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Of organs and other things
Aug. 16th, 2009 05:50 pmLast week I mentioned that I'd gone in to play the organ and found that the organ settings had all been changed without warning. So from a general church organ sound, now it was tooting a tremulant tuba solo. And I didn't know how to get the settings back.
I spent the week researching. Did you know that there are user's manuals for organs? Sounds logical, I know. But I've never thought of it. I found the company's web site and found quite a number of them on line. Sadly, not for the model I'm playing. I sent off an inquiry, but in the meantime I browsed some of the manuals that were available. Very interesting! They give suggestions for different kinds of registration for different kinds of hymns--old German ones, old English ones, old American ones, etc. Which I'd never much considered. So I am hoping that they can find a user's manual for me so I can learn about all this stuff I never knew to ask about before.
In the meantime, I've come up with my own set of stops,* and I must say, it sounds better than the original! There was always something mushy in the middle before, and now that mush is gone, and it feels clear and powerful when I play.
I think a lot of things are like that--our regular way of doing things gets messed up, and we meet with what we think is a tragedy. Then we find another way around it, and lo and behold, it turns out to be better than the original. I have read of authors throwing out an entire draft and rewriting from scratch. Some of them have won major awards with the new novel. So my thought today is to see obstacles as opportunities in disguise.
*In case anyone else has to find registration for church services on an Allen Protege model AP-22, here's what I used:
swell: viola 8, octave 4, piccolo 2, fourniture IV
great: violene 16, diapason 8, octave 4, fifteenth 2, mixture IV
bass coupler (doubles the great into the pedal range, so it sounds like you're playing the pedals--even if you're not)
I spent the week researching. Did you know that there are user's manuals for organs? Sounds logical, I know. But I've never thought of it. I found the company's web site and found quite a number of them on line. Sadly, not for the model I'm playing. I sent off an inquiry, but in the meantime I browsed some of the manuals that were available. Very interesting! They give suggestions for different kinds of registration for different kinds of hymns--old German ones, old English ones, old American ones, etc. Which I'd never much considered. So I am hoping that they can find a user's manual for me so I can learn about all this stuff I never knew to ask about before.
In the meantime, I've come up with my own set of stops,* and I must say, it sounds better than the original! There was always something mushy in the middle before, and now that mush is gone, and it feels clear and powerful when I play.
I think a lot of things are like that--our regular way of doing things gets messed up, and we meet with what we think is a tragedy. Then we find another way around it, and lo and behold, it turns out to be better than the original. I have read of authors throwing out an entire draft and rewriting from scratch. Some of them have won major awards with the new novel. So my thought today is to see obstacles as opportunities in disguise.
*In case anyone else has to find registration for church services on an Allen Protege model AP-22, here's what I used:
swell: viola 8, octave 4, piccolo 2, fourniture IV
great: violene 16, diapason 8, octave 4, fifteenth 2, mixture IV
bass coupler (doubles the great into the pedal range, so it sounds like you're playing the pedals--even if you're not)
