Rodney N. Myrvaagnes  <0001829826@mcimail.com>
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Born in  1936, lived in Alfred, New York through the 4th grade, where Bud
Wingate played a carillon recital every noon. I thought this was a normal
part of life.
 
Started going to organ recitals in the late 1950s in Boston. Went on a tour
of the Aeolian-Skinner works in Dorchester. Heard E.Power Biggs at the then
new Flentrop at Busch-Reisinger museum in 1958 or 1959.
 
Worked for Fritz Noack for a summer in 1963(?).
 
Wife got a Herz double harpsichord in 1966, studied with Helen Keaney and
Blanche Winogron at New England Conservatory. We started sailing that year
also.
 
Translated David Tannenberg (Lititz, Pennsylvania) instructions for making a
clavichord in 1969. Wife made clavichord from same.
 
Out of work in 1972, saw an Italian harpsichord in the Museum of Fine Arts
Boston that looked just right. Set out to copy it. Frank Hubbard gave me
advice and cypress wood. Took a lecture course by William Dowd. Made a lot
of tools. Got orders and made more instruments over the next 12 years. I
made everything but the wire.
 
Closed shop in 1984 and went to work for Electronic Products, a trade
magazine for electronic engineers published by the Hearst Corporation (San
Francisco Examiner, Cosomopolitan, etc.). It has nothing to do with
toasters.
 
I go to Silicon Valley several times a year for the magazine. I always stay
at the Holiday Inn in Palo Alto, which is within easy walking distance of
Memorial Church Stanford (Fisk) and Stanford Theater (Wurlitzer).
 
I am not a fan of American Classic, G.Donald Harrison, or E.M.Skinner. I
think the best of that type is the Holtkamp/Roosevelt at Syracuse, and I
have heard most of the significant G.Donald Harrison instruments live. Many
sound much better on records because of microphones placed where nobody ever
could sit.
 
I am a fan of both Hook and Tannenberg. The best Sowerby I ever heard was
David Fuller playing at Immaculate Conception in Boston.
 
I think tuning an organ in an equally tempered scale unduly favors C# major.
I like the way the Cavaille-Coll at St-Denis is tuned after restoration even
though the organist doesn't.
 
We keep a small fretted clavichord on our sailboat, but no stereo. All music
on cruises is live and acoustic.
 
Member of Organ Historical Society since 1964.
 
Maybe this is enough to explain my prejudices.