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The
Instant
Organist
A Workshop
for Pianists &
Church Organists
Noel Jones, AAGO
©2002 Frog Music
Press
The transition from piano to organ
is rather simple, much easier than the transition from either
one of these to keyboards, This is due to the fact that the organ
has a basic design that almost all organ builders follow, making
it easy for organists to move from one organ to another without
going though the difficult learning curve we experience with
today's keyboards...and computer software!
The piano has only one sound, the sound of the struck string
that begins to die away the moment it is struck. The accomplished
pianist learns to disguise the dying of sound through much practice
at playing each key with a different amount of pressure, even
when playing chords and single note melody lines. The great pianists
know that they are creating an illusion of sustained singing
tone. It is not easy to do, and many amateur pianists fail to
achieve that level of playing. And it requires constant practice.
A great pianist said "If I fail to practice one day, I can
tell. If I miss two days, the audience can tell."
The organ played well requires no variation in touch strength
levels. The organist merely has to learn to control the length
of notes by holding the keys down and to accent notes by leaving
silence prior to playing the note to be accented.
I. Organ Technique requires only
the holding down of keys the full length of the notes played
and leaving a bit of silence before notes to be accented.
But the organ has more than one
keyboard. How do you know which one to play one?
If you are playing a hymn or other polyphonic music, that is,
music in which all notes are to be heard at the same level, you
play both hands on the same keyboard.
If there is a melody and accompaniment, you play one hand with
the melody on one keyboard and the other hand on a different
keyboard.
That's the first logical step in learning to play an organ piece,
looking over the music and deciding if all parts are to be played
on the same keyboard or if there is a melody that should be brought
out by playing it on a different keyboard.
II. Decide if you should play
all on one keyboard or divide the music between two keyboards.
Hymns are always played both hands
on the same keyboard so the harmony of the parts can be heard
clearly by the singers. An organ solo like the Ave Maria by Schubert
would be played one hand on one keyboard for the chordal accompaniment,
and the other on a different keyboard so the melody can stand
out above the accompaniment.
The pianist would have to do this by altering the touch of the
melody notes to bring them out over everything else. The organ
does this for you by letting you choose tone colors and volume
levels without requiring any alterations on touch pressure.
But how do you know which stops
to choose for play on each keyboard?
There are only four tone colors
on the organ to choose from; Principals, that true organ sound;
Flutes, which imitate flutes from the baroque and the modern
orchestra; Strings, which are soft and sound some what like the
string section of an orchestra; and Reeds, which go from soft
to loud with sounds like clarinets, bassoons and trumpets.
Melodies can be played on any of these stops except the strings,
which are often too soft to be clearly heard over any other stops
you might play with the melody.
Chords can be played on any of these organ stops.
III. There are four families
of organ stops to choose from.
In playing music up to the time
of Bach one tends to choose stops for each manual from only one
family at a time. Later music, like Franck and others, uses combinations
of these four families on each manual as well at times.
When playing the piano it is common to play a melody or a bass
line in octaves to bring it out above the rest of the sound of
the piano, if your hands will reach an octave and you can move
up and down the keyboard while playing octave if you have the
dexterity...and keeping track of how much pressure to use on
the top and bottom notes of each hand so it all balances right.
On the organ you add a stop with a footage number half of the
one you are playing and now you are playing one-finger octaves.
Add a stop with a number footage twice the one you are now playing
and you are playing as well. And one of each and you are playing
three octaves with one finger. Easier than playing the piano
once again. And playing fractional footage numbers plays notes
in between octaves...thirds and fifths.
IV. Octaves on the organ are
played by adding different pitched stops instead of stretching
your hands to grab at octaves.
How do I play expressively on the
organ? The organ has one, two or sometimes three expression pedals.
They are weighted, meaning that you can adjust them and take
your feet of when you play pedals without the volume changing.
Consumer brand organs, home organs, often did not have weighted
expression pedals, so the organist was forced to keep the right
font the expression pedal, leaving the left foot to hop around
the 13 or 25 pedals unassisted when playing bass parts on the
pedals.
