Word Verification ?

On Saturday "Sage" on Wise Herb's Random Jottings, does a post called Saturday Satire.

Now this weeks story involved an elderly couple who went behind the gasworks.......with several references to knickers.

After enjoying the tale I thought I would leave a comment for her............................and guess what the word verification was!!!!!

 

A Revival ?

Seems to be working again...I wonder what was up?

At first I thought it was because I had used up all my allocated free space?

All these pictures use up quite a few 'Gig', so I'm told. I must find out how to take pictures at a different (lower) resolution.

Do you know, I had no printed instructions with my camera....all the technical bits came on a disc, and I now have to fire up the computer, just to find out how to use the camera!

So....shall I use Tracker-bar as the main one.....or Monkey-organ?

I had thought of having an organ biased version with little bits of organ topics for us grinders and then a second blog with all sorts of eclectic (borrowing freely from various sources - not exclusive in opinion or taste - yes, that will do) snippets with a musical theme.

Therefore if Tracker-bar keeps working, I shall use this for "Organics".

......Organs & Mechanics.

I will keep Monkey-organ for light hearted trivia !

 I will start tomorrow ......maybe.

"Blogged Down"

Having a bit of trouble posting here, so started a new blog.

       monkey-organ.blogspot.com

See you there.....

PS  Link is under 'Places I Browse'  

                  as        'The Organ Grinder's Monkey'

Rests

 

 

Music does not consist only of sounds; it includes silences too.

Notation has to show how long each silence lasts, just as it shows how long each sound lasts.

The signs used for silence are called rests.

 

"The Key is......."

It is amazing how many references to 'Key' or 'Keys' can be found in music.

Apart from the obvious Key that the music is played in, we can come across many songs with words like 'the key to my heart'.

This lady on the left is going to lock her heart 'and throw away the key'.

I wonder how this association of keys and hearts came about? Perhaps it originates from the fashion of ladies wearing a Locket on a chain, locked with their sweethearts photo or picture inside?

I was not going to write about this type of key or the musical key, as in 'the key of D Minor', but on the reference to 'keyless' organs......or perhaps the '112 key Mortier organ'.

The number of keys on an organ refer to the small levers on the playing frame through which the card music passes. Each key is pneumatically and mechanically coupled to a number of pipes, percussive instruments or other movement incorporated in the organ. Hence unlike a piano keyboard, the number of organ keys is not equal to the number of notes available.

A 98 key organ may have over 700 pipes.  All the keys are normally depressed, except when a slot in the music card allows them to rise.

In a “keyless” organ, the row of keys is replaced by a row of holes on the tracker-bar. The principle is like the player piano and uses air suction through the tracker-bar holes. In my organ however the music roll and tracker-bar are enclosed in a pressure box so we have a “blow” instead of a “suck” to control the playing.

So my little organ is actually a 26 note keyless organ with 70 pipes. 

There are, of course, all the keys on a keyboard instrument but Deb at Harmony Club is the expert on these.

And lastly, as I'm a bit of a clock person, I leave you with a circle of lovely Victorian Clock Keys.

'A Storm in a D-cup'.

Sorry to lower the tone of this usually high class blog.......but one has to smile sometimes!

We boobed,” says the latest Marks & Spencer advertising campaign. The high street store has just agreed to stop charging £2 extra for larger bras, after a campaign by a group called......

    Busts 4 Justice.

 As the chairman, Sir Stuart Rose, admitted: “We were wrong.”

The row over M&S underwear was, according to the headline writers, a storm in a D-cup.

Busts 4 Justice.........I like it.

And now ....on a not totally unconnected theme I notice that the W.I. ladies are at it again.

The original WI "Calendar Girls" have taken their clothes off for charity once more. 

Wearing little more than a smile and a trademark set of pearls, six members of the Yorkshire-based Women's Institute have been reunited for a new 2010 calendar.

The youngest of them, Chris Clancy, is now 57; the oldest, Beryl Bamforth, is 75. They are to be pictured in typical WI scenes, their modesty protected only by a baby-grand piano, a tea pot and sprouting broccoli on a vegetable patch.

