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As organists we often have play in public. It could be services, weddings, funerals, even recitals, concerts, and organ demonstrations. However, for some organists, to play in front of other people can be a real stress. As you know, if we practice at home or any other place alone, our feelings and performance level can be much different than if we play for others.
Some of my organ students even have nightmares about that (me too, by the way). Actually, my worst nightmare about organ playing is like that: I have to play a recital but the music on the music rack is absolutely unfamiliar to me. Another version of the same nightmare would be if I have to play some pieces from memory, but I don't even know how they start. Going back to this topic, people feeling stage fright or performance anxiety might get quite uncomfortable before performances. The hands start to shake, breathing becomes very shallow, a person might start thinking about the people in the audience, about their negative comments, about difficult places in some particular piece etc. Naturally all these thoughts and feelings might affect not only person's general condition but also quality level of the performance. So, if you are like me and have some performance anxiety what can you do about it? Is it possible to get rid of it entirely? I think as long it does not affect your playing, some anxiety might be a good thing. It gives you more focus and determination. Otherwise the playing might be too relaxed, even boring for others to hear. I think the level of performance anxiety might have something to do with the actual ability to play the music confidently and fluently. The better you will know the piece, the more confidence you will have in your playing, and consequently, the less stress you will feel. In addition, the performance anxiety might be reduced by mental focus. This does not mean that we have to try to exclude all external thoughts but instead we should strive to be in the moment. When playing some particular piece, try to shift your focus and attention from measure to measure. So the take away message from this article would be this: whatever piece you are working on right now, try to achieve the level of fluency when you could play it with precision and without mistakes at least three times in a row. Even try to memorize the music. Keep your focus on the current measure. Then when time comes to perform it in public, the performance anxiety will not affect you as much. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music.
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The road to achieving a high level in organ playing can be a lifelong journey. This is so because organist's profession requires a person to have many skills. That is why people studying at universities and conservatories to become organists need to take many different music classes. Although all of them are vitally important to the aspiring organist, there are four which I consider indispensable.
1. Organ Technique. In this field, we learn the basics of organ playing. These may include depression and release of keys, legato touch, finger independence, glissando playing, finger substitution etc. The same holds true to the pedal playing. This area of study involves playing specially designed exercises which develop specific organ technique. Some people do not consider the basics of organ technique very important and they start teaching organ with organ repertoire right from the beginning. I think that although this can be done, playing repertoire from the start might be sometimes too difficult for the beginner. However, the repertoire can be incorporated and mixed with the exercises quite successfully. 2. Organ Repertoire. This area, of course, involves practicing and performing many organ compositions from various national schools and historical periods. Because the organ repertoire is so vast (the earliest surviving music was composed about 700 years ago), every organist can learn something from it that is interested and useful. Naturally, the Bach organ works are the main emphasis of most organist's repertoire, but various other important schools need to be learned as well. For example, very popular among organists today are French Classical, French and German Romantic, North German Baroque, 20th century French repertoire. However, I think one can benefit from playing other lesser played composers from the Italian and Spanish Renaissance, English Baroque composers etc. 3. Organ Registration. Organists would not have sufficient skills, if they did not know the basics of organ registration. This involves knowing how to register specific types of organ composition, how to mix the stops, how to achieve balance between manuals and pedals, how to adjust historical registration practices to different modern organs etc. It is important for an organist to know how to make a good seamless crescendo, how to apply principles of terrace dynamic, how to make good use of the swell pedal etc. All these things can be learned if we study organ registration practices. 4. Sight-Reading. Organists also need to sight-read new repertoire pieces every day. This is the skill which will be very useful when organists have to accompany choirs or collaborate with other musicians. Without practicing sight-reading regularly, organists will have difficulty of reading and learning new music. It often happens that we are given new music to perform with choirs, ensembles, and soloists just a few days in advance (or less). If a person does not have good sight-reading skills, he or she might have much trouble and stress learning to play these new pieces fast. So you can see, how these four areas of study (organ technique, repertoire, registration, and sight-reading) are crucial, if the organist wants to be successful. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. Have you ever had a feeling that it is very hard to memorize music? Do you struggle to memorize a few measures and get stuck? Or if you memorize something and try to learn something new, you just can't remember the first fragment. Or you try to memorize the piece for weeks if not months and still it does work. Or you think you memorized something but when the time comes to play it public, something happens and you can't remember most of the piece.
