Playing about with the Recital Pro

Is my newly acquired Alesis Recital Pro digital piano keyboard out of tune or is my musical acumen failing with age?

First some facts. The Recital Pro is an 88 key keyboard so spans from lower A0 to upper C8 with an overall pitch range of just over 7 octaves. It boasts 12 basic voices with various additional functions. Some of the voices (namely "Clavi", "Acoustic bass" and "Fingered bass") sound an octave lower than normal giving effectively an overall range of just over 8 octaves, although this shift is tacitly cancelled when layering with a normal voice. Moreover the whole range can be "transposed" by up to 12 semitones up or down extending the effective range to about 10 octave but q.v.. 

In what follows the term "normal" will refer to the standard piano pitches with A4 (above middle C) having the frequency 440Hz (this being Concert Pitch by definition).

The keyboard extends downwards 4 octaves and upwards 3 and a bit octaves from A4 so we have:

C8    ~4186Hz      (highest normal note, all C frequencies per equal temperament)

A7     3520Hz

A6     1760Hz

A5      880Hz

A4      440Hz   (standard pitch)
C3     ~261.6Hz (middle C, 2ft open pipe e.g. flute)

A3      220Hz

A2      110Hz

A1       55Hz

C1      ~32.7Hz (16ft open pipe)

A0       27.5Hz (lowest normal note)

With voice "Fingered bass" selected the lowest note becomes C0 at 16.35Hz and the A below at 13.75Hz, and with decent headphones on (because the internal speakers have poor low frequency response) the sound is impressive and reminiscent of a real (acoustic) organ at 32ft register. The sound is a combination of deep bass and tangible throbbing (at 13.75 times per second). Of course, the listener is probably hearing the harmonics (or "partials") rather more than the fundamental, witness with the purer voice "Acoustic bass" for which the deep bass is hardly audible, but this fact hardly detracts from the experience because non-linearities themselves can create undertones giving the illusion of bass deeper than the equipment should be able to produce.

But one can go even lower in pitch with "Transpose" set to its minimum of "-12" i.e. 12 semitones lower. With this setting the lowest note to sound is C#0 which calculates as 8.66Hz and sounds little more than a throbbing, and this simulates the 64ft organ open pipe register.

Similarly with "Transpose" set to positive amounts one can explore the Recital Pro's upper register. In principle, by playing the top note, with the settings up to the maximum of "+12" one should get up to B8 at 7902.13Hz. In fact with the standard "Piano" voice there is already hardly any output at top C even without any transposing (as indeed with an acoustic piano).  Apart from obviously the voices that sound an octave below normal, the voice "Synth" perhaps does the best at top C. Then, as the "Transpose" setting is increased up to "+12" sampling alias artefacts become very evident and at "+12" the apparent pitch seems actually lower than with setting "00". Which suggests that, internally, the digital pitch engine is sampling maybe lower than the industry standard 44.1kHz or at least there is insufficient anti-aliasing filtering. All this is a bit academic because I have no call to be making noises at this high a frequency. But maybe younger players with better hearing might want to. 

Both effortless low frequency response and high frequency response plagued with aliasing are of course typical of any digital audio system.

But back to my opening gambit. I play mostly by ear so hit notes that my "ear" thinks are correct, rather than reading them from a music score. I have found with my Recital Pro that I not infrequently find myself playing notes in the lower register that are entirely incorrect and yet taking a while to notice it. Which I cannot remember doing on an acoustic piano. Or I find, even when the score confirms I am playing the correct note, it just doesn't sound right.

Now, as I've said this may be due to my ailing musical acumen or else it could be a real effect and I'd be interested to hear if my readers have any similar experiences or observations. If it is a real effect then I suspect it is related to the Railsback effect observed in acoustic pianos and thus possibly simulated in their digital counterparts.

The deal here is that real (acoustic) piano strings have thickness as well as length. Based on length alone (and thus assuming no effect of bending at either end), a string can vibrate with fundamental and harmonics. By definition the frequencies of the harmonics are integer multiples of that of the fundamental. But if the resistance to bending near the fulcrums is taken into account what were harmonics become mere overtones i.e. no longer having exact integer relationship with the fundamental indeed becoming "inharmonic". In a piano the lower pitch strings have to be made heavier than mere scale would demand in order that their length and thus the overall dimensions of the instrument should remain feasible for the average owner. Not only that but the lower the pitch, then more the "ear" is aware of the overtones over and above the fundamental because of the tail-off of low frequency response of the ear and of the piano's sounding board. To compensate the piano tuner favours the first few overtones over and above the fundamental and thus has to effectively detune the lower strings.

A similar effect applies to the higher strings where it becomes necessary for mechanical robustness to make the strings thicker than mere scale would demand, thus increasing inharmonicity.

