The majority of organ music composed until about 1550 used the system of 8 Gregorian Modes - 4 Authentic Modes (1, 3, 5, and 7) and 4 Plagal Modes (2, 4, 6, and 8) first described by Hucbald in De harmonica in ca. 880: The pieces written in the authentic modes (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixolydian) end on the lowest note of the mode called Finalis (represented by the letter f in the above example).
Plagal modes have the prefix Hypo- before the name of the mode. Here the Finalis is not the lowest pitch but the note a perfect fourth above it. So basically, these modes are precursors of a Major/Minor system and throughout the history there were several variations of such modes. From the middle of the 16th century, the number of modes increased to 12 (as described by Glareanus in his Dodecachordon, 1547). In his system, he added authentic Aeolian (from A) and Ionian (from C) modes and their plagal counterparts to the entire spectrum. Practice writing these modes first from the white notes and later from the sharp or flat notes. Also try to play them on the organ. As soon as this becomes easy, you can start improvising on such modes. Tomorrow I will describe how you can do that so stay tuned if this topic is interesting to you. By the way, do you want to learn my special powerful techniques which help me to master any piece of organ music up to 10 times faster? If so, download my video Organ Practice Guide.
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One of the most difficult textures to play in organ music occurs when pedal lines go in contrary motion with the manual parts. In other words, when the pedals go up, and hand parts go down and vice versa.
For our brain this arrangement of parts is especially tricky to process and we must take good care when learning such episodes in our organ pieces. The best advice would be to isolate the manual and pedal parts and practice repeatedly and separately. Let's say that your difficult passage extends over 4 measures. So I would recommend you practise pedals alone 10 times in the tempo which is about 50 % slower than the concert speed. You will notice that at the beginning repetitions are quite shaky but the 9th and 10th repetitions feel quite secure. Then practise manual part alone. If it is polyphonic, play the hands separately first, repeating 10 times the left hand part and 10 times the right hand part. Once you do that, you will be ready to combine the right hand and pedals, and left hand and pedals. It is important to go on to the next step only when you feel like you are ready and feeling very secure and your playing seems quite fluent. Otherwise frustration soon kicks in and real progress would be very difficult to achieve. But if you patiently wait when this combination becomes so easy, that you can play it very slowly without thinking, automatically, then you are ready to go on to the next step. This way you can master even the most dreadful looking pedal parts going in contrary motion with the hands. Remember that for many right-handed people left hand and pedal combination takes longer to master. Nevertheless, the process is the same - isolate the problematic episode and practise solo lines and each of the available combinations before putting everything together. All of the preceding advice won't work unless you figure out the fingering and pedaling in this episode so make sure you do this first. By the way, do you want to learn my special powerful techniques which help me to master any piece of organ music up to 10 times faster? If so, download my video Organ Practice Guide. Diatonic modes are much older than major and minor scales. They are used in folk music of various cultures, as well as in ancient musical traditions, such as Hindu and Greek. The names presented bellow are Greek (although they differ somewhat from the original Greek system).
In organ music, modal system is especially favored by the modern French composers (Alain, Durufle, Tournemire, Langlais and others). Messiaen had his own modal system of 7 modes of limited transposition. Today I'm going to focus on 7 diatonic (non chromatic) modes only. There are 3 ways to learn diatonic modes. 1) By playing 7 white notes starting from each of the white keys: From C - Ionian (CDEFGAB) From D - Dorian (DEFGABC) From E - Frygian (EFGABCD) From F - Lydian (FGABCDE) From G - Mixolydian (GABCDEF) From A - Aeolian (ABCDEFG) From B - Locrian (BCDEFGA) 2) By raising or lowering appropriate degrees of the natural major or minor scale: Major scale: Lydian (IV+) Ionian (same as natural major) Mixolydian (VII-) Minor scale: Dorian (VI+) Aeolian (same as natural minor) Frygian (II-) Locrian (II- and V-) NOTE: Lydian mode is the most joyful mode of them and Locrian - the most sorrowful. Locrian is very unstable because the distance from its 1st and 5th scale degrees is diminished 5th instead of perfect 5th as in all the other modes. 3) By adding one tetrachord on top of the other: Ionian (Major from C and Major from G) Dorian (Minor from C and Minor from G) Frygian (Frygian from C and Frygian from G) Lydian (Lydian from C and Major from G) Mixolydian (Major from C and Minor from G) Aeolian (Minor from C and Frygian from G) Locrian (Frygian C and Lydian from G flat) Try to play the notes of these 7 modes on your organ. When this becomes easy, practice building theese modes from the same note (Ionian from C, Dorian from C, Frygian from C, Lydian from C etc). This way you can master them from any of the keys you want. To make things easier, start with the white keys first and progress to black keys later. Once these modes become easy for you, choose a simple meter and play melodies of predetermined length (like 8 measures) in any of these modes. This is a very important exercise in learning modal improvisation. By the way, do you want to learn my special powerful techniques which help me to master any piece of organ music up to 10 times faster? If so, download my video Organ Practice Guide. So far 19 people have raised their hands and said "Yes" to the idea of studying harmony with me. Therefore, I've decided I'm going to create this Harmony for Organists Level 1 course. I will make an official announcement for the registration of this course in a few days.