If so, I know how you feel. It was even worse for me: I was so afraid to play a piece from memory that I started having nightmares about that. However, it all changed when I came across this simple and easy system that Marcel Dupre, the master French organist and composer used in his teaching. Dupre suggests that we subdivide the piece into fragments of 4 measures. Then the memorization is done in the following manner. First, learn measure 1. Just repeat it a few times in a slow tempo, perhaps 5 times looking at the score and 5 times without looking. Then learn measures 2, 3, and 4 this way. Always finish the fragment on the downbeat of the next measure. After learning these 4 measures separately, practice two measures at a time. Combine measures 1 and 2, 2 and 3, 3 and 4. Again, repeat them 5 to 10 times. Then practice fragments of three measures: 1, 2, and 3, and 2, 3, and 4. Only then master measures 1, 2, 3, and 4. Then take another fragment of 4 measures and learn them in the same manner. Remember to repeat the previous fragments before learning something new. After learning the piece in these fragments, you can combine 2 of them together and practice 8 measures at a time. Later, take 16 measures, and so forth. Of course, this method works very well not only for memorizing organ music but also for any other instrument as well. However, not all musical passages are equally difficult. Some are easier than the others. For example, if you try to memorize any fugue, you will notice right away that there are places where not all parts are present. This is especially true for the beginning of the piece. Then you will need to repeat the opening measures much less than others with full polyphonic texture. So we always have to adjust to the real situation. This system is so powerful, but at the same time so simple and easy to implement that if you use it, you will notice how much faster and easier the whole learning process will become. The fragments will stick together in larger blocks very easily and you will know the entire piece inside out. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. Playing organ pedals can be a challenging task. All these fast moving passages with our feet can give the organist much trouble and it can be frustrating to learn difficult pedal lines. However, there is one secret to overcome challenging pedal parts and develop a superb pedal technique.
Perhaps the most famous organist of the 20th century, the Frenchman Marcel Dupre once wrote that the secret to the perfect pedal technique is the flexibility of an ankle. Here I would like to tell you a little story about Dupre when he was a teenager. This story is of course related to pedal technique, as you will see. In his youth, Dupre used to practice a lot on the piano. If fact, the very first piano pieces that he learned was a collection called "Musical ABC". It consisted of as many little pieces as there are letters in the alphabet. So Dupre learned them all during one summer. When he started to play the organ, one time he cut one of his wrists on the broken glass. The cut was quite dangerous - only millimeters away from the main nerves of the hand. So for some months he could not play the organ with his hands. Did he gave it up? No, he started practicing the pedal playing. In fact, he was so furious that he could not play with his hands and as he wrote later, he started playing the pedals with vengeance. By the way, all these months he practiced pedal scales and arpeggios. He became so good at them that he could play any musical passage with his feet on the pedals. Later in his life, he even published a collection of all major and minor scales and arpeggios as a help for organists to perfect their pedal technique. Of course, we all know about how good are scales and arpeggios for our finger technique. Some people practice them regularly. However, pedal scales are underused, and not too many organists know their real value: they help to achieve the flexibility of an ankle. No wonder why organists of the French school develop an unbeatable pedal technique. We all have heard of French women organists playing with incredible high heels unbelievably hard pedal line with ease and elegance. This is how they achieve that level of mastery: they practice pedal scales. So this is the secret how to achieve a perfect pedal technique: practice pedal scales and arpeggios regularly and you will have no difficulty with your challenging pedal parts. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. Do you ever think about how much time it will take to reach the next level in organ playing? Of course, we all want to progress as fast as possible. We want to be able play those virtuoso organ pieces that master composers like Widor, Vierne, Franck, and others wrote. We wish to have the ability to master major polyphonic works by Bach and other Baroque composers.
