Organ matters - Organs matter!

Dear All

A member emailed me yesterday asking if I knew anyone who might be able to give organ tuition in Wolverhampton . . .

I did suggest she post a new topic here but might have been too embarrassed to do so . . . ?

Anyway, all ideas and suggestions will be welcome.

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

Sadly we have to accept that at times an electronic instrument is the only way in which organ music is kept alive and whilst it's important for electronic instruments to be nowhere near as good as a pipe organ, if they are not good enough, then the instrument as an example of an "organ" to the man in the street gives the instrument a bad reputation.

Last evening at Hammerwood I was playing French Baroque in Meantone temperament and was rather unaware that I was not at St Maximin in France  . . . This came about because I had been aware of shortcomings of the instrument formerly at LondonDerry Cathedral which I sought to overcome by additions to make it more versatile. However, as time has gone on, I have carefully gone through the original Makin instrument, both improving speakers on most of the channels, and paying particular attention to voicing. In particular the Great I had not felt to be particularly satisfactory, particularly on full organ and a screaming 5 rank mixture contributed to this. In addition, playing a chord in the right had on top of a large chord in the left often made no audible contribution. Paying particular attention to ensuring that

• the top octave is prominent enough without being overbearing, and particularly ensuring that
• where stops are split into low and high harmonics, it's the high harmonics that are more prominent in the top octave,
  
• prominence is given to the 2ft in the top octave
  
• reducing quint based components of the Fourniture mixture in the bottom octave
  
• evening out notes in the top two octave of both mixture and 2ft so that none scream
  
• giving prominence to the higher harmonics of the mixture in the top two octaves
  
• reducing the raw power of the mixture
  
• adjusting the balance between 8ft Stopped Diapason and 4ft Principal so that the combination can serve as Small Open Diapason
  
• evening out notes on the Posaune and adjusting the upper harmonic element of it to be more prominent in the top two octaves

has made the difference between what one might expect from an electronic instrument and now something rather better

Similarly ensuring proper progression from Diapason on Swell to Mixture, an appropriate Oboe and then the progression to Trumpet, making sure that the addition of Clarion and Fagotto make a real contribution means that the Swell makes an appropriate crescendo to the Great when required.

These issues of balance are key and without them any electronic installation is impoverished and won't measure up on full organ.

I note that one of our members here:
http://www.paulisom.com/organ-consultantvoicer.html
does this sort of thing commercially and it's probably well worth getting him in on any installation that's indifferent.

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

Periodically I have serious doubts about the literal interpretation of the Bible.


I find it difficult to understand the brain

as any more than a biological computer.

So what is the Bible about? What is religion about?

The more I look the more I find that perhaps the capability of the Bible to cause arguments among those who want it to be a perfectly straightforward literal interpretation is what seperates the base earthlings from the spiritual and godly . . .

Son of God? Well Jesus does not have to be the _physical_ son of God. But he can be the son of God in spirit without the slightest difficulty or credulity. We are all urged to be sons and daughters of God.

Died on the Cross and rose again from the dead? Well he does not have to have done so in body. The Easter story is one of getting us to die to the material world and to be uplifted and rise with Christ above the Earthly realm of base material animal things.

In the British Museum among the Mildenhall Treasure is a most wonderful plate, from memory dating to around 400 or 600AD. It carries symbolism common to the Borghese Vase.


In the centre, we see depicted the fiery Sun god, the Light of the World, traditionally represented by Apollo, the symbol of light, the creator and destroyer, the All Powerful, and patron of music and the arts.

Associated with Apollo was Dionysus, who looked after his temple for half of the year. There is an old saying known to my Grandmother and many of her generation that "The Gods look after Children and Drunken Men"

On the Mildenhall Plate we see the drunken man, Selinus, being bodily obstructed from falling over by a satyr and one of the Gods, probably Dionysus, as a spiritual disembodied being and identified by a star on his shoulder, rescuing the drunken man from above.


