As is usual for a pianist, I have been called upon from time to time to play the organ for church services, but I have always played it as a pianist, ie, finding a sound that sounded about the right volume and left it at that while I just use the keys.

Now this arrangement seems to be coming more regular I think its about time I started to develop my organ technique - so I bought a book of Bach organ preludes and fugues, and was really chuffed with myself that I managed to play one, with feet! Although you would probably all cringe at my foot technique, not helped by the heels that I was wearing.

However, I think I can eventually cope with feet, but is there any proceedure, advise anyone can give me regarding the changing of the sound with the stops etc, I haven't had enough time on the organ to see what is available, other than finding a clangy bell like sound, which was horrid, but so far I have just used the pre-set functions, with no understanding of them at all.

Are there any books that I could use, or any simple advise anyone can give me, I know the congregations I will play for probably won't notice the difference but I don't want to be making any faux pas.

Thank you

If it is a traditional-type instrument, the numbers on the stop-heads or tabs indicate the pitch (by the length of the longest pipe). You may already know this - 8 foot pitch is unison, 4 foot pitch sounds an octave above and so on. 16 foot is an octave below and will sound muddy on the manuals (unless used in full or special effects) but is normal on the pedals. Any numbers other than 8, 4, 2 and 16 are mutations stops which bring in notes other than unison pitch, a bit like overtone effects (may account for your clangy bell-like sound). Mixtures similarly give you odd or special effects, depending how they are used. Diapason is the basic "English organ sound" so shouldn't give you any surprises, though they can vary between soft and quite strong. Stopped (or stopt) diapason is a flutier sound.
Flutes 8 4 or 8 4 and 2 give you a nice "Baroque-ish" sound on many organs.

For normal congregational use use 8 and 4 foot stops, with 2 foot if you want a brighter sound. But this is playing safe - a bit, so why not experiment when you get chance and no-one's around?

Difficult to give more than very general tips, as organs vary so much - I guess it's part of their fascination. Can you say what sort of instrument it is? How many manuals? How many stops on each?

There are set ways of working it out, though I'm afraid I just experiment. I've been playing since I was 12 (so that's 10 years) - you just sort of get to know what sounds good! There is an excellent book which has just been published by Animus on learning the organ, by a Cheltenham lady called Corinne Hepburn. I think it's aimed at children really but it teaches good pedal technique etc. - designed for pianists around grade 2 I think.

David

David

Thanks for the advice, I may well get the book. There are many of us who are pianists who find ourselves playing the organ. I do use my feet, but as for pedal technique - whats that. And personally I don't care if the book was written for pianists at a level I passed when I was nine. It would be good to have the manuals simplified to make sure I can pay full attention to my feet!

Thanks Maggie this is great. I've been playing a couple and I think they're both 'traditional Allan Organs' but that means nothing to me, I'd only heard of an Allen key before! although the one I'll be playing more regularly I haven't really had chance to look at yet.

Allen are one of the larger makers of electronic instruments. They use various techniques to try and reproduce the pipe organ sound electronically...

I would be suspicious of any organ tutor written for grade 2 pianists.. to my mind that is far too soon for someone with so restricted a keyboard facility to be worried about the other problems (feet, registration etc.) that come with playing the organ!

Digby in your specific case, it might be worthwhile seeking out a teacher for a handful of lessons just to get you going on the right track. An hour with a teacher would give you so much more than any book could.

As for heels in Bach, the current trend is for an "all toes" technique

Thats what I had to do, but I'm sure it would have been more comfortable in trainers!

Definitely not! You should have a "proper" organ shoe [google "organmaster shoes" and see what I mean] and start as you mean to go on. I started playing when I was 10 and played in socks.. This is an idiosyncracy which is starting to hold me back in some of the major parts of the repertoire, because it is nigh on impossible to have the same weight of foot and angle of pivot etc. when you're in socks compared to the proper shoe!

Him Indoors manages to play in big clunky shoes - never know how he does it as he has really wide feet, too - never seen him play in either socks or organ shoes...

Thanks Maggie this is great.

You're welcome. I hope it made sense - do ask if not.

I've been playing a couple and I think they're both 'traditional Allan Organs' but that means nothing to me, I'd only heard of an Allen key before!

is that major or minor??