Today's modern church organs all have expression pedals that
are weighted so you will have both feet free. Worried about how
loud to set the pedals? A well-designed organ voiced to your
church building should permit you to open the expression pedals
all the way and accompany hymns. This makes it possible for you
to change registrations and give a solid carpet of sound to make
people feel comfortable when singing hymns. Fluctuations of volume
during hymns make it difficult for people to sing, so try to
avoid them. Adding stops adds color to the sound and can inspire
the singers.
V. The expression pedals on the
organ can be set and left alone, used only when I want to make
expressive changes.
"I am frightened of the pedal
board. I don't think I can ever learn to play the organ with
my feet."
George Frederic Händel was a famous organist and wrote much
music for the organ. I don't recall anything he wrote that has
a pedal part. The pedalboard was a latecomer to the English Organ
and many just didn't have pedals, and still don't today.
There is much music written for the manuals alone. The pedal
keyboard of the organ has two functions. Remember how we talked
about looking at the music to decide if you should play both
hands on one keyboard or one hand on one and one the other? Music
that calls for pedals also comes in two styles. One, music that
has a different line for the pedal to play, may be music in which
the pedal has a melodic role like much of Bach who made music
easier by giving one part to the pedal, freeing up fingers on
the keyboards. There are also melodic works that give the melody
to the right hand in the treble clef, accompaniment chords and
some melody on the left hand and then the bass line in the pedals.
Next, we have music, like hymns, in which pedals are played to
strengthen, to underpin, the bass line to help support the singing
of the music. We have all driven by a dance and heard the bass
player outside through the walls. Heavy bass gives support.
Modern Organs often have a Bass Coupler that reads the bottom
note played on the Great keyboard and plays it automatically
in the pedals to help out on hymns when you do not have an organist
at the console.
VI. When preparing to play if
I do not want to play the pedals I need to avoid music that has
a separate pedal part different from the rest of the music.
When playing hymns and other polyphonic
music you can often use a Bass Coupler to play the bass line
automatically on the pedals for you if you need more support
and do not want to play the pedals.
These basic guidelines will help
you get started. Now let's look into the organ as a musical instrument:
In the United States and many other
countries the organ keyboards are named:
Two Manual Organ:
Swell on top
Great on bottom.
Three Manual Organ:
Swell on top
Great in the middle
Choir on the bottom.
All organs have C as the lowest note and middle C is in the middle
of the keyboard. Most organs have five octaves of keys (61 notes)
ending on C as well. The pedalboard usually has 32 keys and also
begins on C and is played mainly with the toes of the toes, but
on occasion with the heel. Up to 4 note chords can be played
on the pedals with practice and perseverance.
The stops are the voices of the organ. There are four basic families
of organ tone: Flute, Principal, String, and Reed. Early music
(pre-Bach) tends to use stops from the four families separately
while later music often blends them together.
Most organists start out by learning to play the piano. The ability
to play cleanly on the piano without using the sustain pedal
transfer well to playing on the organ. Many organists learn music
on the piano before taking it to the organ because of the increased
control they develop while playing the piano, muscular control
that helps when playing the organ, which requires little or no
strength to depress the keys in most cases. This control increases
the accuracy of your playing.
Lessons and practice time on the harpsichord can also help to
improve organ technique, when a harpsichord is available.
Chapter 1: Playing Early Music on the Organ
Playing the organ can involve a
lot of backward thinking. Each piece of music needs to be analyzed
to search out what the composer intended when the notes were
scribbled on the page. The organ is one of the oldest instruments,
dating back at least a few centuries B.C. In our book Early Music
For Manuals, a informal guide we examine music that was composed
for the starting phases of what we consider to be the earliest
form of the modern organ, the organ of Frescobaldi in Italy,
Purcell in England and up until and including the organs of J.S.
Bach in Germany.
Playing the pedals came to the state as we know it just before
and during the time of Bach. Organs in England often had no pedalboard
as English organbuilders and composers were late to accept this
expansion of the organ. Many pieces then and today are written
for the organ without pedals. Back then the composer wrote for
them if the organ being composed for had them, otherwise they
were ignored.
During the early and mid-20th century many early organ works
were "improved with the addition of pedal parts". A
rather violent movement in the 1960's found organists restoring
these works back to their original form and commissioning organs
to be built that suited this music.
To understand this music you must go back in time to recall what
life was like before the automobile, the radio and the tv. Forget
the piano, forget our massive orchestras that are capable of
great crescendos and effects.