This symbolism on the plate was common to the symbolism of the Borghese vase of at least 400-600 years before and well established therefore in thought and worship of Dionysus. Dionysus has his parallels in terms of resurrection and as the harvest god, overseeing agriculture.

But to the Initiate, the image that we see above would have been symbolic of the ability of the spirit of Dionysus to rescue the man drunken in base earthly thoughts . . . and it is in this way that the experience of the Garden of Gethsemane requires us to rise with Christ above the base earthly world, motives and desires, in which all dies with physical mortality.



As a resident of modern times in which quantum physics is known, we are aware that there are many more dimensions than that which we perceive as an ordinary experience. Some say 10 whilst other theories 12.

Time may be an illusion - it may be simply a measure of a sequence of events rather than a dimension with any reality.

This means that the afterlife has no meaning in another time. We may exist in the afterlife simultaneously within this material life, just as electrons can exist in two places at once.

We know that God is not a person, but we often refer to God in terms of the Mind of God. No doubt the Mind of God has been proved to many of us time and time again when just the right person turns up in our lives at just the right time for some purpose.

Believing in God is an extraordinary phenonomen. It's free and we don't have to pay for it  :) and it's like joining a giant club . . . and exclusive club too . . .  8) made up of members who simply "understand".  This means that when the right person turns up, they will know what they need to do and are required to do and they do it. It's in this way that the power of light is so much more powerful than the darkness because the people working for the light do what is required whereas the darkness and people in darkness simply do not understand.

So where is Our Father in Heaven?

Well our Father, God, is the Creator, the Creation Force, the All Powerful, the Invisible, and the everywhere around us. Our Father therefore knows the dimensions of which we do not know but which Quantum Physics tells us exist, and in those dimensions there are factors and influences that influence us in the three or four dimensions of which we are aware.

We all have the Creator Force within us and especially so if we are spiritually sons and daughters of god, as Jesus wants all to be.

We all have part of our Fathers in us.

So where is Heaven?

Heaven is no place else. It's within us. It's a place within our hearts. It's a state of mind. It's the "stargate", if you want, into those other dimensions of the state of being in the fullness of life.

By creating Heaven within us, we can start to create Heaven around us - "thy will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven".

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

Next Sunday, 29th May at 4pm is the next opportunity to hear some great music played by a super player on an instrument which can do justice to anything!

Sunday fortnight, 29th May, 4pm Marc Naylor is going to be playing the organ, the first half with a classical repertoire and the second half with some very light hearted stuff - so if you (or your children) haven't experienced the organ before, THIS IS THE CONCERT TO COME TO! And even if you have, you'll enjoy it. Marc is a musician with great versatility and also plays the Tarogato, which I have never heard of before, but perhaps if we ask him he might do another concert!

PLEASE can you phone 01342 850594 to reserve seats. Donations are asked in the region of £10 for friends of the house and members of any local Organists Association, Non-Members £12, Children £NIL

Hi!

http://www.orgues-cannes.org/ is an interesting site and
http://www.orgues-cannes.org/les-orgues/notre-dame-de-bon-voyage
appears extraordinarily comprehensive. I've never come across a free reed Clarinette before and perhaps look forward to hearing it one day.

Places to stay are on http://www.latroba.co.uk/self.catering/riviera.php

If anyone knows other sites for organs relating to anywhere on http://www.latroba.co.uk/regions it would be great to start appropriate threads!

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

Today the Southern Branch of the EOCS visited a brilliant high profile venue where a four manual digital organ of former note has been rebuilt with computerised sampled electronics and installed.

When one has the privilege to visit work in the course of progress, one must be forgiving towards voicing issues and odd mistakes such as the Cornet sounding as a Vox Humana and the Cornet nowhere to be heard . . . or teh pedal Duliciana being exchanged for the Sub Bass . . . but the instrument was interestingly . . . awful.