Him Indoors could probably play in flippers and still carry off a pedal solo !

Fancy the stockinged feet chap advising on organ shoes!! this is rich stuff LOL
Do you remember my thread on Organ shoes?

Shodly,
GC

> Fancy the stockinged feet chap advising on organ shoes!! this is rich stuff LOL

I appreciate my shortcomings, hence my advice!

> Do you remember my thread on Organ shoes?

No, was it any good?

> Shodly,
> GC

Shoddily,
--mrb

Check it for yourself... Think it got closed after it went off target

When I started playing the organ a year ago, I used Harold Gleason's text Method of Organ Playing. It contains excellent manual and pedal exercises, as well as a good selection of pieces for beginning organists. There are also chapters on registration, performance practice, and service playing.

The Gleason might be the most popular organ text in North America, where I am from. Like many other organ texts, it is intended for beginning organ students who have solid background in piano, i.e. ABRSM Grade 6 or higher.

Another book that might interest you is the four-volume text by Federico(?) Germani. The pedal exercises progress very quickly and are extremely challenging. I have not used it myself, but I believe that one would be able to manage any FRSM repertoire with ease after having mastered the Germani exercises!

It is great to know that there is another pianist on the forum interested in studying the organ.

I'd better go practise now; my Grade 8 exam is coming up in four weeks.

There are a few of us around Just need an instrument on which I could practice, the time, the patience...

Thank you everyone for your replies - and I love the idea that I either need a new pair of shoes or have to stink the congregation out with my socked feet!

Good luck with the grade 8 'organ dummy' I've just tried to have a quick look for that book and its not available on musicroom but I'll keep looking.

Thanks, Digby. I have just realized yesterday that I had been playing my List C piece (Whitlock's Toccata) much faster than the composer's metronome marking. My exam pieces still have a long way to go, and I can't seem to improve my pedal exercises.

The Gleason book should be available in many performing arts/music libraries. The book is in its eighth edition and is quite pricey. If you are lucky, you might be able to find a used copy of an older edition online. The older editions aren't that different.

Wow, you must be bionic.. That's a fast pace even as marked, and keeping that LH at the same speed of the RH I find really hard. I think it's at least Dip standard that piece...

I didn't realize I was playing the Toccata at quarter note = 140 until I started to practise with the metronome two days ago. I don't have any problem maintaining the same tempo when the left hand takes over the sixteenth notes. I used to slow down whenever there are sixteenth notes in the left hand part in the Boellmann Toccata. But then I had only been playing the organ for three months when I was learning that piece; my coordination wasn't very good back then.

Anyway, back to Whitlock... The one place where I had trouble with tempo was when both hands started to play sixteenth notes at the same time. I used to adopt an even faster tempo right after the cadence where the pedal was marked fortissimo.

MrB, one aspect that I am constantly struggling in this Toccata is not the tempo, but the articulation. I wonder if I should take the "legato" indication literally in the sixteenth notes at the beginning. (I am inclined to say "no" because I don't want to sacrifice rhythmic vitality.) And in the last four pages, the left hand part is always buried in the texture and the notes seem unclear although I am already playing them quite non-legato. I have experimented with different registrations, but my playing of the last four pages doesn't seem to improve. Please help!

Absolute hogwash. It's alot more fun playing a simple version of, say, a belting Trumpet Tune on seperate manuals with a loud organ than it is on a piano.

Ideally, learn the two in parallel. It is certainly true that the keyboard skills from your piano playing will help immensely on the organ.

But using two hands and pedals from an early stage, however simple the piece, will help get you used to the feel of an organ and you'll have more fun!

Well it's my considered opinion after 25+ years of playing organ, so hogwash? Your criticisms might be better received if they were couched slightly more constructively....

How do you reconcile the differences in touch between organ and piano? Do you not feel that a pianist/organist working at Grade 2 on both instruments is going to have difficulties making that transition between the two, and risk confusing themselves and/or damaging their fledgling technique?

After all the fun , care to say what of substance would they have learned?

Confuzzedly,
GC

That it's far easier to play an instrument where you aren't moving your feet or having to worry about changes of registration?

