Hope it stays dry.

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French Organ Festival

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I thought you may like to see how things are done over in France.

They seem very keen on singing along with their music.

Wouldn't suit me, I can't sing for 'Love nor Money'.

This is just a selection of short clips

from the August 2011 Festival.

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Foody's Holiday Reminder.

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12 Days of Christmas

This is Bob from across the 'pond' with his home built organ.

It is to the John Smith design the same as mine.
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On Prestwood and Mozart

A few more pictures from Prestwood.

I had spent about six days last week, arranging, marking up and punching a piece by Mozart.

It was his 'Rondo alla Turca'.

Dennis, shown below, had wondered if it would fit into 26 notes?

Well, I like a bit of a challenge and so last Monday I had a crack at it. It did fit ....just. I had to re-arrange several bars when it went off the top of our scale but on the whole, a good fit.

The finished roll was about eight metres long and it took me a good eight hours over the Thursday and Friday to punch it up. I gave it a quick play on my organ on Friday afternoon and managed to deliver the finished roll to Dennis for it's 'first public' airing on the Saturday.

I'm pleased to say it was well received........

.......I even detected a small burst of applause!

It was way back in 2000 that I sent off to John Smith for a set of plans for building the 26-Universal.

Little did I know that, just a quarter of a mile away, someone else in Bourne End was doing the same. We must have both been beavering away and not knowing of each other's existence!

It was a shame because we could have helped each other overcome some of the problems encountered during the construction.

Never mind......we both got there in the end. The above picture shows John's (a different John) finished organ on display in the model tent.

Oh yes, one of the other 'small' organs adding to the atmosphere, a Limonaire.

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D.I.Y. Arranging - Part 1

Rosie on 'Street Organ' has finished her John Smith 20 note, exhibited it and won "Best in Show".

Congratulations.

Now we come to stage two.

Shall we spend around £50 a roll and buy music for it?... or

Shall we try punching it ourselves?

I had no trouble in deciding what to do as I had an elementary knowledge of music.

Understanding music is definitely helpful, but I would say, not essential, as you can learn a lot of things as you go along.

Once you have decided to have a go, there are two paths that you can take.

One is to arrange straight from the sheet music....this is ok if you play another instrument and already have a collection of music. You will of course need more than a single line as for solo instruments (ie clarinet, trumpet, flute etc.) Piano music is best although I have arranged from guitar music and keyboard music, where the later give the chords for accompaniment.

The second way is, if you do not have access to sheet music, to arrange on the computer using standard software like "Cakewalk" or similar. These programs use MIDI files for the tunes and can be found all over the web. Nearly all are in the public domain and many sites will allow you to download the files provided they are for private use. There are strict rules applied by the music industry once you want to start selling copies. (which I personally don't)

I now arrange using either of the above methods. I started off with the sheet music method but after a time switched to downloading when I did not have the score of the tune I wanted.

A word of warning.....you cannot just pick 'any old' tune you fancy and expect it to fit on a 20 or 26 note scale, we are a bit limited. To get started it is best to practice with a simple, short tune.

Two reasons for this, one, it is more likely to fit into our small scale and you won't have any missing notes to worry about and, two, if it is a short piece, you will not have wasted hours marking it all out, punching it all up and then find out it sounds awful.

So, start small and build from there. I know, I have a large box of early attempts. The 1812 overture was not meant for 20 pipe street-organs!!

Children's music books are a good starting point and also hymn books are a good source.

They have simple tunes usually with three chord accompaniment and more important, you will find that vocal works have a range not un-similar to that of our organs.

If you can 'sing it'.....it has a good chance of being transposed and arranged for our limited scale.

The key of the original score does not matter. We are going to transpose it, up or down anyway to fit the organ......the key of Eb is the only one case where you will get away with 'as written'.

Try to avoid tunes with too many accidentals......you will not be able to play them all and tunes do not sound right if you miss notes out or put in wrong alternatives. Believe me...it's true!

