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

Three Part Sinfonia No. 10 in G Major, BWV 796 by J.S. Bach with complete fingering

5/15/2019

Would you like to master Three Part Sinfonia No. 10 in G Major, BWV 796 by J.S. Bach?

I have created this score with the hope that it will help my students who love early music to recreate articulate legato style automatically, almost without thinking.

Thanks to Jeremy Owens for his meticulous transcription of fingering from the slow motion video.

Basic level. PDF score. 2 pages.

Check it out here

This score is free for Total Organist students.

Organ videos from Malta

5/14/2019

A few days ago I returned from my concert trip to Malta and today I'd like to share with you my organ videos.

I would like to thank my Total Organist student Ronald Camilleri, the organist of St John's Co-Cathedral who made this trip possible. He was very generous and kind in introducing me to the exciting Maltese culture, cuisine, scenery and language.

Here is the video of entire recital. And here are the videos that Ronald made: my Veni Creator Spiritus, Op. 3 (2010) and improvisation.

If you'd like to look inside St John's Co-Cathedral, I think you will enjoy this short video too.

Also check out more photos of this trip in these posts:

My 1st Day in Valletta, Malta
My 2nd Day in Valletta, Malta
My 3rd Day in Valletta, Malta
Leaving Valletta, Malta

Winners of Secrets of Organ Playing Contest Week 19

5/13/2019

Thank you everyone for participating! You all made us very happy with your entries.@laputis and I selected the following winners. You can congratulate them here:

https://steemit.com/@organduo/winners-of-secrets-of-organ-playing-contest-week-19

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Secrets of Organ Playing Contest Week 20

5/13/2019

Have you ever wanted to start to practice on the organ but found yourself sidetracked after a few days? Apparently your inner motivation wasn't enough.

I know how you feel. I also was stuck many times. What helped me was to find some external motivation as well.

In order for you to advance your organ playing skills and help you motivate to practice, my wife Ausra - @laputis and I invite you to join in a contest to submit your organ music and win some Steem.

Are you an experienced organist? You can participate easily. Are you a beginner? No problem. This contest is open to every organ music loving Steemian.

Here are the rules

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Three Part Sinfonia No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 788 by J.S. Bach with complete fingering

5/12/2019

Would you like to master Three Part Sinfonia No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 788 by J.S. Bach?

I have created this score with the hope that it will help my students who love early music to recreate articulate legato style automatically, almost without thinking.

Thanks to Gerrit Jordaan for his meticulous transcription of fingering from the slow motion video.

Basic level. PDF score. 1 page.

Check it out here

This score is free for Total Organist students.

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SOPP436: I am working hard on the pedal parts of every piece I practice

5/11/2019

Vidas: Hi, guys, this is Vidas.

Ausra: And Ausra.

V: Let’s start episode 436, of Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast. This question was sent by Ruth, and she writes:

I am working hard on the pedal parts of every piece I practice. I do this at a large organ in a local church. I isolate the parts first and listen carefully and repeat. I then attempt to memorize, although that is s long process. All of this is a labor of love.

V: So, Ruth is our Total Organist student, and how do you understand her expression, ‘all of this is labor of love’?

A: I guess she just likes what she’s doing.

V: Mmm.

A: She really loves to practice pedals.

V: Mmm-hmm. Pedal parts are usually the hardest for beginners. I don’t know if she’s a beginner, but people who haven’t played organ before, pedals are especially difficult challenge to overcome and I think she does a good job of working on pedal parts more than on manuals, probably. Agree?

A: Yes, I think so. Usually pedal is what scares people the most when talking about organ playing, but I think after we manage it, I think it’s one of the part that gives most of the pleasure.

V: Do you isolate pedal parts from your manual voices, or not, when you practice?

A: Not so much now, but…

V: Mmm-hmm.

A: I did it when I just started to learn organ.

V: It all probably depends on the level where you are at.

A: True!

V: If you are a good sight reader, then isolating pedal parts requires, maybe, in especially polyphonic pieces, like fugues and trio sonatas.

A: Yes. That’s what I wanted to point out that it depends on what kind of music. If it’s harmonic, then I do not separate pedals, but if it’s polyphonic then yes, it’s a good idea to work in combinations.

V: Mmm-hmm. Interesting that Ruth is memorizing those parts. What would you recommend, Ausra, to memorize, and would you memorize yourself?

A: Well, there are some tricky spots that I tend to memorize…

V: Mmm-hmm.

A: it helps me. But not the entire piece.

V: And, I would presume, your stance on this is because there are so many musical compositions to work on in the entire organ literature, and memorizing all of them that you play, would be very slow learning process…

A: True!

V: not worth, for you. Right?

A: And usually I memorize either very tricky spots, or I memorize two last measures of the page and first two measures of the next page.

V: Uh-huh. Why?

A: That way if the page-turner is not very well organized, and slow, that way you can be secure.

V: Mmm-hmm. Sometimes page-turner turns the page from right to left, and from left to right, and vice-versa and mistakenly panics and makes a mess.

A: Or turns two pages at the same time.

V: Oh, yeah!

A: So, we have all kind of fun adventures.

V: Therefore, it’s good to memorize page turns—a couple of measures before and after. I also agree. I tend to print out my scores that way that I could myself turn the pages, but sometimes it’s even not possible, and therefore, I have to rely on page-turners as well. Interesting situation. Okay guys, we hope this was useful to you. Please send us more of your questions. We love helping you grow. And remember, when you practice…

V: Miracles happen!

Andante Sostenuto by Ch.-M. Widor with complete fingering and pedaling

5/10/2019

Would you like to master Andante Sostenuto by Ch.-M. Widor from Symphonie Gothique with complete fingering and pedaling?

I have created this score with the hope that it will help my students who love French symphonic music to recreate legato style automatically, almost without thinking.

