Pleasant Surprise

Theatre organ people are always bemoaning the average age of their concert attendees or the membership in their organizations. Well... I was looking through the newly released membership list of my state ATOS chapter and found someone in my town. I emailed him and got a response from his mother. She said he has not reached the age of 12 yet and is studying both classical and theatre organ (to top it off.. from my teacher.) I wrote back to his mom saying the I would love to invite THEM over when I get my organ so he can try it out.

Wake Up and Live

I have several excellent pipe organ recordings of "Wake Up and Live" but have been unable to find the printed music for this tune. Sunday afternoon I was playing through an old Robbins book entitled, "Bing Crosby's favorite songs" and low and behold guess what showed up on page 39! I now have a copy of "Wake Up and Live" to work on... tricky rhythms.

I have always said I wanted to make a database of all the titles in all my collections but I have shelves of them.. it would be a huge task.. Maybe when I retire.

Talk Turkey

Saturday I went down to the Stadele's Allen Organ to play the Q-311sp which I will be purchasing. I played it for a good two hours. Although I do not have the money yet from the estate, I discussed specifics. I will be getting the organ with 2-4 speakers, the midi assistant, and headphone jacks. We hooked up the midi assistant in the store and listened to a couple of pieces played. It was a learning experience to watch the the player change the stops ... one can learn a lot about registration from it. Of course now I am MORE anxious to get the money and purchase the organ.

Piano Lessons

My piano lessons with John Baratta are coming along fine. We have finished book one of the adult method and have moved on to Hannon and a Mozart book. He said shortly we will work on a Joplin rag. I try every day to practice and actually feel guilty when I don't. I never felt like that about piano lessons before. I guess that is why I am improving and I am seeing carry-over to my other playing.