The 2010 calendar is the first to be shot in colour rather than sepia.

Mrs Baker, 63, who can be seen playing the piano in February, said: "I was a bit apprehensive about colour, because older women can look a bit funny in colour, and we wanted it to be just as good as the first one".

Do you know I found this bit of news by Googling ......

....baby-grand piano....tea pot......sprouting broccoli.

And if you believe that........

 

By the way.......the date on that sheet music, in case you can't read it, is  1895. Not bad condition for 114 years old.

110 Years Ago

After seeing the steam launch 'Alaska' on the Thames at Bourne End in 2008 thought you might like to see a similar boat in the same place but 110 years earlier.

I have enlarged the picture on my PC and it looks as if the name is 'Cynisca'. A name I have never come across before.

 

 

"B.O.T.T.O.M.S."

All this wet weather certainly gets the grass growing. My lawn has had to have a second cut already.

The trouble is once you start cutting it seems to grow twice as fast to recover.

In the news this week more bits about mowing.

First off, is this poor chap from Wiltshire, who has been banned from trimming a communal patch of grass after 43 years - for H & S reasons. (Here we go again).

Graham Alexander regularly mows, weeds, rakes and clears the verge of other people's litter daily. ....Well done Sir........but

Wiltshire Council has accused him of encroaching on its property and endangering public health claiming he or a neighbour could be injured by the mower or flying debris. 

He has now been ordered to leave the job to council contractors - or face possible prosecution.

Now......how about this for an idea? 

It would appear that those people with large amounts of grass to keep under control are turning to home-bred wallabies to do it for them. 

Theses little chaps are thousands of miles from their native Outback but are increasingly replacing sheep, horses and geese in scores of country gardens and fields. 

All prospective owners need to keep their lawns clipped are half an acre of land, a lot of grass and a large fence. 

Trevor Lay, who runs Waveney Wildlife, of Bungay, Suffolk, has seen demand soar. He has been breeding wallabies for 25 years and is the biggest private supplier in the UK. 

 

The wallabies cost £150 for a male and £600 to £700 for a female, while the sought-after albino wallabies fetch £1,000 for a female and about £500 for a male. 

They are sold in pairs because wallabies like living in a social group. 

Mr Lay said "They are timid creatures and really harmless but adults will growl if their young are threatened. And they don’t like dogs.” 

He takes care to ensure his wallabies go to proper homes with plenty of space for them to roam safely and freely and a fence or wall at least five feet high

So that scuppers it for me.....half an acre and a five foot fence!

Ah well. Back to the drawing board or as we used to say at work...."BOTTOMS"

(Back Over To The Old Manual System)

 

'Alaska' fired by Wood Briquettes

I'm afraid I cannot find out why the boat is named Alaska, but I have discovered a video of her on the Thames at Marlow.

"Jolly Boating Weather"

A chance for a trip on a real steam launch from Bourne End.

Not my boat.....but a trip not to be missed,

.

During 2009, it is intended that 'Alaska' will be running public trips from Bourne End Marina on the May and August Bank Holiday weekends (23rd, 24th, 25th May and 29th, 30th, 31st August) and at the Thames Traditional Boat Rally at Henley (18th and 19th July)

Bourne End trips start at 11am and run on the hour until the last trip of the day at 5pm. Trips last approximately 50 minutes and cost £10 for adults and £6 for children and OAP's.

"Down at Heel"

A clown has been told he cannot wear his giant comedy shoes due to "Elf 'n Safety". 

He was told by management he could no longer wear the size-18 shoes because they compromised his health and safety

His routine includes dressing himself whilst walking on a wire, dress himself within a hoop of fire, and playing a drum-kit, trumpet and double-bass all at the same time.

But he is now worried performing in his regular sized footwear will lose impact on the audience.

Mr Kashkin, 40, from Temruk, Russia, said: "The shoes are an important part of my costume, and I was disappointed to be told I couldn't do this part of my act.

