St Mary's Bells

Tue 1 Jul 2008, 17:59

Hey! The allusion of the use of the word "blown" in the context of an organ coming to the end of its useful life was just too irresistable to miss out, so don't take it too heart so much! And, as Richard says, at heart as well it is "just" a computer actuating physical devices, so I was a bit surprised when he said it was irreperable, as I'd have assumed it was componentised - but the point about presets and stops goes way above my head, I can just about manage chopsticks on a keyboard... but it does sound like a return in this case to the old ways is a Wise Idea re stops!

Perhaps you should get the organ made up with an interface bus to take a bundle of Arduinos, or that new OS computer motherboard someone is now making in limited runs - then you would have a completely "open source" solution and independence from the seemingly rather unreliable continued existence of electronics firms.

Unlike the hereditary dynasties of organ makers of old (oh for a lost world of craftsmanship and thinking in terms of many generations not 2 year profit margin paybacks that so much business nowadays seems to consist of!).

I'd no idea the old piped organ was so large! I assume, therefore, that the new one uses speakers to create the sound, in some craftily arranged layout to fill the main hall and give the sensation of sonority and stone-vibrating resonance that is so vitally part of the organ experience. I find a good organ as much visceral experience as an auditory one.

I used to have a lot of contact through politics with N.American "Indian" or native peoples back in the 70s and 80s and one Lakota once put it to me following a visit to a full choral and organ service at Westminster "Well, whatever we may think about the white man expletive deleted us over, no culture that can make music like that can be ALL bad!"

As I think that western culture may be coming to an oil-less end within a generation or two (I'm not optimistic) perhaps that is the epitaph we should have engraved on our history of the last 1000 years since the Rennaisance and Age of Enlightenment...