Let's assume you're serious here, then what fragment of organ playing would have been mastered?

'Moving your feet' and 'changes of registration' inter alia do constitute the art of organ playing...

Laterally confuzzedly,
GC

So, out of sheer curiousity, how much piano experience would you suggest someone has before they start to learn the organ?

I had heard that one can only play the organ as well as they do the piano... I would think that the player should have at least G4 piano technique before transitioning to the organ. But then, we're assuming that they are going to be learning pedals, hand/foot coordination and not just manuliter?

GC-ly

I bow to your superior knowledge on this one, grand_choeur, but I thought you organists also had to use your hands to press the appropriate keys on the appropriate manual. To my untrained eye, hitting the right key seems to be where the similarities between piano and organ end - there's so much more to think about with organ, use of feet and selecting the appropriate registration being the two obvious ones - hence my comments about realising that the organ was so much more difficult than piano (not that I'm saying piano is easy, mind you...).

Let's not forget matters of touch... legato, non-legato and staccato. Quite different than on any piano.

I think its a moot point which instrument is more difficult: The Piano or the Organ.

PS in some quarters, page turning is seen as part of the Organist's craft as well.

Organly
GC

You can get a lot further on the organ with a limited keyboard technique. Compare the pure hands-only aspects of an FRSM organ exam and you'll looking at roughly DipABRSM level from that point of view..

How much of the organ reportoire can be accessed with a limited keyboard technique? Remember we were discussing G2 piano students going on the organ having 'fun'.
*Note to self - Just what is a 'limited keyboard technique' anyway?

Inquiringly,
GC

It's not possible to have fun on the organ in any case. It is a fickle mistress, promises much but ultimately will only deliver the goods in the talented hands of a true titulaire...

Having said that, are you the true master of the fickle mistress aforementioned?

Curiously,
GC


What's a limited keyboard technique???

Postscriptingly,
GC

Well, for example, take the Beethoven Piano Sonata in E Minor Op. 90.. it's a piece I know well, and appears on the DipABRSM list. I can't play the first movement. Many fast RH runs and the left-hand Alberti Bass patterns are too much of a stretch for my li'll hands...

You rarely get that kind of writing to stretch manual technique in organ works. Certainly not on the Dip/LRSM lists. Things start to get hairy for me (in terms of manual technique) in FRSM (one thinks of Widor Symphony 6 first movement, the Whitlock Divertimento and the like)...

Well now, the great SirBouff has 'll'll' hands?
Oh dear me... How then do you cope with the French Romantic stuff mate?

Stretchingly,
GC

Well exactly. Since I don't have an organ overly capable of doing such repertoire service, I avoid it mostly anyway.. Better to concentrate on Bach and improve one's overall technique, don't you think?

Somewhere out there are howlers who say that you dont need to concentrate on Bach for technical improvement, don't you think?

Earmuffingly,
GC

I used to think like this in my youth, when I was lean, vital and had a full head of hair. The non-Bach school are concerned mostly with effect: playing the loudest and fastest pieces in order to gain appreciation from the non-specialist audience. They, however, lack technical refinement and artistry. Such an approach is limited and I have found that it is necessary to return to first principles and to Bach in order to gain progress in other areas of the repertoire.

How enlightened art thou... May I suggest a serving of fresh fruit mate?

Organically,
GC

If I read into this what I think you are driving at then I'm sorry you have chosen the path of least difficulty. I wish you luck with your organistic endeavours but I fear you will flounder upon the rocks of your own aspirations when you find that limited technique, so comfortable in the "loud and proud" repertoire, comes into sharp focus when faced with the multifarious challenges of the higher diplomata..

How doth I err, might I suggest an increased daily dose of fibre and perhaps a litre or two of prune juice? Does the body and soul wonders from what I gather...

Prescribingly,
GC

I've really enjoyed reading this thread - for information and entertainment! I only started playing the organ after getting my piano diploma, and am finding it tough enough. It's the fingering (no sustaining pedal) and the feet, never mind all the other complications. Anyway, what I really wanted to say was - I'd like to see a section here specifically for the organ - "viva organ". There are organ threads to be found in the forums, but you never know which section they're going to turn up in.