16' stops

Lately I have been experimenting with adding 16' stops to my registrations. WOW if you are careful about not playing too low, this makes a VERY lush full sound. For example, I have been adding a 16' tuba to my frequent registration of 8' tuba with 4' tibia. This makes a wonderful variation of a sound I frequently use.

My Silent Love

I love it when I find a new tune that is great on the organ. I a cd of someone playing "My Silent Love" by David Suesse and was able to locate a copy of it on "musicnotes.com." It is great finding a new tune that fits so nice on the organ. This one has a great swelling of two measures with triplets.. just great opportunities here!

5 1/3 rank

I have never gotten the 5 1/3' rank to sound good. After reading Walter Strony's book again, I now realize it is a harmonic of the 16' sound so you need strong 16's. I was always just using it with a 16' Tibia and it wasn't working. You need to use 16' color reeds and strings to give a good solid 16' base. I now hear how it should sound.

When Sunny gets Blue

I finally worked out the bridge chords so they sound good on the organ. The piano arrangement that I have sounds fine.. but trying to work out the chords and pedals on the organ has not been working. As usual.. I woke up the morning with an idea of different inversions and pedal notes and it sounds great. It is such a haunting tune. I am glad I have it worked out (at least acceptably.) I guess persistence pays off.

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.)

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.