Purely anecdotal ...

the lighter sides ...

At first it sounds like one of those wonderful new works

... with organ and chant? ...

emanating from Eastern, or north-eastern Europe?

Click to listen, then return here and click on "Explanation" (.m4a)

There is much humour surrounding the more serious side of living with organs as your main focus in life - a survival instinct at work, perhaps needed when things go wrong? Under this category, first and foremost your attention is drawn to "Organ-isms", collated in New Zealand by Jenny Setchell in 2008 (Zenith Publishing Group Ltd. ISBN 978-0-473-14286-5). A German translation is in progress.

At a parish dinner in Laufen in mid-2010 a Swiss poem - originally by Josef Suter in D'r Alphorner - was quoted. This was much to the amusement of all gathered, since it relates how the church seems to pray for everybody except their organists. David Rumsey, who was present and the friendly target of much laughter on that occasion, struck back with the appended verse. (German language)

"Gebet für .." (mit Anhang ...) (PDF)

2MBS-FM (now "Fine Music 102.5" Sydney) turned 40 in mid-December 2014. It was on the 15th December 1974 that I opened the microphone for the first time and FM broadcasting was permanently established in Australia. And they predicted it would not last! The station management recently asked ex-patriot founders to send a birthday greeting - ideally with a funny story about the station's origins click here for my contribution. Patience - it is a large 746Mbyte file! By way of explanation: David James, our first station manager, had worked with SBS Television where he had the job of making films "decent" before screening. It is interesting that in the middle-ages and renaissance the naked human body was little problem, but the tri-tone and the "wolf" in music were strictly censored. Seems to be reversed now?

Just for fun? Or satirically serious? ... Sehnah is an "e-republic" invented by Hans Ueli Siegenthaler of Switzerland. It has become important enough to now have a major exhibition dedicated to it, mounted by the Neues- Museum Biel/Bienne from 27th February to 29th March 2016. There's some fine art-work, a newspaper and clever political satire coming out of it. I was approached in 2015 about recording a National Anthem for Sehnah. Click here to see and hear the result!