Wilko's Diary

As many of you are aware, I am taking near-25 years experience as an organist and applying it to the piano. However, I'm starting from Grade 1 ABRSM and playing through those pieces before going further up the ranks. I'm not necessarily taking the exams (although I could do in future), but for the moment simply playing the music.

It's a common misconception that being an organist automatically means you are a pianist. Far from the truth. As I get asked about this a lot/and/or people just presume I can play both, let me explain.

Difference in note length and playing style: OK, try playing a note on the piano. How long can you get the note to last? 6, 8, maybe 10 seconds before it fades away to nothing? Yes, the piano is a percussive instrument (in fact, it's usually classed as being in the percussion section - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percussion_instrument and it's on the list). On the other hand, to make a sound as an organist, you utilise wind, so it's a wind instrument. It's in the aerophone category of the Sachs-Hornbostel system- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_instrument_classification. Pressing down a key allows wind into the pipes. As long as that key is pressed, and a supply of wind is maintained, that pipe will always speak at the same volume- the sound never dies away.

So, they are in two diffent categories and therefore need a different style of playing. Piano music therefore tends to concentrate on shorter notes- crotchets and quavers and usually there is something always happening. Organ music, on the other hand, whilst can be flowing like the piano, can afford to have longer notes in it.

Differences in dynamics: Hit a key on the piano. Right OK, got that? Now, hit it harder. OK, yes, it's louder. Now, let's do the same on the organ. OK, the two notes are of the same volume. Aha, that's right, to get the organ to sound louder or softer, we need to move that pedal with your foot that opens and closes the shutters. While once you've struck a note on the piano, you can't change it's volume, on the organ you can hold a note down and make it louder and softer. Nifty! There are advantages to both the piano and organ 'way of speaking', but they require different playing techniques. On the piano, you must have precision in the way you hit notes; whilst as an organist, you don't need this 'degree of touch' (except maybe second touch on theatre organs- see http://www.shomler.com/calsj/secondtouch.htm for an explanation, but even in this case, there is a point where if you press down the notes stop and then you press harder to get second touch, so it's not quite the same as the piano).

Anyway, this 'degree of touch' is why it's usually easier to go from piano to organ than vice-versa. Playing the piano as an organist can lead to incorrectly placed loud and soft notes- until you get used to the touch that is- and so piano can be painfully slow to learn when you know the organ first!

Differences in the left hand: As the organ has pedals, the left hand becomes less important than it is on the piano, and left hand movements tend to be concentrated within a smaller range of notes than a pianist would use. This much larger movement than I'm used to in the left hand is good for keeping me on my feet, but again, is another frustrating thing to learn.

Manuals, Pedals and stops: Now, it's the turn of the pianist moving to organ to have to work. How do you manage to play on several keyboards (manuals), pedals and keep all those stops going? The pedals take practice my friend, the manuals you set different sounds to and then just move your hands when you want to change sound, oh and don't bother with the stops- use the pistons- try pushing those buttons/ under the keyboards and buttons/levers by your feet!

What about keyboards? In terms of playing technique, they are more like pianos than organs. However, it does depend on the keyboard- some like the Roland range have more of a weighted piano action than a keyboard key.

So, there you go! If you wonder why I'm working slowly on the project and starting right from scratch, now you know! It's mostly training the dynamics in the fingering that's the issue, but hopefully I'll progress faster once I've mastered this. And it will help me as an organist too!

I drove on the way home, which was fairly uneventful. écureuil fell asleep in the back, so obviously me driving a Skoda is pretty boring. Thankfully we didn't have the same problems as the trip coming up.

I managed to point out to Devonian that the Dinosaurs on the M5 have actually migrated to the other side of the carriageway.

However, the worst bit was when filling the car up with Diesel, I managed to choose the only pump in the filling station that had broken. Cue me trying to put £40 of Diesel into a car with a pump that only lets you put about £0.03-£0.10 before it cuts off. Devonian thought this highly amusing and insisted on grinning through the car window throughout the whole process.