The overall effect is the Railsback curve which sort of averages, I suppose, what piano tuners have been trained to do as part of their art. Which of course applies to acoustic pianos and contributes to their overall sound quality.

Enter the digital piano. Of course, when tuned, there is now no reason to copy the Railsback curve as far as mechanics are concerned as there are none. But what does persist is the piano players' expectations, and the article linked above suggests that digital pianos do regard Railsback and perhaps that is why the lower register of my Recital Pro sometimes seems over of tune to my ears.

Comments please!

On the fringe - or - never able to arrive at the truth

It is a universal truth - though largely ignored by some die-hard archaeologists - that there is no known culture in the world without religious beliefs (Terence Meaden, Archaeologist, Oxon). An interesting observation - some would say it is because there is a "God shaped hole" in everyone.

I have a rich Christian heritage but more to the point where am I now? Like in "But whom do you say that I am?".

I remember cringing when someone we used to visit would ask me "and what has God being doing in your life?" - because I could never think that there was anything in particular.

My earliest church memories were of Alresford Congregational church. Later we went by train to Winchester Baptist Church where I, tacet, would sometimes sit beside my father on the polished organ bench. His own folk were at various times nonconformist evangelical, Baptist and Peculiar and his father was at one time a reverend.

Winchester Baptist Church

Speaking of which, the ‘The Peculiar People’ were initially quite a fiery bunch but, doubtless after a generation, their zeal diminished. They later changed their name to the ‘Union of Evangelical Churches’ and their web site now says "divine healing does not now have such prominence..." If folk really were healed once, this seems a strange statement to make. Like, we don't want any of this getting better stuff.

My parents then joined NFC from whence stem most of my childhood church memories. Here I went to Sunday School and later the Adventurer's Club, was baptised, and first spoke (briefly and timidly) in public. Open Brethren based, I am thankful for the good knowledge of the Bible that NFC instilled in me, but I must have been suitably indoctrinated because, when I left home for college, I naively considered all other churches inferior and probably heretical and was surprised when I discovered committed Christians from other persuasions. In my final year I agreed to become the OICCU "Rep" for my college and, under considerable duress, was obliged to sign a statement of doctrine. It wasn't that I had a problem with anything there but I disagreed strongly (and still do) with the need to sign.

Whilst in Oxford I tried various church flavours including the James Street brethren assembly (now re-branded "evangelical") - the folk there were very friendly but I didn't fit in. Plain contrary to my upbringing I ended up most at home in the reasonably high Anglican college chapel - because the chaplain cared about my well being, because it was local and because I found I could worship God there. Despite the occasional smells and bells.

On finding my feet in my first job I started to attend CBC where I met and married Ali, and when we both wanted to be involved in young people's work we first had to become church members which implied signing up to their doctrine, which I once again did under much duress.

Both Ali and I wanted more than CBC appeared to offer and thus we met together with like-minded folk of similar age. One year the group had a holiday-cum-conference hosted by a Christian community in Eastleigh and this was our first introduction to communal living and The Move.

You can Google The Move and its founding leader Sam Fife and you'll find a lot of nonsense as well as some truth. And sure there was some nonsense, doubtless because of People. We had our share of this nonsense but thankfully nothing serious - because we were on the fringe.  The Wikipedia link is rather dated and things have changed, mellowed - a bit like the Peculiar People I wonder?

That Sam Fife (who I never met) was a "one man ministry", or at least the dominant leader, did raise warning bells in me but, hang it all, wasn't Jesus also a "one man ministry"? The thing is, some of what Fife preached his followers now don't go along with - at least they no longer emphasise - like "people of God we are not going to die" and the "wilderness message". If those radical areas that so intrigued his followers are now mellowed, do we revert to being plain evangelicals?

Probably not - Ali's parents were, for a time, Exclusive Brethren. When they left, not being able to stomach some of the more radical and intrusive teachings, her father could never feel at home in any other church flavour, none of which had the same sense of family and depth of conservative doctrine, so ended up without christian fellowship for the rest of his life.  I think I might have done similarly.

Seen in Texas 3 days ago

A recent guest on the Ryan Tubridy Show on RTE-radio-1 told how, when he was about six, he saw an angel standing beside his bed.  He hadn't told anyone else for years but much later his younger brother (who had shared the bedroom and would have been less than two at the time) asked him if he remembered the angel. So did that really happen?

I once saw an angel. I was a child sitting up in my bed at home. The angel was standing on top of a chimney stack on a building opposite my bedroom window: much taller than a human, with wings and shining white. Certainly not a cloud formation! But it might have been a dream - I cannot remember clearly: did that really happen?