The least expensive keyboard instrument was a clavichord, a simple
instrument that uses a bit of metal sticking up from the back
of each key to make a string play. When the key is released the
string, which has felt wound through one end of its length, falls
silent. This was a soft sounding instrument, used mainly for
playing solos, accompanying solo singers and for the writing
of music. The organ at church was expensive to play, as men and
boys had to be hired to pump the large bellows. While the Clavichord
is rarely found today, it was considered then and today to be
a very expressive instrument, as the player can create tremulant
on notes by varying the pressure as notes are held on the keyboards.
It was the first touch sensitive keyboard instrument. Some even
had pedalboards.
Next came the harpsichord, which used quill or leather to pluck
the strings. It could have one or two keyboards and had strings
that played what is called 8' pitch. Some had extra sets of strings
that played 4' pitch (sounding an octave higher than the key
played, and a few, 16' pitch, sounding an octave lower) while
some merely had one or two sets of 8' strings, one being plucked
closer to the middle of the string, making a less nasal tone
than the other 8'. While the key is held down after plucking
the string would continue to play until the vibrating energy
died or the key returned to rest and a felt damper stilled the
movement of the string.
In contrast organ pipes when played continue to sound until released
since the organ is a wind instrument (an instrument where moving
air makes the sound). The stringed keyboard instruments used
percussion through striking or plucking and then the energy would
gradually dissipate and the sound soften.
None of these instruments offered any means of gradually getting
louder or softer until late in their development and most composers
of the time up to and including Bach and Handel we are concerned
with had little or no opportunity to indicate or use this musical
device. Instead more strings or, on the organ more organ stops,
were added to increase the sound, creating dynamic changes in
level called terraced dynamics.
If we remove gradual increase and decrease of volume from the
musicians bag of tricks what is there left? Adjustment of the
length of notes.
Harpsichordists and clavichordists could play notes that were
detached from each other, leaving a bit of air space in between
to delineate the line of music they are playing. We avoid calling
this staccato, for this indicates an accented short note in many
musical circles.
Organists excelled at playing detached notes and using spaces
of silence to separate phrases and to create phrasings within
the music.
Music has been aptly described as the interruption of silence.
Organists all too often interrupt silence for all too long a
period of time, with their hands frozen to the keys, creating
a legato melded phrases of heroic portions but of little musical
interest.
Today's church buildings are often at fault as they are incapable
of sustaining musical tone. As architects return to traditional
forms and materials this problem can disappear. In the interim
we can voice the modern organs to fill these rooms with sound
with room-altering ambiance systems to provide the acoustical
environment so sorely missed.
What this all boils down to is this: The organist must examine
each note to be played and decide whether it should be connected
to the preceding note and whether it should be stretched out
to connect to the following note in the phrase.
The actual length of the note is adjusted to the acoustical character
of he room. A bright, lively room will call for short, quick
notes to activate the air molecules into musical sound; a dry,
dead room will call for longer note lengths...and a serious look
at acoustical improvement.
I once studied with a harpsichord teacher of some renown who
had a system of notation she used to mark every note in each
piece as a reminder to the performer how to treat that note each
time it was played. While this seemed a little cut and dried
to me, it does remind us that the start, the length and the finish
of each note we play demands our fullest attention.
In the works in Frog Music's Early Music For Manuals, you will
find suggestions for making this music come alive. While it may
look like simple music, it is music of great character and beauty,
and depth that you will discover as you play and adjust the note
lengths to make the music you feel.
In some of the works the ornamentation, the little trills and
turns indicated above and below notes, has been worked out for
you. In others it appears in ornamental signs. It is common to
play through once without ornamentation, then play again with
ornamentation.
What stops should you use in early music for the organ? It was
rare to find organs of great size at that time, in fact Bach
never presided over a grand instrument except as a guest recitalist,
so the suggested piston registrations in the next chapter using
choruses of stops of the flue families are a bit too much in
many cases, though they can be used.
You may find you like an 8' as foundation then a 4' or 2' to
add clarity, or a mutation stops (fractional numbers) to add
color. Think thin, not heavy. The more stops that are added the
less control you have over the length of the note and the differing
attack and decay characteristics of each set of pipes is brought
into play.
