Screnzy 09, Day 8 – The Brombaugh

have i written anything since my last post? i have not. have i thought about it? barely. am i sad? super yes! not just about that, of course, but this blog post is not about my personal work-related ISSUES, so instead we’ll move on to something cool!!! … and something with less than three exclamation points … the Saint James Hymnathon!!! oh, sorry, i said LESS than three exclamation points. the Saint James Hymnathon!! how’s that? anyway. what we’re doing is, we’re replacing our organ at church. we have at the moment an historically awesome, but incredibly space-inappropriate 16th century Dutch replica Brombaugh organ. built under the style of this guy, it is an exact replica of an organ built during the 16th century Dutch renaissance, and is made to exacting specs. the problem? it’s built to play 16th century Dutch renaissance music. now, i personally lurv that music with a vehemence that is probably best reserved for discussion at some other, less delicate, time. for the moment, let’s just say that the way in which our altar is set up lays the altos and tenors on one side and the sopranos and basses on the other. now, being that the brombaugh is a) not invisible, and b) about as tall as two of me, this effectively prevents the alto/tenors from seeing and/or hearing the soprano/basses. we’ve tried all sorts of things to try and alleviate this problem, but we eventually had to face up to the fact that the organ was just in the way. and super limiting our repertoire. so we’re getting a new one. they want it now. like, yesterday. so they’re getting it the first week of may. so we’d better get on with the saying goodbye to it part. hence the hymnathon. we’re singing every single hymn in the 1982 hymnal. that’s 720 of them. we’ll be singing from 17.30 on friday until ~23.00 (or until we all pass out) and then we’ll start again on saturday bright and (disgustingly) early at 07.00 and then going for 12 hours straight. (not so) FAQ: Q. are you all mad? A. yes. next question. Q. so you personally will be singing 720 multi-versed hymns. A. the theory is that each singer will sing not more than two hours in a row, no more than 360 hymns total, and we’re only singing the first two verses of each hymn. plus, some hymns have only one verse. i personally plan on singing as much as humanly possible. i sing most of the day most days anyway, so i think my voice’ll stand up. Q. but the brombaugh sounds awesome! why are you ditching it!? A. we’re not ditching it, we’re selling it to a church in Kansas. they’re getting a whole new 1000+ seat church, and it’ll sound super awesome there. plus, it’ll also be 100% more appropriate for their space. Q. what kind of organ are you getting to replace it? and when? A. an electronic organ with its own pipes and then some extra pipes that our (organ NERd) choir director has had in cold storage for a while. we’ll have about 1200 pipes all told when we’re done. as for when, we’ve got some building/code things to fix before we can shuffle the new organ in, but we’re planning on having it by summertime at the least. Q. what’ll you do w/out an organ? A. a) we can sing a capella, you know. b) we’ve got a piano. c) we’ve also got some members of the OSU brass band for things like pentacost. Q. all that sounds awesome, how can i sponser you for this fundraising thing? A. email me with how much you’d like to spend per hymn that i sing (or a total amount no matter how many i sing, that’ll be fine, too) and i’ll tell you where you can send it. we take paypal, too, you know

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