On solo and small groups of stops there were pleasant sounds to be heard even if the Cromorne was anaemic and did notr have enough character, but on larger groupings of stops detuning detracted from the ensemble and although full organ was shatteringly loud, it was far from convincing. The upperwork did not sing and one wondered whether there was much harmonic content above 8kHz. . . .

The installation suffers from speaker positioning - on shelves at the back of a proscenium recess - funnelling the sound forwards rather than evenly distributing around the room - and possibly from speaker design. A two way woofer-tweeter speaker has to be very very well conceived in order to reproduce a Tuba stop in any manner convincingly as if it were coming from a pipe.

It's so frustrating when instruments which are trying to be inspirational are installed at the behest of owners who are not discerningly meticulous and do not get on board a team of people expert in the necessary fields from sound generation to sound production inherently included in all pipe organ building firms.

I mentioned the issue of being let down by speakers and the fine installer responsible for the instrument simply told me that those speakers where the ones dictated by the owner.

Best wishes

David P

QuoteHi David

Thanks for speaking with me earlier. As I mentioned, I am writing from ITV Studios, where we are producing a brand new show called Born to Shine in association with Save the Children's 'No Child is Born to Die' campaign. We are looking for the most talented youngsters (aged 9-16) to teach a celebrity their particular skill and then perform that in front of a live studio audience.

At the moment we're particularly keen to find organists, so I was wondering if you had any outstanding or award-winning talent who would be interested in our show; or if you knew which professional bodies to contact in order to find them. The key for us is that they need to be credible to be able to present to the producers as 'one of the best' – so awards and claims-to-fame all help!

Thank you ever so much for your time – if you have any questions feel free to drop me an email or call me on 0207 157 4605.

Kind regards

Adeel Amini

Hi!

Thanks so much for these suggestions. I found the Italian programme very complicated and after having paid ££s for another programme :-( discovered HolmImpulse already on my machine:
http://www.holmacoustics.com/holmimpulse.php
I found it really easy to use in practice doing some sweeps so I started testing some speakers. Unfortunately my computer or microphone seems to be severely limited at 7kHz and above :-( but here are some results. The sweep is on the fast side, which I'm sure doesn't lead to accuracy and is too fast to measure building acoustics . . . but it's a useful piece of software:

Systems:
Tannoy Lynx 12 inch unit (akin to Gold) in vintage cabinet

Tannoy Monitor Gold 10 inch

Tannoy DC100 8 inch gold unit with traditional horn tweeter

Tannoy Sixes 609 with waveguide tweeter horn

Manger Zerobox 103

Lowther PM6C in Acousta cabinet

Lowther DX4 in 150Hz tractrix horn

Lowther EX4 in 150Hz tractrix horn

Void Basys including subwoofer

VOTT - TOA Altec Voice Of The Theatre:

Cheap 10 watt full range unit in 150 Hz Tractrix horn


Single Units:
8 watt 8 inch cheap unit:

15 watt 8 inch unit:

Monacor 6 inch

Monacor 4 inch

Eagle 6 inch

Eagle 4 inch


Best wishes

David P

Hi!

Is anyone aware of any software providing a swept frequency sine wave with corresponding amplitude recording facility? This would normally be used in analysing speaker frequency responses of speakers but is also helpful in analysing resonant modes of buildings . . .

Many thanks

David P

Hi!

Hope these are useful:
http://www.voidaudio.com//pdf/system%20planning.pdf
http://www.falstad.com/interference/index.html
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/InteractProgs/index.htm
http://www.educypedia.be/education/physicsjavasound.htm
http://www.walter-fendt.de/ph14e/stlwaves.htm
http://www.acs.psu.edu/users/sparrow/movies/animations12.html
http://paws.kettering.edu/~drussell/Demos/BaffledPiston/BaffledPiston.html
http://paws.kettering.edu/~drussell/Demos/rad2/mdq.html
http://www.falstad.com/interference/index_ap.html
http://www.falstad.com/mathphysics.html
http://www.falstad.com/emwave2/
http://www.falstad.com/emwave2/directions.html

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

I'm fed up for stupid rude comments on YouTube videos where people are looking only for "Mad organist", "Full Organ" or "128ft organ stop" relating to videos clearly recorded on a camera with automatic volume control, on the hoof.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GyFn7Wmps8 is an interesting video demonstrating voicing of the 4ft flute with more chiff than the 8ft flute typical of the southern French instruments. It's hilarious that people will leave negative comments on clearly informal videos but not leave pleasant comments on items of sheer delight!

