pipe organ – The Artsy Honker

Those Naughty Organists

Byartsyhonker May 3, 2013 0 Comments

I read with some bemusement an article in the Telegraph. Beware the wrath of the church organist, it warns, and goes on to list various musical infelicities. Slipping unexpected tunes into music is practically obligatory, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, I will play "We're walking in the air" as a recessional voluntary when it is actually snowing (or at least for the first Sunday snowfall of the...

A call for words…

Byartsyhonker July 5, 2012 1 Comment

So, I wrote some words last night, rather too many in fact, about my interpretation of various Church of England stuff. That post has received over three hundred hits, more than all my posts on organ fundraising combined. I joked about this on Twitter, asking if I could make the organ fundraising more controversial... ...and someone remarked I could only do that if I were the wife of the Dean of...

St Andrew’s Hymnathon

Byartsyhonker June 22, 2012 0 Comments

The historic nearly-100-year-old pipe organ at St Andrew's Leytonstone will soon fall silent unless we can raise £25000 to repair the bellows. We'll be hosting a sponsored hymnathon, singing all of the hymns in the New English Hymnal. Could you come and sing for an hour or two between noon on Friday 12th October and 6pm on Saturday 13th? We'll be singing through the night (though you can arrive...

Stop, collaborate and listen

Byartsyhonker May 15, 2011 0 Comments

David Sinden has a series of blog posts recording different stops on various organs, one at a time so that you can really hear the character of the stop. It seemed like a good project, so I decided to try and record some of the stops on the organ at St Andrew's.Here, then, is the Oboe stop on the swell box. This is probably an original stop on this Swell Oboe 8 playing Stanley by...

Organ diagnostic chart

Byartsyhonker April 14, 2011 0 Comments

We had our organ tuned earlier this week, preparing for Lent. Hooray! I have all the notes back on the Tromba stop! I can use the Great Stopped Diapason when playing in flat keys! I approve of this. Some problems are going to wait until there's time for a longer visit, and then there are the bellows which need repairs -- a huge and expensive job which we don't yet have sufficient funding to...

The Volunteer Organist

Byartsyhonker February 26, 2011 0 Comments

Last Sunday I rolled along to Christ Church Wanstead as I often do for Evensong; it's usually quite a small service and I enjoy turning up, singing, and going away again without having to worry about messing anything up. Evensong doesn't have to be all cathedrals and choirboys and processions and Stanford; it can be an intimate, quiet occasion, comfortable like an old coat -- even if, for me,...

Warmer wrists!

Byartsyhonker February 9, 2011 0 Comments

On Saturday a pair of these arrived in the post:They were knitted for me by my aunt, and my mum sent them along to keep my wrists warm while I'm practising at church.St Andrew's, like many church buildings of its time, was built with not much regard for temperature regulation. Once upon a time there was some kind of underfloor radiator system but that has since been replaced by radiant electric...

Organists Online birthday celebration

Byartsyhonker January 29, 2011 0 Comments

Saturday afternoon I attended the Organists Online ten-year anniversary event, an Open House at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church.It was good to meet other organists; we tend to get quite wrapped up in our own work, being all busy at around the same times on Sunday mornings, and if I didn't go out of my way to speak to some in other parishes I could easily not meet any at all.The programme...

St Albans Organ Theatre and various other sundries

Byartsyhonker August 22, 2010 0 Comments

This afternoon, N and I went to the St Albans Organ Theatre, a marvelous museum of various instruments. There were a number of instruments, from tabletop music boxes and cob organs to two impressive theatre organs and four mechanical, "self-playing" organs -- like player pianos but much larger. There were also some player pianos; I don't think I've seen one in action before. Possibly my favourite...

Vacation

Byartsyhonker August 15, 2010 0 Comments

I've been on vacation for most of the past week, staying in a guesthouse in Mark, Somerset and cycling a lot. I'm well aware that I have a shiny new job starting in September, and I didn't want to miss too many days of practice. So I rang up the local vicar to ask if I could use the organ in Mark Church. I'm glad I did; it's a lovely instrument in many ways and I spent a few hours on Wednesday...