Will they never leave us alone?  I would have thought that the whole point of Circuses is to entertain  by 'death defying' acts. If everything is wrapped up in cotton-wool there will be no excitement and people will just stop going.

Still on the subject of shoes......

I came across this.

It appears that if you want to be one up on your fellow men, you need to be seen wearing a pair of Berluti shoes.

A pair of theses of these shoes will set you back £770.

Like all Berluti shoes, the style is distinguished by its lightweight elegance and by the quality of the last, which is shaped in such a way as to make the shoes instantly comfortable. And these days you don’t have to go to Paris to buy a pair — Berluti has a London store at 43 Conduit Street in the West End. 

Not just at the moment thank you!

Little Tich didn't seem to have a problem with Elf 'n Safety all those years ago in his size 42 comedy shoes....and I bet he didn't have to pay £770 for them either!

 

A Bad Start

Having a bad start today. 

For some reason the Word Processor has developed a mind of its own and keeps changing fonts and line height when I copy and paste to blogger.

I'll just make this a 'quickie' now and try to sort the problem out this afternoon.

The above picture was taken at Swindon on Saturday and just thought how realistic they had made everything. Most of the figures you can see are not in fact real. In fact whilst I was there on Saturday morning, us humans were outnumbered by wax dummies.

With all this nostalgia ...I feel a ditty coming to me.

               There was a young lady at Crewe

                  Who wanted to catch the 2: 2.

                   Said a porter..  "Don't worry,

                         Or hurry or scurry,

                 It's a minute or two....to 2: 2 ".

 

The museum had a vast store of 'bit 'n bobs' like this row of vintage office chairs.

And now comes another ditty to suit......

           An accident really uncanny

           Befell a respectable Granny;

              She sat down in a chair

       While her false teeth were there,

And bit herself right in......a rather tender place!

'Kipper goes Great Western'

Yesterday, saw me going west, to the old country town of Swindon for the Organ Grinders AGM.

Not the most exciting of days out, but it was made more interesting for me as it was held at the GWR Steam Museum.

 Four or five organs were playing there during the morning and will be playing all day on Sunday. As I don't yet have a video camera, I can only post up 'silent stills'. 

The three above were sited at the entrance and Terry and Margaret were spotted in the museum itself playing to a very life-like but unresponsive wax secretary!

All three of the larger organs shown here are 'home-built' 26 note organs, similar to mine. They are built to the same set of plans but each builder does their own thing when it comes to casing it up.

Of course the finish and painting is a personal thing and hence no two organs look the same.

These three also have a Glockenspiel on the fronts.

This is an optional extra which I have not taken up as I was told that the Glockenspiel is sometimes drowned out by the pipes.

Being a steam museum, it contains, of course, many fine examples of of steam locomotives.

But rather than fill this post with pictures of engines, I thought I would put up a few unusal clips.

 

Again, a very convincing wax gentleman showing how carriages were built.

Two ladies having a bash at cleaning out a smokebox.

 During the second World War a lot of women helped out in factories.

Found a stove inside the guard's van. Rushed in to see if it was a 'Tortoise Stove' but alas no.

Probably a GWR stove as the Great Western seemed to make all it own bits and pieces.

And lastly, something that no pictorial posting should be without!!!

Very lifelike,........but I'm afraid it was not Singing!

 

What's in a Name

Following on from the post about finding bits in heaps of music, here are two more I found.

The first is a certificate for a music exam taken by Miss Butt in Weston-super-Mare.

 

It reads Francis Elizabeth Butt gained First Class Grade in Pianoforte Playing, and is dated 14 December 1911

The second item that came to light is a photo of an unknown young lady. It was not found with the certificate so is not Miss Butt, but is clearly of the same era.. 

A lot of the old music that I find, nearly always has the previous owners name on it. I get the impression that perhaps in those days people used to lend sheet music to each other, and this was to make sure that it was returned.

Many had their addresses on the music as well and it is nice to see if these old places still exist.

The one I am researching at the moment is 'Olive Backhouse' from Dunston Hall, Norwich.

