Our Phili-Pam

Can you make the lamp behind you rattle on the big chords? I'd love to be able to play but I can honestly say that I have zero ability to either read music or remember how to play. I was the only person in my class who couldn't play a single correct note on the recorder, though I was told I mimed playing an instrument with some skill. It doesn't help that I have the memory of a err.. orange thing... fish... you win them at fairs and carry them home in a plastic bag...

Philip, I really do envy you and your organ (sorry if that reads badly). I would have loved to learn to play but my wife put her foot down, when at an auction I was bidding on a very large pedal powered organ. Until she pointed out to me, "How do you get it home?" "On the back of my friend's lorry" I replied. "Which wall are you taking out to get it in the house?" The point was taken so I never did get my organ. Mind you, it was about 12ft tall with all its pipes. Secretly I was thinking of rebuilding the garage but there again, the one we had was only two months old. I wish, I wish, I wish.

Wow, your new organ looks ace, Philip. I am so pleased for you, to see it's brought a big smile to your face. Keep playing they say, it's good for the mind. I too wish I could play an organ and read music, but I can only play by ear and memory on a piano.

Hi all I have not had so much fun in years, as I attempt to salvage some of my past delights of my happy organ times. A lot of practice still needed. Today, I have attached my Korg sound module to the midi out-put from the organ.

The Korg, complete with its two octave keyboard which I used in conjunction with my piano (piano gone to my son's home) is in effect a fully controlled Korg M1, the only synth to really compete against Roland, with their thick full bodied sounds. In spite of the vintage nature of the Yamaha organ, being Yamaha's flagship instrument at the time, its performance in sending out fully controlled midi signals to the synth is fabulous. I need to tidy the wire connections, which consist of the midi cable as well as the sound output cables to the opera speakers. The synth keyboard does not need to be played itself, as it responds to the midi output from the organ, just like a phantom piano. I can assign full control which includes separate data from either of the organ manuals and pedal board. I don't have to have extra arms to contortion in order to reach its two octave keyboard.

This is how they look together. Another piece of kit that I need is an interface that converts the sound output into modern MP3 code which will allow the full sound quality to be recorded. Much more practice needed before that though. Another event which I hope will arrive tomorrow with my postman is a brand new pair of registration discs, which convert the whole organ into a top quality cinema organ. You see, even the software companies are catching on to the ever-increasing demand for the old "Wurlitzer" sound, as well as the upsurge in the overhaul of these vintage Yamaha organs. What I heard on demo from the software company using the theatre registration disc, being played on a Yamaha EL90, may put my thoughts on adding a tyros system finally to bed for good. That is just how good the sounds are, but that will be for you to judge one day.

They are just floppy discs which are inserted into the organ's data reader, where I can then store up to sixteen of the pre-set sounds at anyone time.

That's great Philip, great what software they can produce now for different things. Does Pam play the keyboard while you play the organ as they are so close together? I feel a tune coming on called 'Just the two of us'.

Hi Morgana, "Just the two of us, that's all I have to say, it's just the two of us", then down a semitone! No, Pam's mum and dad threw their piano out before she was old enough to get her hands on it, having had a bad experience from her older brother and sister. They bought a radiogram to replace it. She was good at playing that though. Thank you for asking. PS. I must have been a bad learner too, as my piano tutor Mr Ebrell (Clay Lane) said that I was enough to make a parson swear!

I envy any one who can play anything on a musical instrument. I never managed anything other than Little Bird on a recorder. Our two children had organ lessons in the 1980's and we bought them a two keyboard Yamaha. Our daughter was not too good at it but our son picked it up very well. As he has never found room for it in any of the houses he has had we still have it here. When he comes he loves to play a few tunes on it so I have the pleasure of listening to it. Happily he likes to play some of the 60's tunes, like the Beatles. One of my favourites he plays is "A whiter shade of pale". My dad also had an organ, he played the right notes but never seemed to get the timing right, almost like "playing the right notes, jussi not in the right order!" Nevertheless it gave him a lot of pleasure playing it. Keep it up Phil, I am sure your playing is good and it obviously gives you a lot of pleasure.

Hi all, The registration discs arrived this morning and have not failed to live up to what I had hoped for. So, the organ has been emptied of all of its general voices, and is full to the brim of every conceivable theatre organ sound. Not everyone's cup of tea. The task for me is not only to practice to make up for a decade of inactivity, but also familiarisation of what sounds do or don't go together or that are relevant to a particular piece of music. This will consume a lot of practice time. A classical organist, faced with a classical piece of music, has a fairly well documented "stop" procedure for what is to be played. That has to be inside the mind of a cinema organist, who is usually copying current popular music. Notice a theatre organist playing on YouTube, who will be playing the "tabs" as much as the keys. That is the crucial art of a cinema organ, not just playing the right notes in the right place. Thank you all for the comments that you have made on this subject. I am so impressed by the discs that have arrived today, I may buy some additional ones that convert the whole organ into "Big band or Symphony Orchestra" amongst others. Just to make this clear, the discs, or floppies, do not contain sounds. They bulk load digital instructions for what sounds or voices the organ is to generate.

Two discs are needed, one to prepare the organ files & the other to load the voices menu. Back to my early days, after I had completed my piano grades, I thought that organ playing was just an extension of what I had previously learnt, but how wrong that I was. It took me months to get to grips with organ set-ups. Now I have to learn it all over again, but it is very enjoyable. Good night all

Hi all, Some of my neighbours have suddenly gone on holiday. I wonder why! Anyway, one thing that can be said though is the outstanding high quality of Yamaha stuff generally. That organ of mine is a quarter of a century old. Yet all of the solid state switches and electronics are current on their latest instruments, and other manufacturers copy them into their products nowadays. Yamaha's latest organ has never been marketed in the West, although it was intended to be, but our recession kept it in the Far East. I will post a YouTube clip of it being demoed. Except for the sounds, which are fabulous, you might just notice the similarity to my organ. Yamaha demo The only thing that has changed is the sound bank, and the colour. My organ is more usually an open frame instrument. My dealer (from up north) went to some length in order to secure me a cabinet version. PS. One of the similarities sadly is not the organist. I have dressed up for drama in the past, but I could not pull that one off, in technical skill or beauty.

Hi all I have posted a YouTube clip of a superb performance on a cinema organ in Sydney, Australia as part of a reply to Dreamtime Organ Thread Headphones or hifi speakers needed to listen to the quality, but the point of the post is for you to see the attention the organist is paying to the registrations. He is on the go all of the time.

Hi all Doesn't time fly! Another bacon butty morning at the Belgrade this morning. I am disappointed that the water feature fronting the Belgrade did not last long, now dry and out of action again, as it has been for most of the year. Disruption to London-bound train services in the news this morning, as power lines were brought down yesterday, just south of Coventry station. Hopefully services back to normal soon. Have a good day all.