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Subject:
From:
"James H. H. Lampert" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
James H. H. Lampert
Date:
Wed, 5 May 2004 16:18:49 -0400
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
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Mac wrote:
>. . . .  The non-musical sounds I heard were mostly key-action,
>although a few might have been attributable to combination action and
>levers.  I can tolerate these peripheral sounds while present at a live
>concert when they are unavoidable (along with audience coughs and program
>shuffling), but when they do not add to the musical experience, to add them
>artifically is ridiculous.
. . .

But that's just it: conceivably, a certain amount of action noise CAN make a
positive contribution to the musical experience. Just as a well-behaved wind
chiff can, particularly if it responds to the organist's touch.

If wind-chiff, or action noise, for that matter, improves the articulation,
then it's just another partial (and as Wendy Carlos demonstrates in her
lecture-demonstration CD, "Secrets of Synthesis," it's the non-harmonic
partials that are often the most interesting ones). If it spits consistently
and obnoxiously enough to ruin legato passages, then it's a speech defect.

Of course, a trem that putts like an idling lawnmower (and I've heard one,
on an organ that was temporarily set up in a back room of the restorer's
office) is *always* a defect (as is a trem that's either too deep or too
fast to be of any practical use, for that matter).

I've noticed that some on the List seem to be convinced that at least some
of the sound effects reported for the instrument in question are humorous
hyperbole, and therefore bovine scat, (perhaps an April Fool joke issued a
month too late) while others are equally convinced that the report is
completely accurate. Personally, I'm completely noncommittal about the
matter, particularly considering as how it's unlikely to affect me
personally anytime soon.

--
JHHL

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