My Aunt Mary claimed she had seen angels. She claimed all manner of things, mind you, but it would be wrong to discredit her experiences just for that reason.

If we cannot confirm whether recent extraordinary things like these really happened, what chance have we of confirming stories about a man who lived 2,000 years ago?  Most historians concede that the man Jesus existed - but they get woolly about the miracles. Did they really happen?  On the other hand why would anyone writing a Gospel account chose to blatantly lie?

Along with many others, I have a burden for a child with leukaemia and have earnestly prayed for his complete healing. His father is a Methodist minister and he also is praying for total healing: I would interpret this as "faith". But whilst there has been good medical progress, currently there has been a relapse. I am at least encouraged when I read "See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven". It's not the end of the story, of course, but I had hoped... But maybe I am missing something, maybe his being healed now would spoil some vast eternal plan?

We humans are rum creatures. We think we know so much and yet we know so little. Our understanding of science, when descriptive and thus concerning things we can measure now, is all very well. But when it becomes inferential, concerning things long ago or yet to come or far, far away or far too small, who knows whether we have it right? I sometimes wonder whether, if you look hard enough with a preconceived dogma, nature will oblige. Thus the double slit experiment which could be thought to answer to two apparently contradictory theories.

There's people who genuinely think the earth is flat. Or this guy who goes along with the electric sun hypothesis and writes:

Yet, here is an incredible thing. Even though the theories of Newton, Einstein, and Twentieth Century astronomy are blown to pieces on almost a daily basis by what is actually out there, yet modern man has refused absolutely to let go of those dis-proven ideas... And so to explain how "gravity" can do all these wondrous things, the mathematicians have pulled out of their hats such unprovable bits of nonsense as "dark matter," and "black holes," and "string theory," and "nuclear fusion," and so on. None of these fantastical ideas ever find their way into a practical laboratory because all engineers know they are complete fabrications. Governments have spent untold billions of dollars to duplicate "nuclear fusion" on earth to complete and continuing failure. Why? Because there is no such thing. That's why it takes government money to build the huge "super colliders." No private business would waste a penny on such nonsense. So, let's look at astronomy as it really is. The universe is electrical. The sun is a large solid ball of rock that sustains a vast and continual electrical arc lamp discharge above its surface exactly like the electrical arc used by welders. That electrical arc is fed by huge currents of electricity that flow down the arms of the Milky Way to its center.

His position is gently ameliorated here but, honestly, with things we can, at best, hardly detect, who can say whether our theories are correct?

In our early community years we were already convinced about home schooling our kids. We listened to a CLA teaching about legal cases where the US child protection authorities took kids from their parents and, on their advice, we decided to eschew child benefit to cut one possible hold the government might have on our kids. Years later I think of all that cash we didn't get and see all the young parents here taking child benefit without a thought. And yet I read the other day Norway's hidden scandal - so were we so stupid? I certainly have no regrets about home schooling. Our four children have not grown up with carbon copies of their parents strange beliefs as some think home schooled kids will, but each are now making their own choice as to how they should live and what they should belief, as is right and proper. And I am proud of them.

I like to think that I am searching for truth (though probably not nearly hard enough as in strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able).  But I am allergic to religious or hypocritical sort of "truth". Like in the parable of the leaven in all three measures of flour: I suppose the Kingdom of God must attract error.

In searching for truth I find myself coming back, again and again, to the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus. I try to read them without the preconceptions I grew up with, and I find a very human man with emotions and a sense of humour, who enjoys a good meal, who gets tired and thirsty after a long journey. Here I might add (though the accounts leave it out) that doubtless his body sweated and needed washing, that he had to go to the loo, cut his finger nails, and all the basic stuff we experience but don't generally advertise. But in this human frame he did only what he understood his Heavenly Father wanted, and thus he wrought amazing miracles, and he was crucified and died "to make us good".  And I get goose-bumps when I sing:

...Risen with healing in his wings 

Mild he lays his glory by, 

Born that man no more may die: 

Born to raise the son of earth, 

Born to give them second birth...
[Charles Wesley]

and

There is a green hill far away,

Without a city wall,

Where the dear Lord was crucified,

Who died to save us all

We may not know, we cannot tell,

What pains He had to bear;

But we believe it was for us

He hung and suffered there.

He died that we might be forgiven,

He died to make us good,

That we might go at last to heaven,

Saved by His precious blood.

There was no other good enough

To pay the price of sin;

He only could unlock the gate

Of heaven and let us in.

O dearly, dearly has He loved,

And we must love Him, too,

And trust in His redeeming blood,

And try His works to do.
[Cecil Frances Alexander]

Interestingly Cecil Frances Alexander, née Humphreys, second daughter of the late Major John Humphreys, Miltown House, co. Tyrone, Ireland, b. 1823, also author of All things bright and beautiful... The purple-headed mountain, the river running by might well have lived at or at least been associated with Humpreystown House, in which case those purple headed mountains are the ones we see across the lake at this time of the year, and the river might be the Liffey or Kings River.