Oh well, back home safely and all was good. I do miss the dept sometimes, but it's good to be home- Exeter is much nicer to live than Reading but working at the office is a bit less friendly than the dept- and you don't get corporate rubbish at the dept!

Hopefully I'll be back in Reading soon though, which should be good.

The next day started earlier, at 9am to be precise.

The night before, the guy in the hotel had said that it only would take 15 mins to drive to the University from Caversham Road, to which écureuil and I laughed!

However, the other guys in our party didn't believe us but the guy. So 0840 hours, we left after a nice cooked breakfast. However, we then met a guy who had decided to deliver to a nearby store and left his van blocking the road. Next, we hit the traffic and after another 30 minutes or so, we eventually made the department- so much so for the 15 minutes!

During the day, the Evil Beard was wearing purple socks that Bert would be envious about (I was told to put this in). Many people were nursing hangovers, but we seemed to cope OK and had plenty of good ideas to go back to Exeter with.

Old Bosley, the Flight attendant, Knoll and others headed back at 12.30. I stayed on, with écureuil and Devonian, where we could do a mixture of work and socialising.

I managed to finally meet Baby Bert, who was more interested in kicking off her booties than anything else. Squirty has gained a beard, so perhaps he wishes to rival The evil beard? Drat, Lady Nutmeg and others appear well.

Meanwhile, The glossy-magazine sub editor finally realised who I was. It would appear that despite my appearance at pantos past and present, some people still don't know me, which is just as well. Anyway, since the Glossy magazine sub-editor is in musical terms, Reading's answer to the Fantastic pianist, I suppose I missed the opportunity to have a music discussion. Incidentally, I'm not quite sure who plays the most instruments out of the fantastic pianist, the Glossy magazine sub-editor and in fact Mrs Drat. Hmm, answers on a postcard?? However, I guess Mrs Drat hasn't that much time for music at the moment given that the 'dreaded V-word' is on the horizon- best of luck from Wilko's diary!

BQ+CG is still up to his usual antics. I'll not say what, but I'm sure you can work it out. Sorry, but I had to put that in.

That only leaves the drive home, but I'll leave that for another post...

After the disaster and écureuil arriving late, we settled down to the meeting. A huge contingent arrived and we managed to stick 30 people in a room designed for 10. I blame The Evil Beard. In addition, BQ+CG insisted in sitting there with a bottle of shampoo in front of him. I'd brought the shampoo up from Exeter as he left it there on his last visit. But instead of putting it away, BQ+CG had it on view for everyone to see... some people!

Bert, BQ+CG and I, and I suspect others were not impressed when Old Bosley managed to get the meeting to overrun by 1 whole hour after the first four talks. Hence we missed all the breaks I'd scheduled into the meeting. And Old Bosley had promised to run to time!

Dinner that evening was in the Oracle, following beer at Zero degrees. During the meal, the Flight a and Old Bosley got rather drunk, to the point at which Old Bosley tipped a wine bottle upside down to pour it rapidly into his glass. When some wine fell on the table, Old Bosley decided to clear it up... by drinking it directly off the table- zzzzzuccccck! I really pity old Bosley's brother and The Cherrytree who had to put up with Old Bosley and the Flight Attendant staying at their places.

During dinner, I sat opposite The evil beard. He asked me to put that in. The Evil beard admitted to reading this nice diary, but said it was really sad! This coming from someone, who in his spare time, wrote a very sad programme to produce nothing but penguins on your computer screen. I think the diary is a far better use of time!

When I got back, as well as keeping in touch with the fantasic pianist, I was able to go back to the Dark Ages and watch analogue TV in my hotel room. Yes, it really is the dark ages in Reading (when you've switched to digital in the South-West).

Oh well, time for bed and on to Wednesday in Reading.