As you can see this was written when she was a child, but later sheets in her pile of music show an adult signature and eventually, she marries and becomes 'Olive Buxton'.

Dunston Hall is now a hotel and I have found many references to the name Buxton in the Norwich area.

Fascinating stuff.

'Like Two Peas'

 

I found quite a number of musical ditties related to fashion. 'Champagne Charlie' came to mind, as did 'The Man who broke the Bank at Monte Carlo'  but after a bit I decided on Fred, mainly because the front sheet was in colour.

I am often told that I have no 'dress sense' whatever, but having never tried on a dress this is hardly surprising!

I'm the sort of person that makes things last until they drop off me or get relegated to 'garden attire'. In fact this little morsel sums me up to a tee.

                     I never cared for Fashion,

                         I find a trifle tame

                   My fellow creatures passion

                      For looking all the same;

                    Let those those who please

                           Be like two peas,

                   But spare this poor old man,

                             It pleases me

                            To look and be

                       As different as I can.

Especially when Organ Grinding.

 

And before you enquire......Yes I have appeared in public dressed like this!!!!

 

"Oh No he Isn't - Oh Yes he Is"

"Watch out.....he's behind you"

"Oh no he isn't"

"Oh yes he is"

Hidden Gems

I am a great one for raking around antique shops although these days there tends to be more junk than antiques.

But it is the 'junk' that firstly, I find more interesting and secondly more affordable.

I will always 'home in' on a pile of old music. Some places sell this at £1-2 per sheet, but others, in a bit to get rid of it may sell a whole pile for a fiver.

These piles hold hidden secrets, for between the sheets of music, all kinds of things can be found.

I have come across newspaper cuttings and even old family photographs.

  

This bit above is of the First World War song "Goodbye" sang to the troops as they went off to the trenches. It was here reproduced in the newspaper and someone had saved it in with their music.

The interesting thing here is that the newspaper was the 'News of the World' and the date 1917.

Just imagine that bit of news had been tucked in with that music for around 92 years!

The date was Sunday 23 December 1917......and look at the circulation...2,750,000 copies.

.....and an advert for Lipton's Tea.  And how about a 92 year old 'tea stain'?

Oh, and yes,  the heap of music was full of wonderful gems.

 

Murphy was sitting there in the Pub reading the Dublin Times, and he turns to his mate Pat and says

“Isn’t it amazing how just enough things seem to happen every day to exactly fill a newspaper!”

‘Singing Chickens’

‘Singing Chickens’ are very hard to find these days. I’ve come across ‘Singing Nuns’ and even ‘Singing Hinnies’ ......but chickens?.......

Until I remembered Strasbourg.

Now, in Strasbourg Museum they have the oldest ‘singing chicken’ in the world.

It is all that is left of the very first clock built for Strasbourg Cathedral in 1350.

All that is known of this clock, is that it was very large....over 38 feet high !

Two further replacement clocks have been built for the cathedral, but there are no remaining parts of this first clock ....except the ‘chicken‘.

It was actually referred to as “The Great Cock” and it sat on top of the clock and ‘sang’ every day at 12 noon.

At that time, it would open its beak, put out its tongue and flap its wings.

One of the engineering miracles of the bird, apart from the gearing and bellows, was that each separate primary feather on its wings, splayed out when the mechanism was working.  You can see the details in the bottom right of the above drawing.

There is no record of what it sang or indeed even sounded like.

After-thought One:      Singing Hinnies.

A Bakestone Cake using flour, butter, lard, currants, milk & sour cream.

‘The Singing Hinnie’ was so called as, when the butter and the cream melted during the baking it sizzled on the hot girdle and was thought to be singing.

After-thought Two:      The ‘Singing Nun’.

Belgium-born Jeannine Deckers shot to fame in 1963 when she released a song in order to raise money for her convent.

The song was entitled 'Dominique' after the 13th-century saint who founded her order. The track sold millions of copies worldwide and to this day she remains the only Belgian to have had a United States hit at number one. 

She never repeated her success and her life ended sadly with suicide, following her depression, poverty and addiction to alcohol and painkillers.