Switzerland - walk to Lake Zurich

As promised, here are some pictures from our afternoon stroll down to the lakeside and back. We passed some notable buildings - the older buildings in Zurich appear to be very robust.

Robust building

I think this chap was looking (in vain) for money

Not sure what this splendid splodge of human flesh was about

This one was made of glass

Sad, but couldn't get any closer though

Some park or other

And then we discovered (entirely by accident) Kirche Enge, or translated into the vernacular "narrow church". It was almost was wide as it was long, so clearly not narrow in that sense. But it had an organ. I may have mentioned that I like organs. This one appeared to be under renovation as there were large numbers of pipes stacked in in the balcony.

Kirche Enge

Organ pipes stacked in the balcony

A few up there too

The congregation

Cool windows (not 10)

The organ manifest

You will be aware that a decent organ is split into a number of divisions or organs of which the great, swell and pedal are the most well known. The pipes you see will belong to the great or pedal. Pipes in the swell are housed in a box with shutters that can be opened or closed to regulate the volume. And then there is the echo organ which is located distant from the console in order to give an echo effect.

From the inside the apex of the dome is a false interior window. The exterior dome towers far above this and is built to illuminate said window. The echo organ or Fernwerk (translates as "remote") is apparently located in this void as I discovered from the stock photo below. Which I figured was kind of cool. I would have liked to have heard the organ playing.

The dome from the outside

Stock photo of dome interior

Stock photo of fernwerk above the dome

The God of Chance

I have previously posted how my paternal grandfather Ginty was infatuated with organs, and some of that has rubbed off on me. Mozart apparently coined the organ the King of Instruments, an accolade many would have a hard time with. The operation of an organ flue pipe is similar to a flute or penny whistle. A stream of air is made to play over a sharp edge or labium which causes chaotic vortices which make a hissing or noise-like sound.  This sound contains a continuous spread of frequencies rather like sunlight is composed of a continuous spread of colours. And certainly not seven! The tube-like body of the flute, whistle or organ pipe acts as a resonator and thus amplifies or selects a particular frequency (i.e. tone or musical pitch) and the result is the familiar flute like sound which includes the background sibilant hiss.

The point I am making is that it is possible to draw order (a pure tone) from chaos. The resonator can be thought of as a filter that only lets through what is desired.

I once read a Sci-Fi story in which it was proposed that all human learning and civilisation was no more than a filtering process and the hiss or noise that it filters is everything that is possible or, as they say, All The Things. And therefore anything is possible, given a suitable tweaking of the filter. In the story the proponent, to prove his theory, arranges a conference of world class scientists at which he announces that a foreign power had invented anti-gravity. This discovery clearly proved it was possible and he instructs the scientists find out how it was done and report back in a year's time. During that year several of the scientists independently discover the answer. It was only after each reports at the second conference that the proponent tells them that he had lied - no foreign power had in fact invented anti-gravity.

In this morning's meeting we were reminded of how great our God is, for example in being to orchestrate all the ingredients necessary so that at just the right time... Christ died for the ungodly. (NIV). But it's too easy to make a statement like this in retrospect - it is just such logic that the anthropic principle seeks to debunk.

In my diagram 'O' is the origin of the universe - Big Bang or Creation as you will. Everything coloured to the right is All The Things that ever there were, up to the present time.  'B' is the beating wings of a butterfly and the purple area is all that might have been influenced by this butterfly effect. Conversely everything that might have influenced me 'M' is shown in pink. That's a lot of stuff that had to be there at just the right time for me to be me. The anthropic principle says that, although it happened by chance, it had to have turned out as it did else I wouldn't be me. That I exist proves that this particular chance succession of events, unlikely as it may be, actually happened like it did.

Isn't it amazing that we humans, clever clogs that we are (didn't we invent the smart phone and the internet?), don't know why we are here and what happens after death.

Throughout the Bible there are instances of God's will being sought by casting lots, the principle being The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. (Prov 16:33). At the other end of the spectrum evolutionists ascribe all that we are, know and see to pure chance.

The laws of statistics (aka chance) require there to be a large "population" or number of events before  the drawing of statistical conclusions becomes valid. Whilst the probability that a flipped unbiased coin will land "heads" is 50%, after one such coin lands "heads" it becomes a fact of history and the concept that it could have been otherwise becomes meaningless. So, if I lay out  a fleece to determine God's will and the unlikely outcome occurs and I conclude that God is telling me to do X, is this really a valid use of the term "unlikely"?

