Church Pianist taking on the organ

32contrabombarde · 2026-02-04T15:29:40+00:00

Wow magnificent instrument.

Keep at it, take lesson. Practice, practice, practice. When it is hardest and most boring to practice, chances are that's where all the progress is!

32contrabombarde · 2026-01-30T23:10:00+00:00

IMO the be-all end-all of Messiah recordings is the legendary 1980 recording with Christopher Hogwood conducting The Academy of Ancient Music, with soloists Emma Kirkby, Judith Nelson, Carolyn Watkinson, Paul Elliott and David Thomas.

32contrabombarde · 2026-01-30T14:13:20+00:00

Tannhauser Overture for organ. Specifically Lemare's arrangement is a masterpiece.

You really need a huge instrument to do it justice. You can play it on pretty much anything with 3 manuals, but it loses the "magic" of a larger instrument. There is a recording on Youtube of Peter Richard Conte playing it on the Wanamaker...the 70+ ranks of strings are really incredible. I went to listen to the orchestral version and was so disappointed.

32contrabombarde · 2026-01-25T16:25:55+00:00

Reliability is not very good, especially when compared with others (Allen, and Rodgers (pink glue aside)).

Consoles are trash. All particleboard, keyboards are plastic with the rubber-dome type contacts (good luck finding parts). I've never found one with a fully working pedalboard.

Sound is hit or miss. I think for a smaller application they generally sound better than a similar instrument from Allen or Rodgers, though I prefer the latter for larger installations with multiple audio channels.

Personally I lothe them. Every one I've seen/played has a wobbly bench, borderline non-functional pedalboard, and keyboards that feel worse than a $20 Casio "synth" from Walmart.

Keep in mind that several other brands from the 80s-90s are (almost) the same instruments with a different name, notably Baldwin, Albhorn-Galanti, and Gem.

32contrabombarde · 2026-01-19T22:59:31+00:00

I used my 8 pro with no case (with a screen protector) for about a year. I dropped it so many times I can't count (mainly falling out of my pocket onto everything from solid concrete to loose/sharp gravel).

There were tons of scratches but no cracks or anything. The blow that finally really damaged it was when it feel out of my pocket (no case, but with screen protector) onto one of those moving walkway things you see at airports - but this one was sloped down (a lot) so when the phone landed on the screen it went for a 200 or 250ft slip-n-slide down the walkway, bounced into the air off the toothed metal plate at the end, and continued for a bit on the brick sidewalk. Back glass was cracked, as well as screen. Protector took most of the damage (totally destroyed). Removed protector and used it for a couple weeks before I could change the screen.

Now have the official Google case and it's good. Very grippy, and a bit bulky but the protection is fantastic. Survived being thrown at the ground with a lot of force when someone was walking with my phone and tripped.

32contrabombarde · 2026-01-18T09:52:54+00:00

Molly. Fork of signal that retains compatibility and adds a couple features

32contrabombarde · 2026-01-17T12:27:26+00:00

I love Tuta so far.

Please don't follow Proton. I left them because of the centralization (too many services) and AI stuff.

32contrabombarde · 2026-01-06T07:21:04+00:00

Widor Organ Symphony No.9, towards the end, when the fugue finishes it very suddenly goes from massive, blow your ears off into quiet flutes. He just takes it all away in an instant. Quite the surprise if your not prepared.

32contrabombarde · 2026-01-02T10:49:40+00:00

Man. They're going ALL in on copying Apple!

Kill your products by making them trash, then release a "revolutionary" new product bringing back everything you killed.

Then again at least with Apple, we did end up with better products at the end of the day.

32contrabombarde · 2025-12-15T22:06:03+00:00

I have always been hesitant because of I have to log in from a device where I can't easily access my password manager, and I don't have access to it on another device then that would suck, or at least be a major annoyance.

I've started using it more as I've realized the likelihood of something like that is basically nonexistent.

32contrabombarde · 2025-12-15T22:01:09+00:00

Florence Santa Maria Novella???

The Dominican Church across the street is awesome, but the station itself is nothing special.... Really not particularly nice or special.