So, what is the fastest way to achieve that level of competence? The answer to this is simple: slow, regular, and persistent practice. By slow, I mean we should practice pieces in a slow tempo. Even the fast tempo pieces should be practiced this way. The tempo will become easy if you will know the piece very well. There are various practice techniques that help achieve fast tempo but generally speaking, we have to take such practice tempo in which we would avoid making mistakes. In addition, we have to practice regularly. By regular practice, I mean that ideally we should practice every day. It does not always have to be two or more hours of practice, but try not to skip practicing. Even if you have only 20 minutes available, repeat the work that you practiced the day before and it will become a little better every time you practice it. There is a saying among organists, that if we skip one day without practice then only we notice it. If we don't practice for two days, then our friends will start noticing it. If we spend three days without practice, then everyone will notice it. Finally, it is important that we have persistance in practice. For example, what do we do if we find a challenging spot in the music and we make mistakes? There are three options: 1) correct the mistakes 2) play with mistakes 3) choose another piece Ideally, we should strive for option 1. And that often takes persistance. Very often we will get discouraged by the difficult places in a piece. We don't always see the solution very clearly. But if we have persistance, then we'll find the way out eventually. By the way, option 3 might be a good solution, if the piece is too difficult to play comparing with our current level of ability. So the fastest way to achieve higher level in organ playing would require slow, regular, and persistent practice. I sure hope you are practicing this way. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. Many pieces in the organ repertoire are so beautiful that sometimes we can't decide which one is our favorite for the moment. And often we have to practice several different pieces every day. This can happen if we prepare for a recital, church service, which might require prelude, offertory, communion, and postlude music.
Even if you play the organ just because you like it, it might be a good idea to practice several different compositions. I will explain why it is so. You see, because different historical periods, national schools, and composers require different performance practice techniques, playing different pieces every day will give you a benefit of diversifying your organ technique, too. One possible approach would be to take 4 compositions: one free work by Bach, one chorale work by Bach, one Romantic work (Mendelssohn, Brahms, Frank etc.), and one Modern work (Messiaen, Langlais, Distler, Hindemith etc.) The question then is: how to plan your practice time in order to learn these 4 works every day. First of all, you need to know how much time you can spend practicing your music every day. 2 hours a day of practice would be a reasonable amount of time. Working less than that would not give the results you want for these 4 pieces. By the way, this does not necessarily mean that you have to spend 2 actual hours at the organ. It can involve some time at the piano, or even working without the instrument, too. I would suggest practicing each piece for 30 minutes. In these 30 minutes, you can have time to do 2 things: 1) 10 minutes to practice and repeat the pages that you already have learnt before. 2) 20 minutes to learn new music from this piece. If you do this with all 4 compositions regularly, after some time you will get to the point when you will know them all together. Note, that if you want to play even more pieces every day, you have to spend more time practicing every day, too. In other words, if you have 10 compositions that you need to learn you will have to spend that much time every day practicing them. Of course, not all organ pieces have equal length and not all of them might have the same level of difficulty. Therefore, these numbers are relative. We have to adjust them to a real situation. It is possible to practice four or five pieces one day and another four or five the next day, too. That way we just alternate our repertoire every other day. So, would you like to be able to learn multiple organ pieces? Try this approach for yourself. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. Because organ repertoire is so vast (the earliest surviving music is from the 14th century), we might sometimes get overwhelmed by the variety of compositions, composers, national schools, types of compositions, and historical periods. In this case, our wishes might be too broad for the moment. One day we might want to play this, another day - that. By doing so, we might even lose our motivation to play the organ in the long run.