If you determine your fate by casting lots you may believe that in fact God is determining the outcome, or you may put it down to chance. What difference would it make to an outcome whether or not God was there in the background somehow pulling the strings? After all, we are taught again and again (and here is my difficulty) that Christianity is "all by faith" and thus it is by definition impossible to demonstrate. But I see a flaw here, some circular reasoning, and I don't subscribe to this kind of "faith". Personally I reckon faith must be more than blind belief, that faith must have substance as its goal. The well known By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible can of course be read either that creation was a result of faith, or that we believe that God created.

I may take this line on faith, and I do, but I haven't seen much evidence of it working. But that's also provided for in the creed: And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Where does that leave me? Often I want to run away from It All - I hate the hypocrisy, religiosity, rote, expectations, language - none of which I see in the stories we have of Jesus' life. But I cannot deny those stories and What He Did makes me hold on... For the time being anyway.

We humans survive because some of us are prepared to doggedly believe the impossible, against all odds. Indeed I think all true Christians have to do this - it is what true faith does. Maybe this is why that something which we might call "good" wells up inside when for instance the Von Trap family make it over the mountains, or Ellis (in Mud) finds love in the place he least expected it or Hugo finds meaning after the devastating death of his father. These stories are tear-jerkers because they touch that very tender place even the hardest if us have inside. Stories like the one that Lucy couldn't remember about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill. Or the truth in the well known hymn:

There is a green hill far away,

Without a city wall,

Where the dear Lord was crucified,

Who died to save us all.

We may not know, we cannot tell,

What pains he had to bear,

But we believe it was for us

He hung and suffered there.

There was no other good enough

To pay the price of sin.

He only could unlock the gate

Of heaven and let us in.

Oh, dearly, dearly has he loved!

And we must love him too,

And trust in his redeeming blood,

And try his works to do.

The last temptation of Christ

Winchester Royal County Hospital was where I was born, where at age 6 my tonsils were removed and where my mother took me for speech therapy.

Winchester Royal County Hospital

We have just finished our annual convention - for those of you unfamiliar with such things think lots of long sermons strung together with praise and good food. True, some of this "word" touched me but, frankly, some did not. What I mean is - I sit there for over an hour and think - what was all that about? Mind you, I have not heard anyone else here admit such defeat: what I am hearing is that it was all wonderful. But then neither have I let on except herewith and to Ali. Surely needless verbosity is not implicit in "it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe"? For one who speaks little I wonder why it has to take so long to convey what is often such a simple message.

When I was small they said I was slow to talk and got along by pointing and grunting whenever I wanted something. They said I was lazy. Hence the speech therapy. Since then I've come a long way but still can find speaking difficult. I don't think ahead fast enough so I loose out in arguments and need notes if speaking publicly. As a result I tend to give up and too easily leave it to the many others with louder voices.

I can identify with my namesake who, when a university gave him an honorary doctorate, said "I cannot find the words to thank you, but if there was an organ here I could thank you". This man was similarly inept with words and social skills.

There is immense pressure to conform to the norm and yet the same person found the freedom to say "He is Brahms, and my profound respect. But I am myself and I prefer my own stuff" and "They want me to compose in a different way; I could, but I must not. Out of thousands, God gave talent to me. One day, I shall have to give an account of myself. How would the Father in Heaven judge me if I followed others and not Him?" If only I had the guts to accept my lot - but, hang on, I do accept it else why this post? - if only the louder others could accept that some of us are not so articulate as they are...

There is similar social pressure to wear shoes. In theory I go along with this "I cannot tell a lie, it's the sensuality, the physical sensation, the pure pleasure of it, combined with not only a sense of liberation and freedom, but I have also recently embraced the nonconforming aspect of it." But during the convention I got tired of people looking down at my feet and making comments. Even when wearing sandals I was asked were my feet cold? I wasn't quick enough to parry (see above) but afterwards thought I should have asked why neither of us was wearing gloves or balaclava.

Paul McCartney said "I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird."

And "Steve Jobs' message through his barefoot habit is that he is different and that he is not stuck in the system like others. I have read somewhere that Steve Jobs went to do an important deal without his shoes and that this annoyed the person he was meeting so much."

I'm halfway through reading the controversial historical novel The Last Temptation of Christ. Though unashamedly inaccurate, it conveys rather well the struggles Jesus must have gone through to resist the temptations of the flesh, although the English translation leaves much to be desired. It portrays a very human Jesus even if somewhat stereotyped. I can identify a bit with this sort of holiness because I, too, am human.

