Tribute to Blowers
By R. H. GIBBON THE organ-blower will soon be an extinct species, for the electric blower will have taken his place. He has failed of conspicuity, beaten hands-down by the hurdy-gurdy man. There is nothing here for surprise. The hurdy-gurdy man courted publicity ; the organ-blower disdained it. He did his office behind, inside and sometimes below the organ. So little did he impinge upon the public eye that generally he was forgotten of men. They took his work for granted and its effect for miracle. Considering how dumb a pipe-organ can be when it has no wind in it, considering also that the organist is the only instrumentalist who has wind provided for him instead of having to puff it in himself, considering finally how helpless is the one who plays unless there be also the other who blows—shall it not be conceded that the dignity of the blower has been priced too low and his praise too little celebrated 7
To this convention of obscurity there arc exceptions. My own place of worship is one of them. Here the blower and the organist are in full view, placed side by side, blowing and playing in a holy dualism, each for each and both for all. Not only do they perform their respective jobs ; they add a work of supererogation. For the blower sings a great deal ; the organist almost as much. If the organist leaves off from song in Te Deum the blower, who has been resting after singing all through the Psalms, comes on refreshed, like a bowler who has changed ends, or like the moon which in Addison's hymn " takes up the wondrous tale " when evening shades have prevailed over the unwearied sun. The result is a melophony as unfailing as the repetitive fruits in the garden of Alcinous.
Mention of Te Deum reminds me that we sing that splendid canticle to something called " a setting." As our rector desires the congregation to take a share in the singing, care has been taken to find " a setting " not too far beyond our capacities. The composer has laboured to be simple and has not altogether failed to be dull. He has allotted to the choir sections of four-part harmony, with a short solo for our principal bass when he is present, or for all the basses when he is not. Though uninvited to join in, we of the congregation sometimes do so, to the annoyance of the choir. However, the choir gets its own back, for presently comes a section (unison) which we are expected to sing alone while the choir silently looks down its noses. When we are at full strength we may get through this ordeal tolerably well. But sometimes we fail to muster ip force. At such a moment of rebuke and contumely there are Iwo who never fail to come to our aid—the organist and, still more, the organ-blower. Geographically in our church they are as near to us as to the choir ; professionally they are both far above us ; but as sharers of our weak humanity they abase themselveS to be one with us in our need.
Hastily the organist adds a diapason or two. Better still he lifts up his voice. Best of all the organ-blower lifts up his, and lifts it up much louder. He governs us and lifts us up for ever or at least until such time as the choir returns into activity at " Day by day we magnify Thee." Te-Deum ends. We sink back into our seats and the Second Lesson. Once more the example of the organ-blower has rekindled our faith that somehow or other in crises great or crises small we shall " never be confounded." When our present organ-blower resigns, we shall change over to an electric blower. Such is the trend of progress. When that day has come the organist's pupils will cease to be afflicted with this ever-haunting thought," Whom shall I get to blow for me ? " They will go to practice at the organ with light hearts. Not as went their fathers, doubtfully, distrustfully, to be blown for by an impounded younger brother who had been propitiated by promises of rewards the fulfilment of which could prove very galling to the donor. Moreover the strength of younger brothers was not always adequate to the blower's task. Consequently the player had to stint himself of stops, using none but those which were on a low wind-pressure. The result was an effect of quietude, soft and pleasant in its way, but apt to damp an organist's enthusiasm if be had to maintain it throughout a Bach toccata.
Such was the norm in country places. Towns provided a stronger demand, and a supply of organ-blowers was evoked. These were men whom life had not attempered to regular employment. They preferred an intermittent activity, and were content with sporadic gains. Their minimum professional fee for blowing was fourpence an hour. Like the governess in The Young Visiters who did not do very much for the people who gave her only five pounds, the fourpenny organ-blower used what would now be called restrictive practices. At his first professional contact, though you knew it not, he was studying your methods and weighing your possibilities in the balances of his experience. If you played too loudly, using more wind than the rate for the job seemed to justify, he banished you from his list of clients and absented himself from the next engage- ment. Sought for and discovered at one of the public-houses upon which he was based, he would profess regret that he was " under the doctor," who had forbidden many avocations, of which organ- blowing was definitely one. A sufficiency of beer might avail to change his point of view, or else you raised the wage to sixpence and undertook not to employ the " heavy " stops. Asked which he meant, he indicated that a clean sweep should be made of them there pedal stops. You fought to be allowed to retain one, but he was adamant in conceding nothing beyond the manual-to-pedal coupler.
On such terms perhaps partnership was resumed, though it involved a restraint almost superhuman. For consider ! This was
for the player an organ unmatched in his past experience. Manuals —how many ! Stops—they seemed uncountable ! And now the tragedy of it ! Only a fraction of all this poWer was his to use lest the beery two-handed engine at the blowing-handle should be over- wrought and cease work.
Blowers of a nobler sort were likelier to be found in country places. There the blower was dignified by his connection with the parish church. He ranked near to.the parish clerk, was a salaried official and entitled to specified fees. Often he was what they called " a character." Elevated by a sense of the value of his work, his spirit soared high above the humble conditions of its performance.
His organ was never caught short of wind. His blowing was a regu- lated discipline proof against distraction. Nothing won more decisively the respect of his fellow-villagers than the fact that his work was something that he did with his hands, as they with their hands did most of their work in life. Of course there were machines.
and there would be more to come. One was called a separator, but they all seemed to do that. Thomas Hardy saw the engine-man at the threshing standing apart from the farm-labourers with nothing to say to them nor they to him. His thoughts were not their thoughts, nor their ways his. We have got on a long way since Hardy wrote Tess, but the .cleavage between the mechanised and the unmechanised persists. The English virtue of toleration still needs to be at work mightily and sweetly, smoothing the rough edges, bridging the incompatibilities.
Some day soon our organ-blower will resign, and then the dal' of the electric blower will arrive. A technician will come to tell how to start and stop it, and that we are to send for him if ,c have any trouble. If the old man don't live too long he'll. haye a chance to be buried In the churchyard within sound of the organ. We think he'd like it that way. But the churchyard is filling raitic11!• and soon, as somebody put it, " she'll be fair boonged oop." And then the new cemetery will have to have him.
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