We can't achieve a quality performance by playing different pieces every day. What happens is that by doing so, we might develop reasonable sight-reading skills but our overall level will not be as high as if we create a strict practice routine or plan. If you want to succeed in organ playing, you need to have a plan. Just like any other activity organ playing requires thinking about our goals, strategies, and tactics to achieve a higher level. So, how do we create this plan for our organ practice? First of all, we need to think about our goals with organ playing. Where do we want to be in 2 months, in 6 months, in 1 year, or 5 years from now. Do we want to get a solid foundation of our organ technique? Or to find a good organist position? Or to be able to play a challenging but exciting organ piece of our choice. Or maybe to prepare for our organ recital? Because we are all different, our needs will be different, too. But we still need to think about our goals. When we know what we want to accomplish in x months from now, then we can begin to think about strategy to do that. For example, let's pretend I want to be able to play the famous Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor (or any other piece) in 8 weeks. In order to achieve that goal, my strategy might be something like this: I would need to spend 3 weeks by learning the piece, 1 week memorizing it and 4 more weeks perfecting it. Once I have the strategy in place, I can plan the tactics, too. This would mean I have to calculate how much time and effort I have to put in order to learn the piece in 3 weeks. Because this piece is about 9 pages long, I would need to learn 3 pages per week, or 0,5 page per day to meet my goal. So, would you like to create something like this for your own organ practice? Try this approach and you will have incredible clarity in what you need to do to achieve your goal. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. In this article, I would like to discuss the matter of finding the main principle how to practice and master any organ piece. If you know this principle, or secret, or method, you will have no difficulty in applying it to many different compositions regardless of the level of difficulty. If you practice but without being aware of this secret, then the chances to succeed are not as high.
Everyone wants to have the main method of practice so that it could be applied to various pieces. I think, the secret to this is simple: analyze the piece and practice in smaller units. I will give one example here. Let us imagine that we take a new and unfamiliar composition. How do we start to practice it? I think, it is a good idea to get familiar with the piece and sight-read it in a slow tempo. As we play it through, we have to try to notice a few things here. First, look at the form or the structure of the piece. How the piece is put together? Look especially for repetitions because they help us to perceive the form of the composition. Once we know the form of the piece, next step would be to analyze the tonal structure of it. Here try to look for cadences and answer the question what keys or tonalities are used in the piece. Once we know the tonal plan, try to think how the new keys are related to the starting key. For example, if the starting or the home key is C Major and the new key would be G Major that means that the relationship between the home key and the new key is a 5th scale degree or the Dominant. Now, if you have analyzed the piece and know the form and tonal structure of it, you can start practicing the music. Try to remember how many mistakes did you make when you first played it. If the entire piece was too difficult and we made more than 3 mistakes, then we have to practice in smaller units. It could be a fragment of 1 line, or 1-4 measures. Sometimes even that is too much and we are still making too many mistakes. In this case, we could play each voice separately of that fragment only quite slowly so that we avoid making mistakes. Later, play 2 voices combined. The next step would be combination of 3 voices. And only then we could attempt playing all parts together. Of course, later we have to play in larger units as well (1 line, 2 lines, 4 lines, 1 page, 2 pages etc.). If we practice smaller fragments first, this will become natural and easy. In other words, we will be ready to play a larger episode. By practicing this way, you can master any organ composition. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. Cesar Franck (1822 - 1890) was the composer, organist, and pedagogue of Belgian and German descent who lived in France. He is considered as one of the most influential figures of the late Romantic period in the second half of the 19th century. In 1858, he became the organist of the famous Basilica of Saint Clotilde where he worked until his death.