If, then you or I "through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live" - if then you or I ever managed to do this mortify thing, would any of our colourful character be left? Are my peculiarities posited in my flesh? Surely it ought not leave us void, as if "Aslan has come and is not like the Aslan we have believed in and longed for? Or as if the sun rose one day and were a black sun. Or as if you drank water and it were dry water"? And yet we Christian folk continually bandy about this mortifying yet never achieving it, seemingly ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

For me, if only it could be that "this poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles." 

SSS, babe and artifacts

Camille Saint-Saëns

SSS was my school-days secret code for Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3 aka "the organ symphony". As for "Babe" - to my chagrin it was plagiarised as the main theme in that unhappy film. As for artifacts: I was listening to an MP3 recording of the symphony played by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra this evening. I am generally very pleased with this performance but there is very obvious dynamic compression in the Finalle. For example the sound stage kind of disappears on cymbal crashes. And there is evidence of what are probably MP3 artifacts in some quieter passages.

The symphony is on a grand scale: majestic themes and a large orchestra with organ and piano. I have mentioned elsewhere my infatuation with the organ which I suppose is contributory to my great love for this work. Wikipedia observes that "the lowest pedal notes of both the Poco Adagio and the Maestoso, played on the organ, are of almost inaudibly low frequency. When experienced live in a concert hall equipped with a large concert organ with 32-foot pedal stops (e.g. the Royal Albert Hall Organ) these notes are very dramatic and give a deeply impressive aural experience." As in my school days so now I would love to have the chance to hear the work live. No recording can do justice to this sort of sound. So much for "high-fidelity" - electronics may have advanced radically on so many fronts but sadly it has not yet done justice to audio reproduction. And people do not seem to care which I find very strange.

MP3, like JPG, is lossy data compression. Typically an MP3 data file is a mere 10% of the size of the original. Quality is arguably lost even when analog audio is digitised but it is certainly lost when it is compressed as MP3. And yet if it were not for MP3 we would not have the present day ease of access to music. Similarly the JPG format has spawned the present day proliferation of digital photography. Compression "artifacts" are the difference between the reconstituted and the original audio (or picture). Most of the time we (we being the average populace) are unaware of these artifacts. I used to be very purist about such things but now-a-days, even more so as my hearing is not as good as it was, I am just happy enough to be able to download and store the music that I want, thanks to MP3.

Aunty Mary

The story of my Aunty Mary is a sad one.

She was my father's only living sibling. In her parents' eyes she was second-class compared with the older, blue eye'd Ted. When the war started she wanted to join the land army, but her parents said she should be a nanny and so a nanny she became even though she didn't particularly like children. She fell in love with a dutch man who promptly got killed in the war and she never got over that loss. Apart from times when she lived in as a nanny, she lived with her parents and, after her father died, ended up nursing her mother through neglected breast cancer to her death. It seems that, all through her life, she thought that other people made decisions for her or circumstances dictated her actions at variance with her own desires and she allowed this to make her bitter.

The top picture is the earliest I have of Mary, as a bridesmaid at my parents wedding.  In the next picture, taken at Longleat, she is the one looking sideways at my mum, my mum being the one holding onto the good-looking chap in the front.

She was at one time a heavy smoker but successfully gave it up - I remember tales of how she gorged on chocolate to thwart the withdrawal.

After her nanny years she tried various low grade jobs (I remember being taken to a Rubbolite factory where her job was to file off molding flash, and gratefully taking away seconds in various colours), but she could never hold a job down for more than a few months. I was too young at the time to ask exactly why she so often got sacked, but I imagine it was because she was so hard to work with. It was not that she was not willing to help: just that she had to do it her way. This used to drive my mother to distraction when they came to stay at 16 Broad Street. There is truth in the adage that "if you want a job done properly, do it yourself".

Mind you, there were some things she excelled in. She was very capable at flower arranging and, I think, at gardening generally.

Us children have vibrant memories of her intolerance of noise or vibration - like being snapped at for merely allowing one's shoe to touch a leg of the chair she was sitting on in church. Those were the days when children were to be seen and not heard!

In the back garden at 10 Weir Gardens

It wasn't all bad, though. I think Mary took this picture, and I think it was she who found the set of wheels at my request. Giving me a set of wheels to make a go-cart was on a par with giving a modern child an i-Pad.

My own children have similar memories of when Mary would visit us in Ireland, though I think that they were more able to dismiss Mary's antics for what they were than we were able.

She would bring presents for our children and, just the same as she did with us when we were children, she would often choose totally unsuitable things.  Like a join-the-dots book for a 15 year old. These presents would be selected from a vast stock she had acquired when, long ago, she worked for Woolworths. On one occasion I remember opening a present to find a box on which the manufacturer had boldly claimed "3 men's handkerchiefs" of which she had crossed out the "3" and written beside it "2".