After honestly completing the assignments of this course, you can expect to be able sit down at the organ and harmonize a non-modulating melody (like a chorale or a hymn) in the soprano and in the bass with pedals in a slow tempo using the main 3 chords - Tonic, Subdominant and Dominant. Also you will be able to play a progression of several chords (like a cadence) in any key you want as well as play ascending and descending sequences of simple chords through various keys. You may be able to do this with a proper voice-leading in any key up to 7 sharps and flats. You will also find that this course will help you tremendously in your quest in learning to improvise on the organ. Currently you may find that you improvise by ear (meaning that you play what sounds good) but after this course is completed, you will know what will sound good EVEN BEFORE you will play. In other words, your mind will direct your fingers but not vice versa. Although this is not an improvisation course per se, the basic harmonic techniques will build you a solid foundation for your improvisations. Needless to say, everything you will be able to play on the organ, you can also write on paper. I know, this sounds impossible to a lot of people to achieve in just 12 weeks, but trust me on this - with this systematic approach you can do it. Since you are reading this post, I take that you are getting value out of my daily advice and tips and that your skills as an organist are constantly improving. But that's nowhere near the true value you can expect to receive from this course. My feeling is that although this is only an introductory course, with the skills you will receive from it you will be better at harmony than 80% of organists currently are. Are you excited? You should be... As you have probably noticed, a few of my recent articles have been about the basics of harmony for organists. It is such an important field of study because this skill, when developed, lets you to easily see how the piece is put together. In turn, this kind of analysis helps you to perform organ music on a much higher level.
Also it helps for memorisation because it lets you actually understand the patterns and what they mean. Otherwise many people just blindly copy the notes. Besides, we must not forget that harmony is a preparation for improvisation and/or composition. Every organ composer or improviser we know was first a master of harmony. In early days, they might call it (and teach) differently - thoroughbass, basso continuo or figured bass. But all these terms refer to similar things - rules of voice leading, chord relations, and functional harmony. I am aware of the need of a beginner level course in this field designed specifically for organists, with assignments both on paper and on the organ. However, I'm not sure if enough people would raise their hands to participate. I'm thinking about an introductory Harmony for Organists Level 1 course which would last 12 weeks and incorporate exercises presented in PDF format and with my audio explanations and examples played on my organ. If enough people would say "Yes", I could begin the necessary preparations and we would be ready to start in a few days, I think. So if you would be interested please let me know. To your success, Vidas Before attempting to harmonize a melody with various chords, we must know the 6 basic positions of the three-note root position chord.
Three-note root position chords have 2 versions: 1) Closed position 2) Open position The largest interval between each of the three upper voices in closed position chords is a fourth. Anything more than that (up to an octave) makes it an open position chord. The distance between the tenor and bass could be up to one and a half octaves. Each of these two positions can have 3 different versions depending which note of the chord is in the top (soprano) voice. Closed position: 1) If the root is in the soprano, then the C major chord would look like this (starting from the bass): C-E-G-C. 2) If the third is in the soprano - C-G-C-E. 3) If the fifth is in the soprano - C-C-E-G. Open position: 1) If the root is in the soprano - C-G-E-C. 2) If the third is in the soprano - C-C-G-E. 3) If the fifth is in the soprano - C-E-C-G. EXERCISE: practice writing and later playing the tonic chord of each major and minor key in these 6 positions one after the other. When this becomes easy, try your hand with the subdominant (6 positions) and the dominant chords (6 positions). Finally, play all 18 chords one after the other without interruption (the last chord could be resolved to the tonic). When playing the bass part on the organ with pedals, take the tenor with the left hand and the upper two parts with the right hand. By the way, do you want to learn my special powerful techniques which help me to master any piece of organ music up to 10 times faster? If so, download my video Organ Practice Guide. I hear people describing this situation - they practice organ playing a lot (1-2 hours) every day but it doesn't seem to get them results they are after. After such an hour or two spent on the organ bench they tend to feel a sense of frustration rather than tranquility, completion, and that they achieved something remarkable today.
If you are in such a situation, here is what I recommend you can do: Make sure you have your fingering and pedaling written in (at least for 4 measures at a time). Practicing organ piece without the predetermined fingering and pedaling will make your playing very insecure, unpredictable, and not fluent. Play slowly only 4 measures at a time. If you make mistakes, make a mental note of them and start practicing these 4 measures one more time. Fix the mistakes and aim for at least 3 correct repetitions in a row (5-10 repetitions if you are really serious about your progress). Practice separate voices or parts first. Don't attempt to play two voices unless you can play solo lines slowly but perfectly repeatedly. Only then practice all available combinations of two voices. If you did the previous step honestly, then these two voices are going to be just a little more difficult but not out of reach. The same holds true with playing combinations of three voices - do the two parts first. In a four-part piece, remember to play all four parts together only after you did all these preparatory steps. You can also check if the piece you are working on is not too difficult for you at the moment. Try to play it at 50 % slower tempo than a concert speed. If you make more than 3 mistakes in one system while playing slowly - there is a good reason to believe that you need to take an easier piece for practicing now and work on improving your organ technique. Apply these tips in your organ practice today. They really work. But don't expect fast results. Instead celebrate each conquered four-measure fragment. Then little by little you start putting them all together and your piece will begin to sound much better. By the way, do you want to learn my special powerful techniques which help me to master any piece of organ music up to 10 times faster? If so, download my video Organ Practice Guide. After having shared the video of my Communion for the 4th Sunday in Lent, I received quite a few inquires whether the score is available. I appreciate everyone who asked for it and liked this little composition which is a part of the 4-part Mass for the 4th Sunday in Lent, I composed in 2011). So today I would like to provide a score for you of this piece.
In that page you will also find the same video but this time instead of seeing me and my assistant's back, you will see the score. I hope you can make use of it. It's not that difficult to play. It could be a nice addition for your Communion repertoire (not only for Lent). Also if you haven't seen it, please check out my free Veni Creator Spiritus (2010) score. By the way, do you want to learn my special powerful techniques which help me to master any piece of organ music up to 10 times faster? If so, download my video Organ Practice Guide. |
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Drs. Vidas Pinkevicius and Ausra Motuzaite-Pinkeviciene Organists of Vilnius University , creators of Secrets of Organ Playing. Our Hauptwerk Setup:
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