Best wishes

David P

Published in The Times 22nd April 2011

---

+   Archbishop Rowan





Lambeth Palace, London SE1 7JU

Hi!

I found myself naturally using the spelling Cruxifiction the other day and then found it wasn't particularly standard! I suppose I'm thinking of Latin!

Are there any precedents for such spelling?

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

http://www.ssi-uk.com may be of interest to anyone looking for large numbers of components or semiconductors long out of production which might be needed for repair of old electronic systems.

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

Details are available now of this year's course on the seminal instrument at St Maximin

http://www.orgue-saintmaximin.com/organ_courses.html

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

Bach had chimes installed on the organ at St George's Eisenach on the pedals, St Blaise's and at the Court Chapel at Weimar.

When would Bach have played chimes on the pedals and which of his compositions would he have used them?

I bet none of the Cinema Organ fraternity expected a Bach thread in the Cinema organ topic!

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

Seeing mention of Percy Vickery and his signature tune elsewhere, I hope that people might enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psnwJvDwBjE
and more recordings are on http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=percy+vickery which I felt were especially representative to remember him by.

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

I'm wondering if anyone has experience of possibly older installations of electronics where arrays of some hundreds of speakers were used. I think I recall seeing photos somewhere of an instrument being converted to Hauptwerk where the original speakers were being discarded and they were panels of significant arrays of speakers possibly mounted as an open baffle.

The physics of these is interesting in attempting to create plane waves from the combined fronts of interference patterns but I'm wondering why they were used and in what circumstances and what advantages they were perceived to have had in the context in practice. They're not what would intuitively suggest themselves for suitability . . .

How did the bass survive if they were used as open baffles?

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

The other day, lunchtime discussion gravitated to how organ pipes speak.

Someone said that Colin Pykett had done some excellent analysis . . .
http://www.pykett.org.uk/how_the_flue_pipe_speaks.htm
http://www.pykett.org.uk/violone.htm

In finding these files, I noticed another which is seminal. Apparently Hope Jones placed heavy reliance on both couplers and the Quintadena stop and at the time, people commented that his implementation could equate with a 5 rank mixture stop . . . quite a seemingly extraordinary claim, but Colin shows how:
http://www.colinpykett.org.uk/hjquintadenas.htm

His work also demonstrates the part that electronic simulation can play in pipe organ design and analysis.

It is interesting to note the way in which the Victorians reduced organ tonalities down to unisons coinciding with equal temperament making harmonic upperwork more discordant.

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

The London meeting of EOCS today was interesting and relevant to all sorts of people who aren't members (yet) or even this forum.

Today we heard in particular from Don Bray on lightweight console construction as a conventional console would fall through his floor . . . an issue relevant to many people building Hauptwerk instruments, and Keith Tomkinson who has been working on Midi periferal circuits, to convert Midi to output to drive pipe organ magnets, for instance, and touch stop screen switches not based on VDU to give a console, whether pipe with electronic control, electronic or Hauptwerk a familiar and cheap console layout and avoiding the expense of touch screen VDUs

We also heard from Trevor Hawkins who has designed a simple circuit for a pipe organ builder for holding electromagnets on and off by a push-button switch.

On the electronic front, mention was made that many organists familiar with electronic instruments have a preference for the old analogue free-phase designs rather than modern computer solutions as the computer solutions are not really free phase but are locked together. Members of the Society are working on this issue . . so join . . . and watch this space. Computer programmes might be redundant one day . . .

Best wishes

David P