I took this picture on my first camera. Mary is in blue and Nana is adoring, I suppose, my son Jonathan, and the location is the front room at 16 Broad Street. Behind Mary you can see the map of Narnia I drew, which picture has become a family icon. I hate knitted dresses.

Ginty died suddenly of a heart attack. In contrast Nana suffered from cancer for many years. Nana's death must have been a great anticlimax for Mary after she had given all those last years to caring for her and then - nothing. She remained at 10 Weir Gardens until she was no longer able to look after herself.

Mary played organ at the Grange Free Church and insisted that I try my hand

Mary tended the garden outside the 'Grange church'

We occasionally visited Mary during this time. On the occasion of the pictures above she took us to see the church she had taken possession of. She could be very possessive of things and people. So at the time this was "her" church and "her" organ and I had to play it. I am not sure what Jonathan and Chris made of it (I regret I am not much of an organist).

Mary greeting me with bags of useful things

Mary liked to collect "useful things" and would present me with bags of same whenever I visited. In her eyes, moulded by her upbringing, men needed such things and could work wonders with them. She was just a woman and would never understand how. The bags contained rusty nuts and bolts, bent bits of metal, and such like: mostly picked up off the street. The vast majority went straight in the bin after I left Mary, and I am not one for throwing anything away that might possibly have some future use.

The contents of Ginty's workshop (a garden shed made by my father) were sacrosanct, especially his tools, although towards the end she weakened and allowed me to take some of his stuff as I have recollected elsewhere.

10 Weir Gardens

At Thorpe Esplanade, Southend-on-Sea, 
possibly on an outing  from the nursing home

As time went on 10 Weir Gardens went from bad to worse. When our parents died we children agreed to spend some of our inheritance to replace the roof and to have the piano overhauled. The latter because Mary has always loved music so we figured she would enjoy "tinkling the ivories" in her dotage. But from that time on she never once even touched the piano. She was ruled by horribly restrictive laws entirely of her own making.

On one occasion my older son and I manfully agreed to do a makeover in her kitchen. We spend a week and did a very passable job (sorry, no photographs were taken). She really did appreciate this at the time. Amazingly we even ate from her "table" (eating at 10 Weir Gardens was always somewhat hazardous, but verged on being dangerous towards the end).  The sleeping arrangements were more akin to camping than accommodation and there were no washing facilities apart from a bowl of water and a cold tap, so we took off to the local swimming pool at the end of each day for a shower (and a swim).

But the new kitchen soon deteriorated. Mary apparently did not believe in washing up, or cleaning the cooker or, indeed, anything else. She would buy things impulsively and then not know what to do with them, and never threw anything away, so the house gradually became a refuse bin.  Before people started noticing and there came a time when she had to be admitted to a nursing home.

My last picture of Mary, taken in the nursing home

Once it was clear that Mary would never return to 10 Weir Gardens my older sister and I had the job of clearing it out and disposing of anything of any value.  Towards the end Mary lived in the kitchen and slept I know not where. All other rooms were dumping grounds, so much so that in some rooms we had to use shovels to remove well over a foot deep of rotting papers and material. Let's hope somebody keeps me in check in my later life and prevents anything similar happening!

The one-time sacrosanct music room:
the unplayed piano is under wraps on the left

'Miss Knight's room' 
Mary's former bedroom, stuff up to 2ft deep in places

Another view of 'Miss Knight's room'

The living room.

The living room seemed so small when filled up with junk like this. To think that in better times my parents, sisters and I, Nana, Ginty and Mary would have sat around the table to eat Christmas dinner in this room. With two armchairs either side of the fireplace you can see. Ginty's chair on the left (no-one else sat there: he had a gadget that clipped to the right arm of the chair on which could be placed his ginormous mug of tea and a small plate). There were two polished brass shells from WW1 on the fireplace one about 1" diameter, the other about 2". They used to tell me that at least one of them was live. And father Clovis. Clovis was a small pottery figure of a monk. There was a real Clovis but what the connection I know not...

High Fidelity and Organs

Joe, a friend of mine in his 20's, who knows all about computers especially multi-media, asked me "what is hi-fi?". I have other friends who set their Apple Mac on the counter to play music whilst they are working - playing music from unbelievably tinny speakers so that all you are getting is stuff between about 1kHz and 2kHz.  An iPod (which equates to all that is music for many folk), even in a dock, emits audio so horrible that I find it hard to listen to at all. MP3, clever though it is, has become ubiquitous - who now appreciates that there was (better) quality before MP3? Or that audio is an area where technology is actually going backwards?

In its hey day hi-fi was a cult as aptly portrayed by Flanders and Swann. It's followers believed (and still do) that gold plated connectors, oxygen free copper wire, and valves (vacuum tubes) improved fidelity, and poured scorn on CD's and anything digital.

