The Press Releases

Do you suffer from Saturday Night Organist Nightmares?
Or a rampant case of New Organitis?

Organists rarely admit it, but many of us spend sleepless Saturday nights worrying about THE SERVICE. And when the additional pressure of a new organ is added to the mix, Saturday nights can become even worse! Spouses and Significant Others can't understand us. Saturday night is a time to relax from the pressures of the week and enjoy oneself. Instead we agonize over possible wrong notes, missed cues and potential disasters of the musical kind.

One particularly threatening nightmare is being on the bench and not being able to find the bulletin, while all eyes and the church dart your way to find out why they are standing there waiting to sing and you are not playing the introduction of the hymn....because you've lost your bulletin.
There are some ways to help alleviate the stress of all of this, and we are going to talk about just a few of them today.

• First of all, the Lost Bulletin Syndrome solution: Run down to the Sunday School Department and beg for a transparency, a clear projection transparency. With a roll of tape, place it on its long side on the right side of your music rack, lining it up with the right edge and then run a strip of tape across the top of it and the rack. Take your church bulletin, after carefully highlighting all places where you get to play with a bright highlighter....I prefer yellow....and place it under the transparency. This eliminated it getting lost in a book of music, falling off the rack and flying under the pedals and so on...Just lift the transparency and flip the bulletin over when it's time for the final page.

• Second, and this applies to those who suffer from New Organitis as well, download the free Beginning Organist by Dan Miller at Rodgers® and The Instant Organist by Noel Jones.
Both of these free articles give sound advice on how to understand, operate and register your new organ...or existing organ for those who have had a Rodgers® for awhile. Organ basics are covered first, then specific areas like using the transposer, setting and managing pistons and more are covered in depth. A little knowledge can help you sleep on Saturday nights.

• Third, for those of you who play the organ for a choir director who also plays the organ...and may play "better" then you or whom you suspect may have mad more training than you. One of the scary things is being forced to use the name of an organ stop in conversation...a foreign word than you are unsure how to pronounce.

There is a partial solution. Go to our Rodgers® Organ User's Group page and select the Insignia™ USer's Group link. On the Insignia™/Allegiant™ page you will find a link to a dictionary of organ stops that includes a guide to pronunciation as well as a description of the stop and what family it belongs to. If you are asked to play an 8' Flute while the tenor sings his (or her) solo you will be able to reach up and choose the Gedeckt or the Höhlflote or whatever 8' Flute you do have on the organ. This dictionary will be enlarged to include ALL Rodgers® organ stops in the future.

• Fourth, a careful review of the Owner's Manual every 3 months or so is a good idea. The manual doesn't change, but our perceptions do...you may find yourself saying, "AHA!" as you read through it once again.

• Fifth and finally, THE ADVERTISEMENT: For any organist, but especially the ones new to Rodgers® Organs: Our Frog Music Press "Playing Guide to the Trillium™ Organs" and "Playing Guide to the Insignia™ and Allegiant™ Organs" and the Insignia™ 537 volume by the same name all include music and careful explanations of everything of importance in the owner's manual and more. And if you have MIDI and an organ committee who is bugging you to actually use it, our "Playing MIDI Live" guides will get you up to speed and using the MIDI as well.

For Additional Information, Please Contact:
Noel Jones
Frog Music Press
www.frogmusic.com
423 887-7594
noeljones@frogmusic.com

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