I enjoy playing on flutes 8' + 2' in pitch, but this practice
is decried as 'gap-toothed' registration by some purists, who
insist the 4' must be added first, to which I say, life is too
short! If it sounds good, do it.
Many of the works in Early Music can be played on a few stops
or on full ensembles, fitting themselves to your needs. Enjoy
yourself and make music.
Some of these pieces were written expressly for the organ. The
Basse et Dessus, for example, is for the bottom and top of the
trumpet stop of the organ and requires two manuals . Strangely
enough, Jeremiah Clark's Trumpet Tune was written for the harpsichord,
not the organ. On works like these you play one hand on each
keyboard. In almost all the other works play both hands on the
same keyboard. It keeps things in balance and that's the way
it is done.
Many works at this time were written without indication by the
composer to tell us which instrument was to be played: clavichord,
harpsichord or organ. Certain clues can be found in the music
to give us an idea of the original plan. These clues include
long held and tied notes that may indicate it was written for
organ; lots of leaps around the keyboard often indicates a piece
that was not intended for the organ.
Chapter 2: Registration for Bach and Beyond
On an organ console you will find
rows of organ stops, each with a name and a number. Arranged
in groups, one for each keyboard and one for the pedal keys,
today they make it possible to play the music of the ages with
authentic tones.
The art of registration is rarely taught, and most organists
are forced to try and match what suggestions they may find on
the page of music with what stops they have on their instrument.
While at first look the many registration possibilities may seem
overpowering to consider and understand, all organs are built
around the same framework of stops. An organ, you see, is designed
by the music that is played on it. There is a standard repertoire
of music for the organ by which an organ is judged to be effective
in its ability to play this music and convey the meanings and
intentions of the composer.
With the understanding that all organs are built around the same
framework of stops it is easier to understand how a teacher of
mine who traveled and concertized played so successfully and
kept his sanity. He used the same pistons on every organ he played.
Now General Piston 10 [solo trumpet] may have been a bit more
outstanding when he played the large organ at the Cathedral of
St. John Divine in New York City with its State Trumpet reigning
supreme over that instrument compared to a small town church
organ with just a regular old Trumpet in the Swell Division,
but the same piece of music could be played on both organs by
pushing the right pistons.
For that reason I have been advocating the use of a set of 10
General Pistons for more than 25 years, pistons that have served
me well.
1 Polyphonic PP
2 Polyphonic P
3 Polyphonic MP
4 Polyphonic MF
5 Polyphonic F
6 Polyphonic FF
7 Polyphonic FFF
8 Melodic (Oboe on SW)
9 Melodic (Chimes on GT)
10 Melodic (Trumpet on SW)
The volume levels of these pistons
follows the indications. However the actual volume of the sound
of the organ does not increase, rather the tone color grows.
It is possible, and very effective, to play quietly on General
6...
To decide which piston is suitable
for the piece you are going to play, look over the music. Is
it polyphonic or does it call for solo melodic registration?
The Difference Between Stops
On most organs the Flue Stops are engraved in Black, the Reeds
in Red. That's first important distinction for you to make. There
are three kinds of flue stops, Flutes, Principals and Strings.
In the pipe chamber you would notice that Flutes are wide diameter
pipes, Principals smaller and the Strings, the smallest in girth.
The smaller the girth of the pipe the more harmonic it is, that
is, it sounds less full and round and has more of an edge to
it.
This would be a good time to get your owner's manual out for
the organ you are playing and refer to it for piston setting
procedures for your instrument as well as a guide for the stops
on your own individual instrument.
Many different things are done to pipes to give each rank (set)
of pipes a different tone. Some are even built to be wide at
the bottom and narrow at the top, giving a Hybrid stop, such
as the Gemshorn, which sounds both fluty and stringy at the same
time.
Each stop name includes a number,
Arabic Numbers like 2' mean that the lowest pipe in the rank
(set) is 2' long, and Roman Numerals like II, III or IV mean
that stop sounds that many pipes for each key that is played.
II is usually reserved for Celestes, III and IV for Mixtures.
When Celestes are played two pipes play at once for each key
depressed and play slightly out of tune, giving a celestial,
wavering quality to the sound.
Link
to the Instant Organist Registration Charts - PDF Download
Please note: Piston Set M2 on these
carts is the same as M1, except for the addition of the MIDI
voices, listed across the bottom of each division set of pistons.
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