Bernard's Backwater: 2011

Sunday, 25 December 2011

Real Mechanical Music

Being a wee bit bored over Christmas, and not being one for watching TV programs, I though I would poke around on YouTube and find some new sites.

It is like a huge never ending 'Piggy-back', linking from one site to the favourites on another. It turns up some amazing musical instruments. Here's just one I found.

Wednesday, 10 August 2011

And now - an American Organ Rally

So after the French way of doing things,

(the previous post),

this is a glimpse of the tone on the other side

of the Atlantic.

I actually get quite a lot of my ideas for tunes

from these Wurlitzer organs.

My organ of 26 notes, of course,

never sounds as good as these.

This music is:-

"Georgy Girl" (Tom Springfield) played by a North Tonawanda Model 191 band organ converted to Wurlitzer 150 rolls.

Sunday, 7 August 2011

French Organ Festival

I thought you may like to see how things are done over in France.

They seem very keen on singing along with their music.

Wouldn't suit me, I can't sing for 'Love nor Money'.

This is just a selection of short clips

from the August 2011 Festival.

Saturday, 9 July 2011

I had many, many goes at this and wasted quite a few hours. Well, maybe not wasted for you can always learn by your mistakes. The first thing I would advise is - “be prepared“. Create a new folder, something like ‘My videos‘ to work from.

I find it easier to work from a single point, rather than searching all over the place for various pictures and MP3 tracks later.

It pays to get it right.

You see once you have published a movie you can’t edit it.

If you keep a copy as a ‘project’ before you publish, you can go back and change thing there, but not after ‘publishing’.

To start with I would suggest a slideshow with no sound.

It is a good practice for later, so, choose, say 36 pictures and take copies and put them in your new folder. I then re-size my pictures. You don’t have to,

but it is much quicker when you come to create the movie and upload it to blogger or YouTube.

Make your pictures about 600/650pix wide and if you can, preferably in landscape.

Portrait mode works but you get black lines down each side.

When I have re-sized them, I then rename them AA, BA, CA etc. through to ZZ in the order that you want them to play. The reason being, if you change your mind you can then rename, say, picture GG to become AD, which will then be sorted between AA and BA. Once they are in your preferred order,

play a Windows Slideshow to get an idea of the finished thing.

These example screen pictures below are not photos of my screen, because the flash always goes off when I try to take pictures. They are scans from my “How to use Vista” book.

Now let us open ‘Windows Movie Maker’ from your ‘all programs’ menu.

It should (if you are using Vista) look similar to this, but without the sample pictures:-

(Click to enlarge)

Sorry it’s a bit wonky.

There are six movie clips shown here in the 'contents pane',

which will be replaced by your 36 (still) jpg files when you load them.

This next picture below shows the upper left hand side of the screen

and you will see on the left, a list of ‘Tasks’.

The first group is ‘Import’ and the third item is ‘Pictures’. (red blob)

After selecting this, you will go to your new (picture) folder and select all of them to import. They should all appear - in alphabetical order - in that central section where the six examples are.

Now down in the bottom left of the screen you will find the ‘storyboard’ similar to below (but empty of pictures).

The idea is to click/drag your pictures, in order, down to these boxes one at a time. This ‘storyboard’ just keeps going as you fill up the boxes. I expect there is a limit but I have never got that far. When you have all 36 in place it is now possible to play your slideshow by clicking the ‘play symbol’ under the ‘preview monitor, (upper right) or the one at the left of the ‘storyboard’ line. There is a rewind symbol here also.

That is all there is to it!

The next thing to try is ‘transitions’. The second group of tasks on the left - third down. This comes up with a screen (and more) full of transition effects, like fade, dissolve, page curl etc. You have to click/drag these effects to the small boxes between your pictures on the storyboard.

You can do this 35 times for your 36 pictures if you like. You can leave them out and the pictures will change without any transition.

All the time you do this you can see what is happening in the monitor and you can rewind and replay as many times as you like. If you don’t like the transition, you can drag down a replacement to overwrite it or (right click mouse and select ‘remove‘).

Now to headers and footers.

I think they call them ‘Titles and Credits’.

I have only tried - ‘Title at the beginning’ and ‘Credits at the end’.

I don’t (yet) know what the others do.

After you have entered your text and clicked ’Add title’ it will appear at the start of the ‘storyboard ‘ and can be played through the monitor. It is also possible to edit the colour of the background, the text font or style and also if you prefer rolling credits/ fading titles and all sorts of fancy things. I tend to run with what is offered first, rather than change too many things at my first attempt.

When you have done credits at the end, that should be it. You can now save this as a project if you want to come back to it again, or/and you can now go ahead and ‘Publish Movie’. I save mine to my PC first, rather than publish it to other places.

That will give you a silent slideshow.

Adding sound and getting it to fit and synchronise is a wee bit more complicated and I will do that bit in an 'update' to this post,

when I get a spare minute or two.

These next two pictures are waiting for my text.

Shan't be long.

Tuesday, 5 July 2011

The REAL Organ Grinder's Monkey

Now this is something that was very common years ago.

Some said it was cruel to keep the monkey on a chain,

but this one seems very happy,

and is obviously loved by his owner.

It is just a pity the organ is out of tune!

Monday, 6 June 2011

Streets of Geneva

Now here's a chap who takes his cat with him

when he goes out Organ Grinding.

.

.

His name is Josef and his cat is called Toulouse.

I can't imagine either of mine putting up with this!

