Flute and Organ

Organ and Flute

John Bladen

Sheffield, UK

Introduction

Some years ago (in my mid teens) I used to accompany cathedral style church services (psalms, anthems, canticles etc) and whilst at St Alban's School also played for school services at St Albans Cathedral. In the process I learnt many organ voluntaries, including most of the Prelude and Fugues by Bach (including the famous ones such as BWV 532, 538, 541, 542, 544, 548 and 565), the Three Chorales by Cesar Franck and also many pieces by Vierne, Langlais etc. Since then I have been involved in medical research, and in particular running my own medical research company (JSB Medical Systems ), leaving almost no time for music, and even less for sleep...

There were some, technically challenging, pieces that I never managed to learn, such as Dupre's Variations on a Noel, and Bach's Variations on von Himmel Hoch. It is still my ambition to learn these pieces. More recently (2008+) I have started memorizing many pieces, which I have found a great way to really get to know the pieces, and relieves you of the stress of worrying whether a page turner will turn too soon or not at all!

In Sept 2001 I bought a copy of Sibelius (www.sibelius.com) to get some composing experience. This program is expensive, but it is very quick to use compared with many other scoring programs I tried, and does a better job with complex piano and organ music. In fact, many scoring programs can't handle multiple part piano or organ music at all.

For recordings I use a Sony MZ-NZ700 minidisc recorder with a Sony ECM-MS907 microphone. I then use CoolEdit 2000 (www.syntrillium.com) with Multitrack Studio to adjust the levels and convert to mp3 files. This really is great software, especially for the money (under $100). (You need to install something called mp3fix to make it work correctly with low bit rate mp3 files).