The next bit of news concerns our drive up to Reading. Given that 9 of us were heading that way, it was a lot cheaper driving office cars (Skodas to be precise) than to all go by train.

Old Bosley was driving one car, while écureuil was driving the other. I was in Old Bosley's car. The first disaster was when écureuil tried to drive out of the parking space with the boot open! Needless to say, while they shut the boot, Old Bosley was already on the M5 (well, almost), écureuil's car was no-where to be seen.

However, this soon all changed. There had been a big argument as to who was supposed to pick up Knoll from Sainsbury's in Taunton. Nobody knows where Sainsbury's in Taunton is, despite it being only 2 minutes off the M5. Nobody apart from me, that is! So, it ended up (after much arguing on the phone between the two cars), that Old Bosley come off the motorway and pick up Knoll. Despite Old Bosley doing this quickly and Knoll being close to the entrance to Sainsbury's, this allowed écureuil (Captain slow??) to speed ahead.

The next disaster was when we hit the M4-M5 turning to find ourselves in really heavy traffic; according to the traffic reports, this was a huge crash between Junctions 20 and 19 of the M4. Whatever, the lanes just weren't moving, so after a quick phone call, we decided to head North on the M5 and cut back later. However, Old Bosley was armed with his secret weapon: his iphone, on which he had the Sat-nav, which gave us an advantage over écureuil, who was still ahead of us. Using the sat-nav, the farmer was able to navigate while Old Bosley drove. We correctly identified that we needed to come off at Junction 11A, which écureuil did too. We had previously come off at Junction 12, but that was a mistake.

Meanwhile, écureuil was still ahead- ahead enough to not see us and for us not to see him. However, his mistake was when coming to the A417, he turned off the dual carriageway, on to the single carriageway A436 and proceeded to head down the A40 towards Oxford- a real mistake. While we speeded towards the M4, écureuil was stuck in all sorts of bottlenecks. Disaster then struck us- when "Somebody needed the toilet"- that somebody was the farmer. I was scared that it would allow écureuil to get the edge on us, but thankfully the traffic was bad on his route.
A phone call to écureuil's car as we passed Junction 13 of the M4 confirmed that écureuil had only just got on the A34. There was much cheering from within the car, (well from me anyway)- victory was ours!

So, écureuil lost the race, by about 30 minutes! Plus, they were all very hungry, and we were able to eat the nice platter that the Evil Beard had arranged for us- maybe the beard is evil, but he isn't!

Hello!

As many of you will be aware, I was in Reading for the last two days, visiting the department.

The full news will be communicated over a period of several days as basically I've come back with lots and lots of material and there isn't enough time to write it all down. So, I'm aiming for one post per day for the next few days. It also means you're less likely to miss stuff (than if I uploaded 50 posts at once).

But for now, let's introduce a new character to the diary: Old Bosley, so named because he was possibly the original department drinker. In the days before Sappo and Bosley and when The Evil Beard was mearly a PhD student, Old Bosley ruled the drinking scene. I reckon a drinking contest between the old and new Bosley's could be on order- there is always the office Christmas party.

More Reading news to follow soon.

Yes, that's right, Devonian has arrived.

I managed to see him while he was sat at reception this morning, where he exclaimed 'Let me guess, it's going to be a day of boring inductions isn't it?'.

Well, yes, you're both right and wrong. Boring inductions, yes, but not the whole day, the whole week! Zzzzzzzz

Meanwhile, I managed a 10.5 hour (8-5.30pm) working day without a lunch break, such are the pressures of my work. They'll learn when I have so much time off sick due to stress.

Next task is to convince Devonian to come to the Christmas ball... I've managed so far with Bosley it seems...

In other news, I'm still very busy with music at the moment too. Something possibly to do with the influence of the fantastic pianist maybe? Whatever the cause, it's preventing the job stress. The piano and saxophone are both coming on nicely.

Meanwhile the fantastic pianist, not content with the guitar, flue, piano, saxophone and snake charmer-whatsit has decided that she wishes to learn the violin.

