Is anyone up for offering some advice on a simple but effective way of playing a filler at the end of a hymn e.g. collection taking longer than expected to reach the altar?

I'm thinking of something other than just playing over the last verse again, but without the need for full improvisational skills (which in my case are under development, but not for public airing just yet!).

If you really aren't up to improvisation get hold of '148 Interludes for Organ' published by Kevin Mayhew.
Have one ready in the same key as the hymn you are playing.

We have our offertory separate (ie not during a hymn) so I have to play music whilst its taken. Often I use these Interludes for that. Theyre manuals only but you can easily put a pedal line in, and theyre easy enough to sight read.

There's also a KM book called "Play On" which has stuff that follows on from various hymns if you need to pad them out a bit.

T.

Thanks for the suggestions regardings books of suitable fillers. How about any tips for doing it "on the hoof" from just the hymn music already in front of you?

"Plugging the gaps", Kevin Mayhew, is a good one too

Probably a case of me wanting my cake and eating it, but was thinking along the lines of whether there are any "improvisation lite" techniques that you can use as a novice in this area.

mrg

Often if there isn't a great deal more of the collection to go, I just play another chorus or whatever quietly.

You could just go through similar chord progressions if you only have a short amount of time to fill.

Play the hymn tune again with the alto part inverted over the treble. Or solo the tenor part on another manual. Simple enough stuff - but may give you something to start with. Find a short phrase in the (same) tune that you like and use it as a sequence (ie repeated at a varying pitches - but you knew that).

Just take a motif from the tune itself and develop that simply. e.g. last night at evensong we had St Clement so I found myself idling away with those first four notes on the tune and once you add an answering phrase and all that jazz you can really start to build up something "sensible" which is fluent and won't scare the punters.. Good luck!!!

Anyone asking me about improvisation might as well ask Harold Shipman about care of the elderly. One thing however that might assist you more generally. When you get to the end of a last verse, the odds are that you will be pretty much 'full-on' as far as registration goes. A useful thing to do is to practise getting from that diapason-rich positive output, which is rather exposing, quickly down to a stringy, smothering type of registration in your hands, together with anything you've got in the soft 16' pedal line. This might be by the use of combination pistons, manual switch, or even stop changing by hand. If you can acheive this within a beat of the last bar line, the dramatic tonal change diverts attention while you drop your tempo, and mosey on into your improv. At worst, you could gently and slowly play the tune backwards, but that would be cheating......
All the best,

Chris B

Uh, yes..... of course I did (I wish!)

Thanks - I'll have a dabble at this tonight.

Take the chord at the beginning of the last line of the hymn and play a scale passage ending with a perfect cadence in your new key. The use sequences that have occured throughout the hymn to plug the gap before ending with a florish that brings you back to the final cadence.

I know this sounds complicated, but try it out on a few hyms and it works.

Better still put in an interupted cadence at the end of the scale, this allows you to go off in what ever direction you want.

It's much more satisfying knowing you improvised the thing yourself than relied on someone elses.

If you have the hymn list enough in advance play around in your practice time and write a few down on manuscript paper. (it may be olf fashioned, but it still works)

As another dodgy improviser, I just make sure I've got something handy in the right key to fill the gap. I have it ready-prepared with pencil ticks in the places where it's easy enough to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion without having to sound like I'm just being self-indulgent after everyone's ready for the service to move on. I don't think it matters if there's a second or two's gap before you change the registration to do this. It's best - I find - not to start at the beginning of something; I pick a spot where it has a few lines to go, and where it might go briefly into the dominant or something and then home again - hopefully as the people lifting the collection are sitting down again. This type of thing isn't really a performance; I feel that my job at this point is to make people feel comfortable.

Ok, as someone who does this reguarly, and just fullout improvises on a hymn perhaps i can advise.

1) This all depends on your organ.
2) I will assume you have you offertory in the same place as us, After the Creed/Peace prior to the Eucharist Prayer.

So we've got to the end of the hymn.. no need to finish in the key that it's written in, as long as the chord you finish on is a relativly non-dissonant chord that includes the treble (tune) note somewhere in the chord predominantly (on top of the manuals or on the pedal) - you probably find IIB V(7) I as boring as i do after a while, no need to stick with that. (This goes back to the topic on last verse re-harmonisation, would anyone like a guide to that?)