Always try to choose a tune that keeps moving......you know the sort of thing. Jigs, dances and marches. We need people to stop and listen and enjoy. Avoid music with long, sustained notes...we don't want it to sound like the 'drones' on the bagpipes!

Enough for now.....I have a sore forefinger!!

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"No Chocolate Bars Here"

"I used to eat a lot of Tracker bars at one time. Is that the origin of the name of the blog?"

No, I'm sorry .....this blog was not named after a bar of chocolate !

I have to admit that I have not tried.... or even seen a 'Tracker' bar. Well perhaps I have seen one but not noticed it.

This blog takes it's name from the tracker-bar in the organ. 

The Tracker-bar is equivalent  to the playback head on a cassette player, but instead of the magnetic signals the organ gets its pneumatic signals (puffs of air) from the holes in the paper roll as it passes over.

In some organs the air that goes down the hole in the tracker-bar actually blows the corresponding pipe but in this case it is necessary to cut slots in the card/paper rather than a row of holes. The problem with this system is that the pipes, being of different sizes, require different amounts of air. If all the slots were the same width, the bass pipes would not get sufficient air, whilst the top pipes may ‘over-blow‘. The holes in the tracker-bar for the bass pipes are therefore made larger. (4mm)

 

In organs where the paper rolls have lines of separate holes representing the note duration, the air through the tracker-bar operates valves which in turn allow air to the pipes.

This has the advantage that all the holes can be the same size and instead of requiring slots, a row of closely spaced holes is enough to keep the valve open.

The Tracker-bar holes on my organ are only 2.8mm diameter but this is enough to inflate the “puff” to operate the larger valve.

I don't expect many to count the holes on the bar, but on this 26note organ there are actually 27 holes. The 110mm wide paper is wide enough to punch an extra hole. The music still has 26 notes and the extra hole can be used to operate a conductor, a bell ringer or drum.

There is another 27 hole organ over in Australia....I'll have to request a larger print from Derek so that you can see the excellent five carved Bandsmen.

"Fancy Organ Front"

I started this organ front some two years ago, but as it was taking ages I decided on a quicker solution with no hand carved scrolls, just commercial mouldings.

So now at last, I have returned to the original to finish it off. The first photo shows my early experiments with different woods. I decided to use what I had in the workshop for carving and not try to buy woods like lime etc. On the left is elm and on the right is mahogany, whilst in the centre is a small piece of mahogany moulding off an old clock case. The mahogany was the easiest to work but because of the grain was going to be hard to get a smooth finish.

After all the carving came the finishing.....the longest part. I sealed and sanded, and sanded and sealed; I primed and sanded and undercoated and sanded and still the grain showed up.

I finished off using Artists Acrylic Gesso primer, and many coats of this did the trick. It is now as smooth as the proverbial "babies bottom".

The next photos show the glueing of the scrolls to the front. I masked off the positions so that the scroll would attach to bare wood.

You will notice that one side is a "mirror image" of the other. The carving therefore had to be 'identical' but reversed on the opposite side. A bit "diff" doing two of each and in reverse. Never mind I like a challenge!

At last, (well almost at last... for I have yet to paint a picture for the centre section), the front is on the organ and looking OK. Someone remarked that it looked a bit like "white icing" on a "pink cake" !!!

It's not pink actually, it's a 'National Trust' used colour called  'Calamine'.  As in the old days of calamine lotion.

Just two things more to do...no, sorry three....

Firstly I need to paint a picture for the centre. Secondly, I need to paint decoration on the scrolls and lastly... which may take me another two years...I need two carved lady bell-ringers, to stand on either side of the 'shelf'.

To show you idea I have put up a couple of porcelain figures where the carved figures would be.

Mmm....I don't know.....I don't think they look too bad....perhaps I'll leave them there?

Friday Night is Music Night

"Friday Night is Music Night"