Royal Wedding Weekend and May Day

 



After all the activity tuning I was slightly aggrieved to have a minor accident lifting Rosie back onto her stand. To put it bluntly I tripped and we both hit the ground. Rosie’s fall was slightly cushioned by falling on top of me and I’ve got the bruises to prove it. No damage but needless to say the tuning was affected and I had to do it all again on Royal Wedding Day morning for the street party the next day. A quick job this time as only a couple of pipes had gone out. 

Dressed for the occasion



Saturday we were at Anne’s home as guests of her and John ( her new husband ) for a small party for neighbours, friends and family. A very enjoyable and restful afternoon but I forgot the camera so have no pictures of my own. I’ve been promised copies of other peoples so we’ll see if anything turns up to add later. I’m hoping there’s one with the cows in the neighbouring field all gathered at the fence listening.





    



May Day, Sunday May 1st saw us at Oxford Castle with friends from BOGA. Five organs in all and a good day was had but with rather less public than had been expected in spite of ideal weather. Maybe they were all too exhausted from being up at the crack of sparrows’ for the celebrations on Magdalene Bridge where the college choir sing in the dawn from the top of the tower. Any self respecting student will have been up all night in preparation and would be well lubricated by dawn so maybe they all just collapsed into bed leaving the town free for the tourists.



I did remember the camera this time so there's a few pics.

I'm just about spitting feathers again. Another session at the library almost up and blogspot doing everything it can to avoid putting the pictures into any sort of layout the makes sense, below is the best I can manage in the time I have.

  

Dennis and his first class
home built organ

John Hunt and Annie







Anne and passers bye dancing the the street

 

Jamie from Marston proving that the
kids can do it just as well as the adults

Hon memsec (John Webb) with Annie
 and Christina (castle management)

 


John Stevens from Hook Norton

Info board from John Stevens organ





Tuning

Well, I finally got round to tuning. It took quite a while to sort it out but when I sussed how to do it it was straightforward enough. The back rank of violins are fixed length and not tuneable but the meter showed that they are sufficiently in tune with themselves not to warrant major surgery. First time I checked they were perfectly at A440. I guess it was luck that I picked the right day next day with a change in the weather, they were flat.

Never mind, just put the meter away and do it by ear. A few years working in piano restoration helped. So, tune the front rank of stopped flutes to the violins. Easy - once I’d freed the stoppers so that they would actually slide. They need to be tight enough not to move with the normal travellings of the organ but not so tight they need more than a good grip with the fingers. Most were OK but a few were so tight it took a vice and “mole” grips (with rubber pads to avoid marking the wood). Refit the pipes that had to come out for “easing” push them back with a wipe of Vaseline to seal. One or two were a bit slack but a slip of newspaper between the leather and wood was enough to make a considerable difference.

Ready to tune. Surprisingly it was much easier to hear the “beat” on an organ pipe than it was on a piano so it didn’t take long. Just move the stopper till the “beat” stops. If in doubt I deliberately eased the stopper out till it was definitely flat then back in till the “beat” stops. That’s 22 pipes in tune, 11 violins and 11 flutes. Now the celeste. I think it’s more common to tune the celeste slightly sharp but on Rosie it was hard to tell whether it was sharp or flat. Some were one, some the other they were so far out so I went for sharper. Tune the celeste to the flutes them deliberately sharpen it a bit till there’s a noticeable “beat” that sounds pleasant to the ear. Count the “beats” and tune the other celeste pipes to the same speed of “beat”. That’s 33 pipes done, just the11 melody/ bass pipes to go.

I don’t have a tuning roll but on Rosie’s pressure box system a strip of masking take over the holes on the tracker bar seals all but the holes you want to sound one note at a time. The lower pipes don’t have a violin to tune them to so had the be tuned to the octave (or two ) above. Just uncover two holes at a time to sound the already tuned flute to the lower tone. The “beat" is just as obvious. For the two bass note with two pipes each (one an octave lower to give depth to the bass) cover the mouth of the deeper pipe, tune to higher one to the octave higher then uncover the lower one and tune the two bass pipes to each other.

Job done and sounding a lot better thought I think the celeste is less than perfect. Might try tuning the a few beats lower to see if it gives a more mellow tone. Good enough for the weekend though.