and this could be of interest to pipe organ technology also, and I demonstrated speakers.

I demonstrated my   "sonic animal" - which in fact was light enough to carry on one arm   through London whilst carrying two other speakers on the other arm pulling a suitcase   of equipment. I demonstrated a couple of tracks of 'cello and piano and   then violin and organ so that people could verify that they were hearing   performances rather than hi-fi reproductions of performances. Then I   demonstrated an en chamade trumpet at various pitches. Through the   very high quality sonic animal, with floor vibrating bass and no colouration, the   trumpet sounded plastic.

Then I demonstrated other approaches to speaker design spcifically for electronic organs . . . including one that I call the   "Chinese Dragon" which looks as though it should have teeth . . . and, as a trumpet should do within 5 metres of   line of fire of an en chamade,   it caused a lady to cover her ears. It was real enough and blazing in tonality . . . .

Later on,   I was asked to demonstrate the CD quality recording of the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9usBggyS5Nk   soundtrack through the high quality "sonic animal" demonstrating the effect   that speakers can have in making a complete instrument.

We also enjoyed   an organ recital by one of our members on the pipe organ in the church   next door.

So Hauptwerkians would be welcome as Hauptwerk can be so helpful in electronic organ simulation and potentially in inspiration for the building of pipe organs. Others are working on PIC   processing of reverb also. It's a very dynamic atmosphere.

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Aah! Truly interesting. Kellner temperament. It would be insteresting to know experiences from organists as to whether this imposes any limitations on the playable repertoire?

   
•    
  Disposition of the Fuchs  Organ
  built by Paul Fritts and Co.
  
     

  Great	Positive	Swell
  Praestant (Gis)          16'	Praestant (F)            8'	Quintadena                16'
  Octave                       8'	Gedackt                    8'	Principal                     8'
  Rohrflöte                   8'	Octave                      4'	Bourdon                     8'
  Spielflöte                   8'	Rohrflöte                  4'	Viole de Gambe         8'
  Salicional                   8'	Octave                      2'	Voix Celeste (c")       8'
  Octave                       4'	Waldflöte                 2'	Octave                        4'
  Spitzflöte                   4'	Nasat                        1 1/3'	Koppelflöte                4'
  Quinte                        2 2/3	Sesquialter               II	Nasard                        2 2/3
  Octave                       2'	Scharff                      IV-VII	Gemshorn                   2'
  Cornet                        V	Fagott                       16'	Tierce                          1 3/5'
  Mixture                      V-VII	Trompete                 8'	Mixture                       V-VII
  Trompete                   16'	Dulcian                     8'	Trompete                    8'
  Trompete                   8'		Hautbois                    8'
  Baarpfeife                  8'		Voix Humaine            8'
  		Schalmey                    4'
  	Pedal
  	Subbaß                     32'
  	Praestant                  16'
  	Subbaß                     16'
  	Octave                      8'
  	Gedackt                    8'
  	Nachthorn               2'
  	Mixture                     V-VII
  	Posaune                   32'
  	Posaune                   16'
  	Trompete                 8'
  	Trompete                 4'
  	Cornett                     2'

  [/l][/l]   
  
  Couplers:                                Swell/Great                                Key Action:  Direct Mechanical, suspended
                                  Positive/Great
                                  Swell/Positive                                Manual compass: 58 notes  (C-a''')
                                  Great/Pedal
                                  Positive/Pedal                                Pedal compass: 30 notes (C-f')
                                  Swell/Pedal
  
  Other:                                Tremulants                                Temperament:  Kellner
                  Wind Stabilizer
  

Hi!

A good looking Brindley and Foster instrument is being sold in bits for lack of a purchaser for the whole organ
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160422826832 is the Principal 4ft and the Diapason and display pipes and other things are on another auction by the same seller.

Best wishes

Forum Admin

Hi!

Lots of things are apparently going on in the US. Why not in England? www.organrecitals.com is brilliant but here in this space is an opportunity for player and audience _enthusiasts_ to post details of concerts most importantly with the reasons why they love the programme and why they love the instrument at the chosen venue enough to want a concert there.

Is there no-one in England, Scotland and Wales with enthusiasm?

Best wishes

Forum Admin