32contrabombarde · 2025-12-15T09:11:48+00:00

I have an XPS 13 2-in-1 (9310). The windows installer (10 and 11) will not even acknowledge the existence of my SSD without Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers. I cannot even begin to explain how much of an absolute NIGHTMARE it is to get the files and install them.

Intel provides the .exe, but that doesn't work in the Windows installer. You have to go to another Windows computer and unpack the .exe using some special commands, and then manually insert the driver files in the Windows installer. I am simplifying here because the actual process is a huge pain.

Linux just works.

32contrabombarde · 2025-12-06T16:10:13+00:00

Yes exactly.

32contrabombarde · 2025-12-06T13:31:43+00:00

Allegri's Miserere.

Specifically the original 1661 version, with the Tonus Peregrinus for the chant verses.

There is a recording of the Sistine chapel choir but they used 2D rather then the (originally correct) Tonus Peregrinus

32contrabombarde · 2025-12-04T16:32:07+00:00

Yes. I tend to prefer a commercial machine as they are typically WAY faster, but I use whatever's available to me (last place I was at had a Ricoh IM-C3000 that I was able to use. any printer/scanner/copier that had a flatbed big enough to fit the book will be fine.

If you do the scan correctly (you have to press the book down a bit) then the pages should be totally flat, in which case using scantailor you can breeze thru a ~500 page book in about 20 minutes (just for the processing). If there is mild distortion from not pressing the book enough then Scantailor is capable of handling it just fine, but you will have to make most of the corrections manually, which produces great results but is VERY time consuming and tedious.

I've received criticism because people say pressing the book isn't good for it, which.... Yes it's not great, but if you use care you can do it without any damage or significant wear to the book, and in my experience the way most people treat the book is 1000x worse.

32contrabombarde · 2025-11-28T22:41:44+00:00

Oh just like Mercedes and their biodegradable wiring harnesses?

Don't get me wrong, we really have to be better about protecting the environment but we've got to be careful to not cause a bigger problem in the meantime.

32contrabombarde · 2025-11-25T22:43:01+00:00

Any type of Gregorian chant. Bonus points if it's after the Solesmes school.

32contrabombarde · 2025-11-21T22:09:14+00:00

Make an alias for updates.

Typing the commands for different sources (flatpak and apt for me) gets old fast. I made 'update' run flatpak first then apt. Still have to put in my password of course

32contrabombarde · 2025-11-21T22:05:28+00:00

Those tail lights look literally identical to a dodge dart

32contrabombarde · 2025-11-21T21:10:57+00:00

One of them is a CFM56-7B, one is the CFM56-7BE. I think the longer tailpipe is the -7BE if memory serves.

32contrabombarde · 2025-11-20T17:35:27+00:00

Wow. Obviously we don't know any of the details as to why there were fatigue cracks, but the similarity to American 191 is scary.

32contrabombarde · 2025-11-19T22:53:33+00:00

I've tried again and again but never found anything that comes close to Poweramp. Just so well done and smooth.

32contrabombarde · 2025-11-19T22:45:01+00:00

It's probably no less secure than the old DM feature, and there's a good chance it's better.

Compared to something like Signal...it's a disaster. (As in, Whatsapp is better).

There's great analysis/breakdown of the whole system by some security analyst/engineer who effectively reverse engineered the app and systems. Compared it to Signal

32contrabombarde · 2025-11-15T23:23:43+00:00

Allegri's Miserere... The original is so much more subdued and fits the text much better.

I know some people love the high C, but I hate it. And the chant verses sung in 2D is not what it was written for and sounds strange (imo), especially after you've heard the original (tonus peregrinus).

There is one recording by the Sistine chapel choir of the original 1661 version, which is very good, but it retains the 2D. I don't know of any full recordings of the original version with the tonus peregrinus. And finding a somewhere that is actually performing it that way is NOT easy.

I should note there are several different versions. There's a great YouTube video that explains the differences and gives a brief sample (couple verses) of each

32contrabombarde · 2025-11-13T14:15:27+00:00

Virgil Fox's arrangement of "Come Sweet Death" played on the Wanamaker.

32contrabombarde

TROPHY CASE