You’re right, that is André playing. He came over last year, right after I installed Kampen on it. He had lessons from Willem Hendrik Zwart back in the day on the very organ itself, and plays it still almost yearly, so he is very familiar with it. He absolutely loved it!
And yes, expression pedals and thumb pistons were left off intentionally. I want it to feel very much like the real thing. Notice the short vertical distance from the top of bench to the Rugwerk keys, the fact that the bench is padded, and the overall massiveness of the organ (it’s over 8 feet wide and 7 feet high!). These are all general traits of the real organ and they were done intentionally to mimic it. Now if I could just find true tracker-touch keyboards (I’m thinking wooden keys 2 feet long or so...one day
).
The dual touchscreens work great. I contemplated drawstops, but since so many organs have different stop layout configurations and color schemes, I went with touchscreens. Having a photo of the stops for a background is great. Also, the touchscreens are both 23 inch, so I never have an issue with hitting the wrong stop due to small size.
The touchscreens were very easy to get used to. A gentle tap is sure much easier to do while playing than pulling the heavy stops. I’ve had the privilege of playing the actual organ in Kampen several times, and it always requires the help of a registration assistant or two, mostly due to the reach required to grab the outside stops. So, the way I look at it, touchscreens make it possible to do your own registration changes while playing, and yet allow you to feel a bit of that reach required of the real organ.
The closer I can get it to feel and sound like the real organ, the more inspired I am to play it!
Sorry for misleading you into thinking I was André. I’m just a friend and former student.
Thanks for the compliments!
Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:57 pm
