Monday, October 27, 2008

Dinner for one, please James

Sightreading through a book of "jazz standards" on the piano I tried a song that I never played before, "Dinner for one, please James" by Michael Carr. It is a hauntingly sad tune which I immediately liked. I will have to work on a good organ arrangement for it... the song is just crying out for a lush pipe sound. It is great when one discovers a new tune (to yourself.)

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Trees by Rasback

I started fooling around with it tonight as an organ/piano duet. It will take some more specific arranging, but with soft strings and vox on the accompaniment keyboard and a stronger more full string-type ensemble on the solo. I can put a piano at 8' and 4' on the great. I produced some some pretty good effects of a duet with two people playing. I will work on it more. It will be easier to work on when I get my Allen.

Allen Theatre organ recordings and reverb

For some reason the people who make most of the recordings of the Allen Theatre organs want the "pure" George Wright sound without much, if any reverb. As a result almost all of the Allen theatre organ CDs sound harsh and up front, in your face. The other day I purchased a Don Thompson recording on a 311 and it sounded like a cheap electronic in someone's living room. For the heck of it, I played it through my computer and Miditizer reverb system and it sounded 100% better. After some pondering, I figured out how to burn an Allen CD with more reverb and WOW, it sounds great. Something I would play for my friends. It took some time to do so I will not do it with many more, but at least I know how to do it now.. by running it through Audacity with it set as "As I hear it" This means I have have to do it all in real time.