Metalworking in the Purest Form

[hermetic]

(02-06-2016, 01:37 PM)awemawson Wrote: I know Stanningley and Pudsey having been born in Leeds rather a long time ago !

By co-incidence I also know three of the organs that they were making pipes for !!!!

(There used to be the most amazing Govt surplus shop in Pudsey in the dip between Leeds & Bradford - when I was a youngster I got all sorts of things to play with - lenses prisms, WW1 black out candle lamps (slit on front) - best  of all, when I was recovering having put my eye out as a 5 year old, father (who who's office was in Bradford) brought me home a 'play tent' made from WW2 parachute silk. It survived long enough for my kids to play in it and it was bought in 1954 !!!! )

Hi Andrew, I was born in 1952, at a place called Moorhouse place (now known as Delph end) on the outskirts of Pudsey and I remember that shop because my dad was always in it, but I can't remember whether it was an Army and Navy or was called something like "the bazaar". Happy days.
Phil (now in East Yorkshire)

[awemawson]

Well I beat you by 3 years being a '49er ! By a sheer co-incidence as we no longer have any contact with the area, my nephew has settled in Pudsey somewhere

[Roadracer_Al]

While I am totally not discounting the skills and experience of the builders of the pipe organs, it makes sense to me: it's sheet metal work at it's core. The thing that really blows me away are the people who can play pipe organs to their full capacity: I utterly lack the mental parallel-processing required to play one.

Oakland has a lovely old theater with a pipe organ in the orchestra pit (on a hydraulic lift, no less!) and there is a retired gentleman who can play it quite well -- it's a thing to behold. There are what seem like 100 switches, and 3 layers of keyboards, and a keyboard on the floor that he plays with his feet. His brain and my brain are fundamentally wired differently, I can't imagine any amount of training which would have me playing like that. The funny thing is that I play guitar, so it's not the musical part.

[TomG]

(02-08-2016, 02:37 AM)Roadracer_Al Wrote: While I am totally not discounting the skills and experience of the builders of the pipe organs, it makes sense to me: it's sheet metal work at it's core.  The thing that really blows me away are the people who can play pipe organs to their full capacity: I utterly lack the mental parallel-processing required to play one.

Oakland has a lovely old theater with a pipe organ in the orchestra pit (on a hydraulic lift, no less!) and there is a retired gentleman who can play it quite well -- it's a thing to behold.  There are what seem like 100 switches, and 3 layers of keyboards, and a keyboard on the floor that he plays with his feet.  His brain and my brain are fundamentally wired differently, I can't imagine any amount of training which would have me playing like that.  The funny thing is that I play guitar, so it's not the musical part.

Don't know many sheet metal workers who cast their own sheet metal.

The fact the the brain can be trained to do all that stuff at once has always amazed me as well. I actually took organ lessons when I was young and although there were only the pedals and one stop, there were fleeting moments when both feet and both hands were working in unison. Now I can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

Tom

[f350ca]

There is a group in town that got an old theatre organ from out west and restored it in the movie theatre. It doesn't get used often but did get the chance to hear and see it once. They were quite an instrument. It has literally all the bells and whistles for the sound tracks when the movies were silent.

[dallen]

found this on youtube, says its the largest pipe organ in the world, over 28,000 pipes.

[awemawson]

Now THAT is an impressive organ! I've seen many ecclesiastical organs in Cathedrals here in the UK - my late brother was a church organist and managed to play many of them when visiting, which is why I've seen and heard several of the organs that were having pipes made in Tom's original link, and been 'behind the scenes' of many.

A pipe organ, especially a large one, is a fusion of art and technology. The genes giving musical skills didn't come to me, I could barely pick out God Save The Queen on a keyboard, but I really appreciate the technological side of such instruments

[dallen]

I lost out the musical side of things also, I couldn't pick a tune out of a bucket even if it was marked

[f350ca]

I can make some pretty impressive music, with a stereo that is.

[Roadracer_Al]

I can play a radio like nobody's business. :)