Thanks to Juan Osorno for his meticulous transcription of fingering from the slow motion video.
Intermediate level. PDF score. 4 pages.

Check it out here

This score is free for Total Organist students.

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SOPP433: When I am doing the hymn improvisation, should I think in 3rds and 6ths or should I think harmonically?

5/9/2019

Vidas: Hi guys! This is Vidas.

Ausra: And Ausra.

V: Let’s start episode 433 of Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast. This question was sent by Ariane. And she writes:

When I am doing the hymn improvisation, should I think in 3rds and 6ths or should I think harmonically?

V: Ariane is our Total Organist student, and obviously she practices Organ Hymn Improvisation Mastercourse Level 1. And at some point, she has to add a counterpoint to the hymn tune in the right hand or in the left hand. And usually, this is done in the sweet sounding intervals, thirds and sixths. Well, sometimes, fifths and octaves, but they have to be used sparingly because of danger of employing parallel perfect intervals like fifths and octaves, so therefore, thirds and sixths are most common obviously, in tonal music, for two parts. So, she asks about the concept itself. Ausra, do you think that it needs to be done harmonically, or thinking about intervals? First of all, explain what do I mean by harmonically?

A: You mean that you would need to think about chord functions. Like tonic, subdominant, dominant, and all those inversions, and you know, all the other various chords. And if we are talking about counterpoint, then definitely you need to think in the intervals.

V: Mm hm.

A: Because I cannot imagine how you would think in functional harmony, we are talking about counterpoint. Because counterpoint, guys, that’s polyphonic compositional technique. Before tonal harmony. So, making good intervals was a crucial point in the counterpoint. And if you would talk about chords, you would talk about later developed techniques. Then you know, music is small harmonic, and not polyphonic so much.

V: I think my opinion is also similar to yours. I would just expand a little bit. When you have just two voices, obviously, you will think intervals. When we have three or more voices, then the chords are produced, and you would think tonally and harmonically. But, if you analyze a piece of Sweelinck, bicinium, right, for two hands, for two voices, soprano and bass. I’m quite positive that when you see sweet sounding thirds and sixths, you could imagine some chords, you know, at least to some extent. Not always maybe, but sometimes you could think, oh, this is tonic, this is dominant. But not always, I think, especially for that period.

A: I think it comes a little bit later, let’s say in Bach, and even in the most complicated Bach fugues, you already can, you know, hear chords all the time, and think functionally.

V: But you know why this is the case…

A: But not always in Sweelinck.

V: Exactly. Because Sweelinck’s counterpoint is more vocal still. And when you sing melodies based on the Renaissance style, you don’t have a lot of leaps. I mean, when you have leaps, then you have to compensate those leaps with stepwise motion, in the Renaissance music. But in the Baroque music, let’s say, string playing was most prevalent. And the string technique allowed more arpeggios. And this arpeggio technique transferred to the keyboard writing as well. So what we see in Bach’s counterpoint, even if it’s created for two voices, you could see some chords, because the second voice jumps up and down, creating arpeggios, based on chords. So it depends, Ariane, obviously, on the style, what you are using, right. But at first I would recommend, and Ausra would join in with her recommendation, to think about intervals first.

A: Yes, especially if you have only two voices. Then you just have intervals.

V: Mm hm. Maybe later in the course, when you need to move in, let’s say, sixteenth notes. Not eighth notes, but sixteenth notes. So, four notes against one. You might have some arpeggios. And therefore, thinking in chords would be already possible. Or even, six notes against one, like sextuplets. That would be even faster movement. I guess this is more advanced stage.

A: True.

V: For chordal thinking. Tonal and harmonic thinking. But at first, you have to be really comfortable with instantaneously deciding what kind of interval you want to play, and what kind of note would that be. You know, if you have to think about what is this interval, and there is some delay in your thinking between thinking and playing, then you are not fluent, right Ausra?

A: True.

V: It has to be instantaneous. How to check this, Ausra, in the score, if you’re looking on the page of music, if you can’t instantaneously say what kind of interval is between two voices, then you need to work on that fluency more.

A: True. That’s how my theory professor at Eastern Michigan would say. If you are looking at the interval and you have to think what the interval is, it means you don’t know that interval. Because fluency is all that counts.

V: Yes. You might know it mentally, but you cannot apply it in practice.

A: That’s right. Because tempo, fast tempo is really important. Fast tempo of your thinking, I mean, not of your playing.

V: Mm hm. And we are developing, not compositional techniques here, when you can sit down at the table, think about it, write something correctly or incorrectly, play on the instrument, see if it sounds right, then adjust it – we are not doing this technique, right? We are trying to help you grow your instantaneous, spontaneous playing, right? Thinking while playing, that’s what we’re doing.

A: That’s right.

V: Creating while performing. Thank you guys. This was Vidas.

A: And Ausra.

V: Please send us more of your questions. We love helping you grow. And remember, when you practice,

A: Miracles happen.

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Three Part Sinfonia No. 1 in C Major, BWV 787 by J.S. Bach with complete fingering

5/8/2019

Would you like to master Three Part Sinfonia No. 1 in C Major, BWV 787 by J.S. Bach?

I have created this score with the hope that it will help my students who love early music to recreate articulate legato style automatically, almost without thinking.

Thanks to Alan Peterson for his meticulous transcription of fingering from the slow motion video.

Basic level. PDF score. 1 page.

Check it out here

This score is free for Total Organist students.

DON'T MISS A THING! FREE UPDATES BY EMAIL.

Coming to Malta

5/7/2019

I'm flying to Malta right now to play a recital at St John's Co-Cathedral on Thursday night. Will be back home on Friday evening. I appreciate your patience with my slower communication during that time.

Hope to record a video of the concert and share it later.

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