Oh no! Devonian is due in the office next week. I wonder if we can find him a place to sit. Hmmm, it's a little cramped already (think PhD offices) so perhaps he will have to sit on the floor!

The next thing to wonder about is what exactly will Devonian do? It may seem a sensible question, but no-one seems to actually know the answer, apart from vague musings. Still, I suppose the first week will be training courses etc etc. The suggestion we had so far is that Devonian can make the tea! That's delegation for you!

Meanwhile, the Fantastic Pianist and I are compiling lists of where we would like to go on holiday. She seems to love markets, people (inc snake charmers, traders, bartering etc), while I want to go and take photos of things, especially great scenery. We are busy reading lots of rough guides and lonely planet books (the Fantastic Pianist has a library of them it seems), plus the classics such as 1000 places to see before you die etc. I have also enjoyed Stephen Fry's book about his travels around America. It's good how he describes each state in turn and it's great to know about the different histories and cultures they have.

My list already includes a lot of Europe, the Mediterranean, Canada, the USA, New Zealand (maybe we should visit Quackers?).

I have also managed to buy some more kit for my camera. I've already got a filter kit, but have a few more filters on the way. For those who don't know cameras, the filters (particularly neutral density graduated filters (a.k.a. ND Grads)) are rather useful at getting the exposures right so you can view both land and sky without one being too dark and the other being too light. However, they may take some time to appear given that there is a postal strike on at the moment. I also have a few more bits coming too, such as useful cables.

My best toy so far has been my polarising filter, which is so useful at getting the clouds in the sky looking dramatic.

Oh well, once the travel insurance is sorted, I'll get out and get photographing!

Not that much has happened recently. In fact, I've been very busy. Some bloke from the office has nagged me to update my blog. (Actually to be honest, it was Captain Sverdrup who lives in a gamekeeper-run mansion north of Exeter). Anyway he moaned at me this evening that I haven't updated it for ages, so to please my fans, I'm putting this right.

Well, Captain Sverdrup and the Fantastic Pianist got a year older. The Fantastic pianist seemed to really like all the presents I bought her, which was good. The tea and chocolates seem to be disappearing fast.

Also, I managed to win a Saxophone and Clarinet taster lesson at a recent auction. So, the Fantastic Pianist got a phone call asking if I could borrow her sax. She rarely plays it, sticking more to the flute, guitar and of course the piano. In fact, judging by the dust on top of the saxophone case, I think her snake-charming flute (yes, she has one, and it makes a real old racket!) sees more use than the saxophone.

Anyway, so managing to transport the sax back to my place, I have been able to get a few notes (plus a lot of squeaks) out of the instrument (don't laugh). It is fun to play, but I hope the neighbours don't mind that much!

I had my first taste of Venison meat when I was asked out to some of the fantastic pianist's friends place for dinner. I quite enjoyed the meat (it seems to have little fat on it, but be rather chewy in places, but pleasant at least). I would recommend it to all non-vegetarians and non-vegans.

In other news, the fantastic pianist is wanting to go abroad with me, which is good news. The bad news is the travel insurance. Those who remember the horrors of what happened in Wisconsin, USA in 2006 may be aware of the situation more, but basically it seems like either I get a cheap policy (which most people get, costs from about £10 upwards) and risk that if the same thing that happened in 2006 happens again, I'm not covered for it. However, bearing in mind that my travel insurance bill in 2006 was aroun $6000, this may not be a good idea. So, the alternative would be to have a travel insurance to cover all conditions. However, as far as I can work out, this may be 10-50 times the cost (i.e. hundreds of pounds), which kicks a big dent into the holiday budget.

So, for now, I've decided to seek advice (I know an travel insurance broker who's a family friend and won't charge for advice). However, he's in Florida at the moment, so we've decided to miss this holiday for now (the Fantastic pianist will just go with some of her friends), but try and sort it out for the future.