Nicolas Simons wrote in 031102 MMDigest:

> The fitting of a MIDI system to any old instrument, even in a
> non-destructive manner, is not acceptable.  One argument to be heard,
> particularly with fair organs in GB, is that the music is cheaper.
> To that I say, If you can't afford the music, don't buy the organ.

Ouch!  With attitudes like this, then our hobby is doomed.  As it is,
there are few young people feeding the mill.  As it is, the mill has
no grain and is starting to grind itself away; it is a stagnate pool,
a mineshaft for someone to fall into without exit.  At least it will
look picturesque in the nostalgia of the archives that no one ever reads.

On the other hand, things are more alive in Great Britain, France,
Germany and the Netherlands.  The USA has no history and it is not
about to develop one either, it so seems.

A few years ago, when computers were flying high and I was a dot-com
boomer, I was able to finally afford some "parts."  It took me over
10 years to achieve this lofty goal.  When I informed a long term
collector I was told, "Congratulations, now we have the Julie Porter
hoard."

When the boxes arrived, my parents and I celebrated by attending a
concert at the "Bella Roma" pizza parlour.  Across from us was a group
of AGO [American Guild of Organists] members who had taken a field trip
to hear this well-known instrument.  (While not the first, it is one
of the best and oldest survivors of the pizza conversion craze.)

My parents tried to interest the AGO people in conversation during the
interval.  When they told them that I collected band organs, the AGO
people blew them off with a statement that collecting such things was
only for a few wealthy people in the States and no one could afford such
things.

How sad I was.  I bought these things to share.  I had been, as
mentioned, to visit these self-same collectors who have kindly taken
the time to share with us.  Yet to have someone out of pure spite and
envy dismiss them to total strangers in a public forum -- how
embarrassing in front of my own family, to have such misinformation
presented.

In the 1970s my father wanted an organ to enjoy in the evening after he
came home from work.  About the time I was able to start restoring an
instrument he retired.  Yet I am unable to interest him, because of
statements that it must be original or why bother.  Are we collectors
of cars and steam engines?

It is going to take me years just to work with and restore the few
pieces I have, to protect what I was able to acquire.  There are no
government subsidies, there are no fairy godmothers.  When I offer to
assist I am shoved aside and told that what I need to charge to eat is
too much.  Well, if you want your 21st century inflationary wages you
can not have a five-cent candy bar, no matter how hard you wish.

There are two younger people than myself here in the Sa Francisco area.
Both have found that they want to work with the "theater organ people."
Because the old guys want their childhood back, or are mean and
selfish, or are not willing to take the time.  There is probably not
a more time-consuming hobby.  In effect, we are preserving something
as complex as Babbage's mechanical computer.

What we are not preserving are the skills of arranging.  It has always
been too easy to copy media that is not a live performance.  Now we
value the cup and not the contents of the cup.

In the past it has been who ever controls the "Matrix", which is Latin
for dominate mother, or the mother mold, used in printing as repressing
the mother master.  In mathematics, it means the mold used to represent
an array of numbers.

A piano roll is a matrix; so is a collection of punched cards that
weave cloth.  Today the word has yet a new meaning as the foundation of
a new series of myths: where the core or crystal that contains knowledge
is hidden or stolen.  For those who know "Dr. Who", in the end the good
doctor got caught in the matrix.  To represent the matrix they used the
case the physical tapes the shows were shown in.  No one values the
data, only what the data is stored on, what exists in the world as
defined by Newton and Aristotle as per Plato.

Human generation cycles in threes and fives.  These are the generations
that pass wealth and knowledge.  Beyond this generations learn anew.
Throughout history we see the "Citizen Kane" effect.  Machiavelli
called him the prince, a person starved for love.  We are taught "Love
the prince, the prince cares for us."  Yet at the same we envy the
prince.

Usually I find, in my short experience augmented by reading 5000 years
of those who have passed before, that people collect such things
because they have to buy love.

In America we have no aristocracy to preserve our culture; in this
country we have the right to pursue happiness, that we at least start
equal and have the same opportunities, that we do not have _guilds_ that
_protect the crafts_, or Gestopos that can destroy shoddy work or
prevent members of the distaff side from owning tools.  I say this with
the same sort of feeling that Newton did when he said that he stood on
the shoulders of giants.

The question remains, "are the giants willing?"  Or will they shake us
off?  How many times will we get back on?  My work of 25 years has been
sent offshore, to younger people.  All I have left is mechanical music.

Like Stephan Blackpools, Dickens' skilled factory worker in hard times,
I am obsolete, almost houseless, and having to deal with much of what
happened in the 1840s all over again.  Companies now advertise in the
want ads for 10 years of skills and a college education in product that
have only existed for three years, like Java or Windows XP.

I can find on the web software emulators for Babbage's computer,
Turing's machine, Eniac and the IBM 1400 and 360.  The cardboard
training aid Bell Labs made in the 1960s that I used to learn on in the
1970s also has an emulator.  No longer do I need to have the hardware
to run the old programs.  Even the early homebrew computers like the
Sol, IMSI, Altair and PDP-8 have emulators.  Would the poster feel the
same about these machines only running programs that were written for
them?

More practically, there will be emulations of instruments where the
wavetables are sampled.  This is how people will know the music.  Only
if the music is transcribed (and the words preserved) will things be
preserved beyond this generation.  Face it: even by European standards,
these instruments are less than 100 years old and are only in the
second generation of owners, most of who were children when they were
new.  In a few years they will cross the line and become respectable as
antiques.  Then there will be a third generation who will be
responsible.

The poster questions that modifying a tee in tracker things "ruin the
historical accuracy."  How can anyone ever tell such a device was ever
in the instrument?  How does such a device differ from a Vorsetzer?  Or
is the poster indicating that these instruments are so fragile
musically that to hear what he thinks is discord on them that will be
how they are represented in the future?

If I were a judge I would sentence this poster to spend a week with
someone like Dr. Haspels in Utrecht, the same Dr. Haspels who wanted to
make a 15th century clock play Beatles tunes so as to be accessible to
the youth of tomorrow, today.

I say go ahead and add MIDI control to your instrument, as long as you
are using something like what Spencer Chase, Mike Ames, or Ron Perry
provides, that tees into the tracker bar and attaches to the case with
something like Velcro attached with hide glue.

Only when you play the wrong stuff will you realize what the good
stuff is.  When the data is shared will it become warm.  The laws
of thermodynamics apply here too: if it's hidden or protected, it is
in all effect frozen.  I find that after collecting over 700 rolls,
with about 2500+ titles of book and band music alone, that there is
three or five pieces I personally like at any given moment.

I have the pleasure of an acquaintance of Authur Prinson, who told me
that to arrange music it must come from the heart, that the only way to
really understand is to listen to the music.  Only then will you know
if it is right or wrong for the moment.

Julie Porter