"Snowball"

 

I have just watched an amazing clip on YouTube of a dancing cockatoo.

I know there are many thousands of pets doing a 'turn' on YT but this one is really fantastic. He dances exactly in time with the music.

Snowball, the dancing cockatoo was yesterday hailed by scientists as proof that humans aren't the only creatures with a sense of rhythm.

His dancing antics have made him an internet star as the video clip has been viewed nearly two and a half million times.

A scientist, Dr Schachner said "For a long time, people have thought that the ability to move to a beat was unique to humans". 

"After all, there is no convincing evidence that our closest relatives, chimpanzees and other apes, can keep a beat, and there is similarly no evidence that our pet dogs and cats can line up their actions with a musical beat."

I'm sure he will have to change his mind after viewing this.

It has been known for centuries that horses are partial to military music. They have a natural sense of rhythm. In fact, I am informed that they have at least two named rhythms: the trot and gallop. Other animals can run, walk or trot, but don't seem to care about the music.

Perhaps it is the need to coordinate rhythmic motion with other animals moving at difference paces in close formation that makes birds, humans and horses more musically inclined.

I have not linked to our friend Snowball as he dances for about four minutes, but you should be able to watch him here 

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7IZmRnAo6s

 

"I Lift up my Finger....."

 

Twitter was created three years ago and lets people post 140-character messages or 'tweets' that can be viewed by friends who have agreed to 'follow' them online.

But research company Nielsen Online revealed that 60 per cent of users stop using the free website just a month after joining it.

Nielsen's David Martin said.

‘There simply aren't enough new users to make up for defecting ones and unless more users continue with the service..... twitters days could be numbered.

This 'micro-blogging' service allows people to send  'tweets', to strangers about what they're doing, eating or thinking, no matter now trivial, mundane or embarrassing. 

Why have we become a nation of over-sharers whose value and worth depends our public popularity - how many virtual acquaintances and followers we have? 

One clinical psychologist, suggested that people's desire to provide others with a constant stream of information stems from a lack of identity. 

Others have argued that using these constant updates suggests a level of insecurity.

Well, whatever reason people have for ‘twittering’ I believe that  a coffee with your next-door neighbour would do more for your brain than 1,000 virtual messages. 

There must surely be, a better way to pass the time, than typing a message to a hundred or even a million anonymous followers to tell them you're bored. 

Now blogs are a very different 'kettle of fish'. All of the one's I read are interesting, entertaining and informative.

 

This Comic Foxtrot was published in 1929 and part of the chorus line is:-

              I lift up my finger and I say

              "Tweet tweet,  shush shush,

                  now now,  come come".

 

Enough to drive you to twitter!

 

Turkey in the straw

As this blog was meant to be "Mechanically Musical", here's a bit for a Bank Holiday knees up?

"Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree"

All over the country the destruction of fine mature trees continues for Elf ‘n Safety reasons, including a whole wood of lovely trees in Yorkshire. 

It is more or less impossible to argue against this.

  What if you said "Leave those trees alone' and weeks later someone was killed by a falling branch, it would be your fault, wouldn't it?

Actually, no, it wouldn't.

Trees fall, and drop their limbs, and sometimes people are hurt or killed by this, but usually the event is so unpredictable that nobody could possibly have foretold it. I personally enjoy walking through woods when a high wind is blowing, listening to the majestic roaring sound, so much that I don't mind the small risk involved.

  Elf ’n Safety would no doubt regard this attitude as irresponsible, and prevent me from doing it if it knew how.

Logically, if we are to live in fear of trees like this, then we will simply have to cut them all down, or place them behind high protective fences.

  In reality, there are just some risks we have to take, unless we are to go quite mad, and this is one of them. Trees are so beautiful, and do us so much good, and make our countryside and towns so much better, that we should do all we can to keep them.

Yet this absurd logic is leading to the needless destruction of untold numbers of fine mature trees

It brings to mind the final chapters of 'The Lord of the Rings', with the spiteful and small-minded hacking down of trees in The Shire by Saruman and his allies, and the joy (alas impossible in this world) when they are miraculously replaced by Sam and his little box of magic dust. 

