12 Dec
2009
12 Dec
'09
2:10 p.m.
Having said that a cathedral organist has to cope with
horrendous
'latency'. Partly due to the organ mechanics, but also due to the
variable 'response time' of the choir!
Rather true. Even fully electrically-actuated pipe organs have to fill
the big pipes with pressure and vibration, and I have heard that the
older ones with mechanical actions have more than one-tenth-second
latency sometimes, even when well-kept. And certainly working with a
choir is different :-) It is rather rare now in the USA to find a real
pipe-organ accompanying a real choir. For a while I was primary
instrumentalist in a church which could have done it; I floated the idea
of trying, and the response was akin to a gentle horror :-) It takes a
patience which, at least in the U.S.A., has become sadly quite rare.
J.E.B.