In my church the office hymn is quite often a loud, grandish hymn (its a large church so does take time for the collection to get around) This sunday it was 'Praise to the Lord, the almighty....' and got to the end, and because i don't hang around in hymns (And you will be going at my pace or just sounding nastily out) and realised that i needed more. So i started seriously thinking about this from 'let the amen' (traditionally Gmaj, Dmaj, Gmaj, Cmaj) and changed the chords to (Gmaj, Gmaj, G#Dim 7, AMaj which has given me the license to either continue in this way or resort back to the harmony in the book.

NOW

the end of the hymn... i never like it if the full duration of the last chord is played *gap* some random twiddling. Imo, it needs to follow straight on. so what can we do?

1) a highly embelished version of the tune, much like an improvised Bach chorale-prelude orgelbuchlein style. It works, you can go as slow asyou like and adding in the passing notes of the tune does make it seem like a total re-working to the untrained ear. To make this one really work, you need a knowledge of bach trills etc if you want to be wholly convincing

2) Take the chord sequence written, embelish it slightly (just put in trills around the place) then play sections of the tune in the pedal. No need for the whoel tune, nor all the lines in order, but another nice little thing thats not too dissonant

3) If you really feel adventurous after a while, start using more chromatic harmonies (read a book on messiaen harmonies to REALLY annoy a congregation:P) and add in things like counter melodies (this could just be the alto or tenor lines 'answering' the other parts at a higher pitch) or lines of your own variation

in short, you need to lose inhibitions and go with what seems right at the time. After a service i once improvised a fugue on 'ye watchers and ye holy ones' and got commented on how nice it was... thats always a nice improvising tune

have i covered most bases?

The above all sounds great for those who are able to do it, but I honestly think nothing sounds worse than somebody attempting the likes of this in public who really isn't good at it! (Like me!) Many organists seem to improvise with no regard to maintaining a time signature, for instance, and I find this very hard to listen to.

the honest answer Dulciana, is practice, and sadly in this country, most people seem to think that improvisation isn't a craft as important as piece playing. If you ever read interviews with Naji Hakim, he often mentions that he 'couldnt improvise' but spent as much time practicing improvising as he does pieces. When i started learning those techniques, i spent maybe 30 minutes a day just playing around with chords, with counterpoint and just learning what works and what doesn't.

Its like transposition: it doesn't just come, but do a little and often and you'll be able to do everything i listed

I moodle about on the piano all the time, as much as I actually play what is on the music. So if you know what your ofertory hymn is, why not have a play around in the comfort of your own home. So your first one or two attempts may be crass, but without trying you'll never succeed.

Do most people not do the improvisation before the last verse of him and then start the final verse in time to finnish when ready. This is the way we do it and I find this more satisfying having done the improvisation at the end in a previous post.

Andy

you still have to play around with the hymn tune. For a high mas classically it is done as the elements are brought up every thing is sensed an d the offertory arrives, then you play the last verse.

Alas in Village Parish CHurches the insense would drive more than the bats away.

Sorry, I thought we were just talking about filling in bits asround hymns at anytime during the service.

As well as the nonsense?

Another of my dyslexic moments. Well spotted MrB

Incense
Incense
Incense
Incense
Incense
Incense
Incense
Incense
Incense
Incense

Can you pardon me for my spelling faux pas?

Nonsense in Village Parish Churches, you'd like the end of service custom at ours. Choice of tea or coffee or Red and White Wine served after the service. Church Warden burns some incense from "horror of horrors" and electric incence burner (give me a proper thruible and boat anyday) as the bats don't like it

Apparently our (incest) sorry, incense is gunging up the organ - dreadful news. They do overdo it a bit sometimes.

I believe someone did some research once which showed it to be a carcinogen. Thanks goodness I sit by the side door which I can easily unlock in case of over-enthusiasm on behalf of the acolyte with the swingy thingy

the acolyte is holding the candles, don't you mean thurifer?

probably.. altho in some churches surely there must be some multitasking?!

Trust me I was a server. Of course strict members of the guild would object. Whose that woman acting as crucifer and doing all the ablutions at the altar ( I would say in text book fashion), and administering communion. But whether I was doing that, acting as an acolyte, or thurifer, I loved the job and did it with dignity.