I have the music to "Don't sit under the Apple Tree with anybody else but me" but it is in a Glenn Miller album and I'm afraid, no cover picture.

"May Bonk Holiday"

The things you find in the morning papers!

“A couple were arrested after being caught having sex on the Queen's lawn outside Windsor Castle.”

The article went on to say:-

 

“Several Japanese tourists filmed the couple for up to twenty minutes before they were arrested by armed Royal Protection Squad officers.” 

So not only are we not allowed to photograph the Police and Armed Forces but also 'naughty goings on' at Windsor Castle!

However the bit I liked in this report was:-

"They even ignored the Please Keep Off The Grass signs.”

A Tale of Two Handles

A little 'technical' bit about handles.

What happens if you turn the handle faster?  I’ve been asked.

Yes the music does play faster but only up to a point. 

Turning the handle does two things.

      Firstly, it turns the crankshaft at the same speed as your turning….it’s on the same shaft….no gearing. So twice as fast.. twice the volume of air. Now as we do not need all this air, the ‘spill-valve’ valve or “over-blow” valve will just release it to atmosphere.

      The second function of the handle is to drive the spool pulling the paper off it’s roll and across the tracker-bar. Now turning faster moves the paper faster but the small pneumatic motors or “puffs” cannot inflate and deflate quick enough to separate out the individual notes.

These small organs are designed for a paper speed across the tracker-bar holes of between 2 ½” to 2 ¾” per second. (65mm to 70mm). I arrange all my music to play at a speed of 70mm per sec.

There is a reduction drive between the handle shaft and the drive-spool shaft, adjusted to get the correct balance between the paper speed and the volume of air required.

In the above photo you can see the 1" wheel on the right driving the (black) idle wheel.

This can be lowered by the snail-cam above it, to separate the drive on rewind (ie clutch).

The large left-hand wheel is on the take-up spool shaft.

As the air requirement can vary from organ to organ, this 'gearing' is arrived at by trial.

On the opposite side of the organ to the crank handle is the smaller rewind handle.

This also requires a clutch to disengage the rewind when playing 'forwards.

There is also speed change, but this time the ratio is to speed up the turning so that we can rewind music twice as fast a we can play it (fast rewind).

On this side I have used a belt drive between the two wheels. The clutch is activated by pulling out the knob, just to the left of the small handle.

The other small knob to the upper right, is for fine adjustment to align the tracker-bar holes to the holes in the paper roll if necessary.

Come Lasses and Lads

WEYMOUTH’S Carnival Queen competition is being scrapped because it is ‘outdated.’ Former carnival queens and town leisure chiefs have reacted with shock after carnival organisers declared the historic contest was past its sell-by date and did not promote equal opportunities. 

Former carnival queen, called the organisers ‘killjoys’ and said if they wanted to promote equal opportunities they should run a Carnival King contest. 

Last year’s  queen Jamie Asquith, 19, said: “The contest is something I grew up with. There’s so much history to it and I don’t think it should be just scrapped just like that. A pretty girl leading the procession is part of the tradition of Weymouth Carnival.” 

A spokesman for Weymouth & Portland Borough Council,  Brendan Webster said: “It’s a shame to take away what is an enjoyable event which is quite harmless. 

He said: “Some of our great traditions are rooted in the past and I think it would be a great shame if they scrapped the Carnival Queen.

 

Yet another attempt to eradicate a tradition. I think those involved in the Weymouth Carnival Queen competition should set up an alternative event and see which draws the bigger crowd. I know where I would place my bets.

I realise that family photo may not interest people outside the family, but.... here are my brothers and I ignoring the Maypole dancing at the Bournville Village Carnival....I would guess in 1951. I am the eldest on the left.

This Friday I'll give the music a miss and leave you with this.....

         Oh, I likes a bit of enjoyment on a Friday,

       I never was one to scamp my work an’ that,

         I’ve laid the tea, I’ve left the kitchen tidy,

            I’ve left a bit of haddock for the cat.