Blog Archives - secrets of organ playing - when you practice, miracles happen

Ideas

4/30/2016

Somebody asked me
where I get my ideas
for my drawings and comic strips.
Are they autobiographical?
Are they taken from the lives of others?

My drawings and comics serve me
as a tool to capture ideas that come to me
in various ways throughout the day
because my biggest regret is
when I forget the idea and don't take action on it.

One only has to keep
one's eyes and ears open and ideas come.
Good or bad.
It doesn't matter.
I don't know the worth of the idea until I share it.

All of us come up with at least
one interesting idea during the day.
The question is then what do we do
with this idea when it pops up in our mind?

Usually, we choose to do nothing,
we let it disappear.
But on a good day we act,
on a good day we share.

[Thanks to Leon]

Ausra's Harmony Exercise:
Modulation from D Major to G Major: I-V65-I=V-V7-vi-IV65+-I64-V-V7-I-IV64-IV64--I

Perfect pitch

4/29/2016

Is perfect pitch needed for an organist?
This is the question I hear asked a lot.

What is perfect pitch, by the way?
They say one has perfect pitch
when one can say
which note is being played exactly.
You can play in any octave with any instrument -
this person would tell you right away.

There's no question that this skill
is fun and helpful to have.
But it can be a blessing and a curse:
not every organ is tuned like a piano.
Some might sound half-step or more higher,
some - half-step or more lower.

An organist with perfect pitch
would hear a completely different key, right?
It's quite disturbing,
unless you play this instrument yourself -
the strange feeling disappears
and you adjust your hearing right away.

What is more important than perfect pitch
is the skill to tell the meaning of the notes -
the keys, the cadences, the modulations, or the sequences.

That's far more useful
than perfect pitch to any musician
because you can tell not only
what you are hearing but also
why these notes are there.

Nonetheless, I know quite a few of musicians
who brag about having perfect pitch
but are clueless about
how the piece is put together.

And frankly there isn't any useful way
of explaining to them
what they're missing either.

I guess if you were a gold fish
and you would be put in a round aquarium,
your entire world would be round, right?

Ausra's Harmony Exercise:
Chromatic Sequence in D Minor: i-V64-i6

Articulate legato

4/28/2016

Articulate legato traditionally was called
the Ordinary Touch in the Baroque period.
Composers seldom wrote in articulation marks in the scores.
Instead, everyone knew how to perform -
all the notes should be slightly separated
unless notated otherwise.

The distance should not be wide,
just enough to hear the articulation.
Bach referred to such manner of playing
as Cantabile style.

It's like playing a violin -
we don't hear the rests between the notes
but the bow is moved up and down.

Wind instruments also have this tonguing technique -
a silent "tee" is made
when the tongue strikes the reed or roof of the mouth
causing a slight breach in the air flow through the instrument.

That's why we use articulate legato
when playing early music on the organ.

Ausra's Harmony Exercise:
Chromatic Sequence in F Major: I-V64-I6

Pianistic habits

4/27/2016

One of my best organ students is a strong pianist too.
He almost doesn't have any technical problems
and he can play whatever he wants with pedals.
But the thing which is still underdeveloped
is his sense of organ touch.

Too often I find him lifting the fingers off the keyboard.
Too often he releases the chords not together.
This is especially obvious in middle voices.

In piano playing it's not so easy to notice
but the organ, especially the tracker instrument is unforgiving.
When I said to him that his pianistic habits are stalking him,
he agreed and promised me to keep an extra eye on it.

The thing is, he often practices organ pieces on the piano.
This is fine except when he forgets it's an organ, not a piano.

So here's my advice to all of the pianists who play the organ:
Try to imitate the organ touch you get on piano.
Avoid making dynamics and play mezzo piano.
Keep a contact with the keyboard at all times.
This will help you get rid of the pianistic habits
when you play the organ..

Ausra's Harmony Exercise:
Diatonic Sequence in E Minor: V6-i

Megabytes

4/26/2016

Has your church sold an old pipe organ
which required money for repair
which the church didn't have
and bought a new electronic substitute?

