[ninenot]

Budget, budget, budget.

They didn't even tune the whole instrument before the show--just the REALLY bad ones got 'fixed.'

There are a lot of little beats floating around in the lower and higher registers, and even beats between manuals.

[AnAmericanMother]

Oh, ouch. My father used to be the organ technician at St. Philips Cathedral Atlanta (Army Engineers can do ANYthing!) A cipher was a personal insult to him. Occasionally he would scurry out of the bass section to mess with things behind the console.

He used to take us up in the roof (above the sanctuary ceiling) by a series of ladders and catwalks to work on the celeste pipes. We were much more interested in the dizzying height than the pipes though. He even took us up in the top chamber of the bell tower once. That probably cured my fear of heights.

[AnAmericanMother]

Oh, man . . . I went and found a recording on Amazon, and the choir is every bit as bad as you say . . . if not worse.

Screechy sopranos with no vocal control at all, a gang of thuggy tenors that seem to be trying to out-shout each other, and everybody out of tune. The first selection is the worst - they never DO quite find the dominant.

Ick. Our small all-amateur parish choir sounds better than that. At least we listen to each other and watch the director.