They leave the house when I start playing.

Friday, 15 April 2011

Going "spooning"?

Now, if anyone fancies taking up the autoharp,

and was worried about a broken finger nail,

here is an alternative!

There you go!

After dinner, when you've just polished off

that big helping of apple pie and cream,

lick the spoon.......

.......and tap out a toon!

Saturday, 9 April 2011

Looking inside a Barrel Organ.

Whilst browsing the other day,

I came on this video of a movement out of a 'Flute Clock'.

It is a very good example of the workings of barrel organs.

At the very bottom, you can see the cranked bellows

pumping air up into the 'reservoir' sitting on top of it.

From here the air will be admitted to the correct pipe,

at the correct time,

by a valve being lifted open,

when a 'pin' or 'bridge' on the rotating barrel

passes under it.

Normally only one tune is played on one revolution of the barrel.

However, in this case the barrel is 'pinned' on a spiral

to produce a longer playing time.

Just thought you might like to see how they work.

Saturday, 2 April 2011

Work continues on new Piccolo pipes.

"Finished those piccolo pipes?" asked Dennis.

No, not quite, but I'm getting on 'Champion'.

Now after cutting out all the blocks at the correct angles,

the drilling holes in each block,

(top block for the brass pipe and bottom block for the feed),

I had to chisel out the wind-way from the feed hole to the mouth.

(above)

Next, I was interested to see how much space I had,

from the back of these new pipes,

to the fronts of the pipes behind.

I laid a new pipe block on its side with the feed hole on the bottom,

in line with the holes in the pipe mounts.

I had a good 3/8" gap showing, and I'm hoping the new pipes

will not affect the playing of the row behind.

Next, time to cut and mount the brass pipes.

I reamed the holes in the top blocks,

to give a really good tight fit.

Brass tube cut to length with a VERY fine bladed piercing saw.

The brass tube wall was only .014" thick (thin?)

Here they are all laid out ready for assembly (glue).

I tried 'voicing' all of them in turn and had several at the high end,

that refused to 'speak'.

The 1/16" ply seemed a bit thick,

and the stream of air was blowing too high

over the top of the upper lip.

I changed the ply for 1/32" beech veneer

and that worked well on these high notes.

I cut 13 pieces of veneer so I may use it on all the pipes.

I'll see how they sound before deciding.

Now comes the most difficult part.

Gluing them all up.

Oh, yes.

The wooden spoons (nice beech dowel handles)

are cut into short pieces, hole bored in the centre,

and a taper turned to fit the pipe mounts.

Thursday, 24 March 2011

An Autoharp for Foody

This is a special bit for Foody.

She has an autoharp which she has had restored,

and I'm waiting to hear how she is getting on

with learning to play?

This fellow has loads of uploaded videos.

All beautiful.

Just lovely.

Sunday, 20 March 2011

Making a start on the Piccolo pipes.

The organ has space for four ranks of pipes.

I never got round to building all four,

and have made do with three.

It will, and does play perfectly well with only one rank.

So my fourth choice was for 13 piccolo pipes,

which required to be made from nice hardwood.

Many thanks to Dennis,

for providing me with some excellent beech blocks.

Milling the beech down to thickness.

There were seven different thicknesses required

for the corresponding pipes.

As you can see from above,

there are some quite complicated angles to cut.

I made a couple of 'cradles' to hold the blocks

at the correct angle for cutting.

It also ensured that all thirteen were all the same.

From the above drawing you can see that quite a large hole

had to be drilled end-on to take the brass pipe.

I did the drilling in the lathe as above.

I have a speed controller here and could

slow it down for these large drills.

The largest was 9/16".

The 9/16" tube fits a treat.

The bottom blocks were then cleaned up in the mill,

and the bases cut parallel to the tops.

Looking more like the finished thing now.

I left those bits on the bottom left of each base,

and will cut them off after the whole thing is glued up.

This is where the air comes into the pipe at the base.

All marked up ready for more drilling.

This time, all the holes for the wind pipes

were the same diameter.

Oh yes, the wooden spoons?

I'll tell you about those next time.

Friday, 18 February 2011

Pass the Tea and Sympathy.

In 1976 I bought this LP by Janis Ian and still have it today.

Some of the songs like this one, I have always enjoyed.

Enjoy.

Saturday, 5 February 2011

A chance to hear some Brass Flute pipes.

Orgelbau Stüber Berlin 26er Violinopan

Tuesday, 1 February 2011

"Made in England"

Over here a did a post which included a 'heap' of old

musical instruments awaiting repair.

In there, was this Piccolo.

I bought it quite cheap in the local antique shop

many years ago.

It is an Eb piccolo as used in flute bands.

The technical notes say it is a :-

"Six key Conical flute in black wood with a silver head"

Now, I have always wanted a row of flute pipes for the organ.

You can see a lovely rank here on this Niemuth & Stuber

Thirteen in a row. Just what I need.

The only snag is that I shall have to make my own!

I shall not actually be building flute pipes,

but a rank half the size to play an octave higher.

These are known a "Piccolo" pipes.

I sent off for the brass tubes some while back and

because I wanted Imperial sizes,

9/16", 17/32" and so on,

they had to come from our friends in America.

Here they are!

Shipped hundreds of miles, just because we,

in England,

don't make things anymore.

Sad, isn't it.

So, out to the workshop as soon as it warms up a bit.

At least the new pipes will be:-

"Made in England"

Bernard's Backwater