Not that there isn't some truth here. One of the many things I took to pieces in my youth contained a valve audio amplifier which I noted for its quality. It was, of course, valve - but in particular the output stage was a balanced pair of pentodes, driven from a phase-splitting transformer. Because a balanced arrangement like this tends to cancel out the more objectionable 3rd harmonic distortion, added to the "soft" sound of valves (which in objective terms is due to the gradual limiting when overdriven, as opposed to semiconductors which suddenly overload), the sound was very good. A pity I no longer have that amplifier.

And so it was with pleasure that I read the interview with Bob Stuart of Meridian in E&T July 2012.  Here are some quotes. "One of the ironies of the digital age is that while we're listening to more and more music, we're listening to it on worse and worse playback systems.  The biggest threat to the success of audio companies is that Apple has become the world's biggest audio company."  "Music is one of the great social experiences, especially for the young, but they're listening to it on 1" speakers on their iPod dock... and these people are growing up thinking that this is what music sounds like." and "How does Stuart feel when a footballer pays £35,000 for a pair of his DSP8000 speakers only to plug his iPod into it?".

Console of the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ, Atlanta

Sadly I am unlikely ever to have £35,000 to throw around, and in any case my hearing is not so good now - reduced high frequency response and a bit of tinnitus. But I can still feel the difference between live sound and canned sound. Anyone who has heard the majesty of a large organ will appreciate that this experience is hard to reproduce on loudspeakers. Only two organs in the world (in Atlanta and Sydney) have 64' pipes - that corresponds to a fundamental vibration of 8Hz which is below the threshold of hearing: you feel rather more than hear the sound - you feel it in your belly.  Not that I have experienced the 64' sound, but I have experienced and loved 32'. Try a live concert of Saint-Saëns' Organ symphony. The Atlanta organ also is the only one with pipes working from 100" of pressure, resulting in a very loud sound. Indeed one could be forgiven for imagining that the designers were doing that, oh so American, thing of trying to be bigger, louder, longer and stronger just for the sake of being better than anyone else in the world.

Bruckner's organ in St. Florian's Priory

Whilst I am talking of organs (which I have noted people either love or hate with a vengeance) I can hardly omit reference to my namesake's organ. And whilst talking of keyboard instruments, the common piano is also remarkably hard to reproduce faithfully, this time due to its sudden transients and large dynamic range.  Here's another thing that has been dumbed down in modern audio equipment. The dynamic range of the human ear is immense, perhaps as much as 130dB. A good set of ears (mine sadly are no longer that good) can hear (in a suitably quite room) the Brownian motion of molecules of air hitting the pinna. No electronics that I have ever heard of, much less heard, even approaches this. In contrast popular music is actually designed to use a very limited dynamic range (put otherwise it is simply loud all the time) because that is "what people want" or more to the point it is "what people want people to want" because it makes the job of designing and marketing iPods and the like so much easier and cheaper. Classical music generally has a much greater dynamic range, but it is often artificially reduced when recorded or broadcast otherwise you would never be able to listen to it with ambient noise around (like in a car).

I still look forward to that day when audio reproduction can do justice to both organ (all 64' of, please) and piano. I hope technology can do me the honour before the capability of my ears to hear it fades altogether.

Alresford Fair

Legend has it that the origins of Alresford Fair stem from a Charter of 1242 given by Henry III ratified and endorsed by other monarchs over the centuries.  The regulations below I think date more recently.  They say that if the fair is not held then the right to hold it will cease forever.  That seems rather harsh.

The fair was a part of my childhood.  My parents house happened to be in Broad Street where it is held every year.  The fair lasts for only one afternoon and evening - it has to be all cleared away by the following morning.  So on the day there is much activity in setting the stalls up.  We had a prime view of the backs of the stalls and rides out of our front room window.  What intrigued me was the huge generators and heavy cables for the various rides.  The Heath Robinson electrical connections with naked live terminals lying around.  Ammeters with needles dancing to the rhythm of the rides they were supplying.

At the top of the street our side and thus fairly close would be the large roundabout.  All the other rides would pale into insignificance compared with this   Sometimes it would include a real fairground organ running from punched cards. 

This picture is not my own and possibly predates me, but it is of Alresford Fair and it does show a typically example of the sort of roundabout.

On one occasion I actually won a jar of sweets at a hoop-la stall - though I confess I did lean over the rail as much as possible to do so.

We (my sister and I) would stay up as late as our parents would allow, but my memories tell me that I never got to see the fair to its conclusion.  I remember lying in bed and listening to the throb of the diesel generators and the general hubbub.  Next day I would wake up to see only the last remaining trailers driving away and much litter left behind.