I feel sorry that your church
didn't raise enough funds required
for its keeping in the old place.

Maybe the organist didn't earn
enough trust of the congregation
when there was a chance.

Or maybe the congregation
were the wrong people
to earn trust from?

Whatever the case, not enough people cared.

Despite all those technical innovations
digital organ lacks a soul
and that's something you can't replace
no matter how megabytes
will go into it's memory for the sound of one pipe.

Try to treat it as pipe organ though:
Avoid artificial transposition
and do that transposing yourself.
Avoid using Manual Bass button
as your foot technique will slowly decay.

These skills will serve you well in the future
when you will have an opportunity
to play a real pipe organ somewhere else.

[Thanks to David]

Ausra's Harmony Exercise:
Diatonic Sequence in G Major: V6-I

Change the mode

4/25/2016

My student improvised for me
and our "Unda Maris" organ studio.
Seeing that her playing lacked direction I suggested,
"Take only one mode,
say Pentatonic - all black keys -
and improvise something interesting."

We set the timer for two minutes
and she began to play in a Pentatonic mode.
As time passed by,
I observed the reaction of my other students.
For about 90 seconds they seemed to be absorbed by the music,
they could hardly blink.
But then something happened
and their focus was lost.

When the student finished playing,
I suggested to her,
"Change the mode or the texture or the rhythm
no later than after about 90 seconds."

It's like in a good action-oriented movie -
every bit is somewhere between 15 and 90 seconds long.

The general rule of thumb is this:
If it's starting to be boring,
it's already too late to do something about it.
Make a change when it's still interesting.

That's how you keep listeners glued to your improvisations.

Ausra's Harmony Exercise:
Modulation from A Minor to F major: i-ii42-V65-i=iii-IV-IV+65-I64-V-V7/6-I

Parenting and organ playing

4/24/2016

Welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast #39!

How to balance parenting and organ playing? Listen to my conversation with Dr. Heather Hernandez, an organist from Phoenix, Arizona.

Ausra's Harmony Exercise:
Modulation from A Minor to F major: i-ii42-V65-i=iii-IV-IV+65-I64-V-V7/6-I

Third hand?

4/23/2016

How many hands
does an organist have?

Many think that two
but Samuel Scheidt wrote
that both feet should be treated
as a third hand.

This makes sense
when you think that
in every chorale setting
or a hymn
the feet could play
any voice in the appropriate range,
be it the bass with 16',
the tenor with 8',
the alto with 4',
or even the soprano with 2'.

Ausra's Harmony Exercise:
Modulation from C Major to A Minor: I-ii42-V65-I=III-iv-iv+65-i64-V-V7/6-i

The case for heels

4/22/2016

My organist friend doesn't like heels.
He always pounds the pedals with his toes.
Whatever the style of music,
his technique is exactly the same -
always staccato in the bass.

Why does he play like this, you might ask?
I guess somebody at the early start
didn't do the job of earning his trust
of convincing him to use correct technique.

Or perhaps he was taught correctly
but the daily routine of church playing crept in
and he didn't find enough courage
to think harder about the choices
of pedaling he had to make.

Is there a hope for this student
to make a transition into a better technique?

Not until he feels
that the pain required to change his current technique
is lesser than the benefits associated with the results
this change will provide.

Ausra's Harmony Exercise:
Transposing Sequence in Eb Major: I-iii-IV-V

Do not look down

4/21/2016

I once observed a student play the organ:
His head was down all the time -
it was evident he had to look at the pedals constantly.

Was he afraid to pound the wrong note?
Was he unfamiliar with the instrument?

I think he formed a habit gradually
by practicing this way day in and day out.

Can you form a new habit?
Can you resist the temptation to look down?

For starters try implementing
pedal preparation technique
as often as you can.

This is one of the keys to
perfect pedal technique.

Ausra's Harmony Exercise:
Chord Progression in F# Minor: i-i7-iv-ii65-i64-V7-i

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Peter Jones: Having your own organ at home = regular practice!