Terrible to think of something unpleasant happenning to such a great instrument. :-(
I wouldn't wish it on /any/ organ, but I've got a real soft spot for that one.

T.

When this thread started it was all about emergency filler. But I don't think anyone was thinking of using incense as emergency filler for organ pipes.

So, today I took inspiration from your tip maggiemay which I remembered reading about months ago and before the sermon did an improvisation based on the processional hymn (For All the Saints). I treated the first two lines in sequence, over pedal points, with toccata figuration above and came to a rather grand full-organ perfect cadence just as the priest came to the pulpit. I was pretty pleased with myself and was chuffed to use a theme from the first hymn thinking everyone would recognise it and think it was dead clever.

Priest after the service: "What tune was that improvisation based on?" **BOGGLE** And he wasn't the only one.

The other thing that happened was that I became completely and utterly derailed in the Merbecke Sanctus and Benedictus. I began by watching the lips of the cantor rather than the music to make sure we were in sync. Eyes back on the music ... and I had a great big pink post-it stuck over the benedictus to remind me which piston to push. Argh. Well, I plundered on and finished on the tonic chord, but unfortunately its second inversion I shudder to think what I played before getting there but it definitely wasn't what Merbecke wrote. And again hardly anyone noticed! The priest said "I played it a bit fast". Grief, that was the least of my worries.

Oh, and the cantor skipped forward two bars in the middle of the communion anthem! As if my nerves weren't shot enough by that point.

Why do we put ourselves through it?

David.

Don't beat yourself up over it - the odd service like this is often par for the course. It is, unfortunately, very rare for the plebians to be tuned in to what the organ is playing. If no-one notices, it usually means that things haven't gone as badly as you thought. It sounds like it was a combination of people contributing towards the music in this service being rather challenging for the organist, so be proud to have persisted under such conditions!

I do know how you feel though, and it's really not a pleasant experience to come away feeling like this, especially when you've put yourself out considerably to do something that helps others. Best wishes for future playing!

In my experience, when I felt something had not gone quite right, people didn't seem to notice!

(or maybe they were just being polite but somehow I don't think so).

Sounds as though you have plenty of good ideas on improvisation, David, what you describe sounds a bit ahead of my simple suggestions !

You can train them to listen, chuck in bits of twinkle twinkle little star, or pop goes the weasal from time to time, and people will start listening out for that sort of thing, and then they might listen to whatever else you play.

Puff the MD in the last verse of Seek Ye First is a must!

I remember a Wedding , about a week or so before Christmas (1964 it was, I was only 17) and the bride was half an hour late. I had played the stuff I had brought with me twice, so I started improvising on Christmas Carols, completely forgetting that a certain one of them can also be 'Why are we waiting?'

Fab, hadn't heard that one before, can't wait for th next use!!!

I might try this next time, but first could you tell me the meaning of 'pedal points' and 'toccata figuration'

a pedal point is a long sustained note. It can apply in any type of music and in any part... common variants are the tonic pedal point (in the key of F major, the held note is an F) or a 'dominant pedal point' where in F, the note would be B Flat .

If it is in the highest speaking voice, some people refer to this as an inverted pedal point, as it normally occurs at the bottom of the music (though as i said before can occur anyway)

Toccata figurations, are basically broken chords and the like played rapidly, in the style of french toccatas. If you have a chance look at pieces like the Finale of Widor Symphony 5, or Vierne Symphony 1 to get an idea

If, like me you are not too confident about improvisation, (or in my case not really an organist either), then Thalben-Ball's Variations on Hymn-Tunes could be useful for the odd filler if you have it handy and open at the appropriate page! (and if it's in the right key!)

Yup. I do this on a weekly basis and invariably get people coming up to me afterwards telling me what they've heard (or think they have!).




Great - I'll try it!



I often improvize on Adeste Fidelis at weddings if the bride's late, making it more and more obvious the theme of my improvization the later she gets!

I had a wedding yesterday (still not found the right person... ) and the bride was the best part of half an hour late. They got a verse of Nelly the Elephant thrown in...

Thank you for that explanation, that has made it easier to just play one pedal note rather than all of them. I might check out the Thalben Ball book.