Organs and Computers
Dr D J Henry, Nottingham
Hollins Methodist Chapel in Oldham no longer exists. In common with so many declining churches the building has been demolished and its lovely organ consigned to a contractors skip. As a young boy I remember first sitting on the bench, feet barely able to reach the pedal board (non-radiating or concave), fascinated to explore the significance of all those odd knobs with unfamiliar labels. Fifty years on the labels are more familiar but the enchantment remains.
Years later, my younger son suggested that I should consider using a computer in my work as a GP. In common with most doctors I had only the vaguest, fearful notions of computers and no idea of their potential. But as with the organ, regular practice lessened the anxiety and led to a rewarding professional involvement with these incredible machines, arguably amongst the greatest achievements of mans ingenuity.
I have sometimes thought that organs and computers have much in common:
Any organ is capable of producing a beautiful fugue and a computer a sophisticated program. Both are perfect one-to-one teachers; they reward persistence and never get cross. Both provide instant feedback : a wrong note is immediately apparent; an error in programming causes the program to halt and the computer indicates not only the location of the mistake but its nature. So with diligence and perseverance one cannot fail to get better at both playing fugues and programming computers, even when no longer young; it just takes a little longer as one gets older. The final analogy is that experienced exponents of both are invariably encouraging and helpful.
When I retired after many years as a church organist I acquired an electronic instrument for practice and this produced a fairly acceptable imitation of a pipe organ. Some years later, when technology had moved on, it was up-graded to a digital instrument. In place of several hundred multi-coloured electronic components the organ contains a few small black chips and the sounds produced do not offend the ear of my teacher who is a cathedral organist (though he had little regard for my chosen specification).
It has a headphone socket to lessen the aggravation of repetitive practice on the household, and a lead from this to the computer enables one's best efforts to be recorded, and even published to the web. This can be a chastening experience. An apparently fairly adequate performance at the time scores fewer marks as the recording is re-played, when wrong notes or careless phrases seem to predominate. The organ is described under Local Organs - A Norwich Digital Organ
And then there is the Internet. During 1998 I received several distraught calls from priests or church administrators desperately seeking a locum organist. A directory of organists had been published by the diocese some years before but this had either been misplaced or was out of date, and was in any case restricted to the Anglican church. A web-based directory seemed more sensible and the local society of organists web site a suitable address. Unfortunately the society did not have a web site. But this is an example of one thing leading to another. We now have this site and since its appearance both the site and the directory are developing and appear slowly to be gaining acceptance.