The first compositions of this composer were published only in 1868 when he was 46 years old. From 1872 until his death Franck was professor of organ at the Paris Conservatoire. Among the most famous of his students are Vincent d'Indy, Ernest Chausson, Louis Vierne and Henri Duparc. As an organist, Franck was mostly appreciated because of his notorious improvisational talent. Although he wrote only 12 major organ works, Franck is considered by many as the most important organ composer after J.S.Bach. His compositions layed the foundation of the French symphonic organ style. Among his organ compositions perhaps the most influential was Grande Piece Symphonique, which paved the way to the organ symphonies of Charles-Marie Widor, Louis Vierne, and Marcel Dupré. Piece heroique, M. 37 was composed for the organ of the concert hall of Trocadero. For this reason it is not a religious composition. It continues the tradition of Beethoven, Berlioz, and other Romantic composers. Two major thematically contrasting ideas dominate the piece: the first is written in minor (the heroic theme) and the other is in major (lyrical theme). At the beginning of the work, these two themes are presented one after the other. In the middle of the piece, these two different ideas have a musical fight. Franck develops the themes and reveals their true melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic potential. At the last major episode, or Recapitulation, both themes are brought back, only this time the second theme becomes a triumphant and is performed with a Tutti registration. Because of the clash of the two themes, this composition has many similarities with the Sonata form. However, in a classical sonata concept, at the exposition the second theme is presented in a secondary key, usually in the Dominant (or in the relative major). It is important to point out that both themes here first appear in the Tonic key of B minor. Nevertheless, Piece heroique fascinates listeners and organists because of its chromatic harmonic language, sudden modulations which explore the range of major-minor scale, and very balanced form. I use the most reliable scholarly Wayne Leupold edition of Franck's organ works which also includes a sixty-seven page preface including essays on Franck, the Organs, Touch, Rhythmic Alteration, Tempo, and Ornaments; twenty-nine pages of Interpretive and Critical Notes etc. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. Although the most popular of all organ toccatas by Johann Sebastian Bach is the legendary Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, perhaps even more masterful is the splendid and brilliant Toccata and Fugue in F Major, BWV 540.
This composition might have been created in Weimar when the true compositional style of a master composer was formed. Virtuosic Toccata and Fugue in F Major usually is a true technical and mental challenge for many skilled organists. If performed well, it is a real treat for every organ music lover and listener. Otherwise, it has the potential to create a sense boredom. The Toccata leaves the impression of a chase between voices and begins with a prolonged and playful two voice canon over a long tonic pedal point (Idea A). After this canon Bach writes another virtuosic episode - a pedal solo in the tonic key which leads to a cadence in the Dominant - C major. Now the voice parts switch places and the canon begins all over again, only this time in the Dominant key (C major). These two sections serve to establish both the Tonic and the Dominant keys and have a function, similar to the North German Passaggio in a Praeludium. After this episode, the chase stops but all voices begin a long and tiring journey (for the performer, that is) through various related keys in descending and ascending sequences (Idea B based on arpeggio figure). Through the course of this Toccata, canonic idea A and sequential idea B alternate and create an intriguing structural balance. In developing the idea A, Bach evidently shows his mastery of a double and sometimes even triple invertible counterpoint at the interval of an octave. This basically is a technique allowing voice switching. It only works if the composer uses the suitable intervals (most of the time thirds and sixths, avoiding fifths which in inversion become a forbidden fourth). Suspensions of a second and seventh are welcomed in this technique, too. Because of repeating two musical ideas, this Toccata shows the influence of the Italian Ritornello form. Bach learned to use this form in Weimar from transcribing for keyboard the concertos of Vivaldi and his contemporaries. The fugue, on the other hand, provides a welcomed relaxation for the organist from the technical point of view. However, Bach provides another challenge, e.g. old-fashioned "Palestrina" style fugue with alla breve meter (cut-time) in Style antico (the old style). This is a double fugue, which means that a composer has to develop two musical themes. Both of the themes must work in invertible counterpoint with each other. In the exposition and counter-exposition of the first theme, Bach develops the solemn, slow, and vocal musical idea in all four voices. The second theme appears to be playful, dance-like, which reminds of a Baroque dance Gavotte. During this section, the pedal part remains silent and waits its entrance until the powerful combination of both themes towards the close of a fugue. While listening of the fugue in this wonderful video, feel free to count the number of appearances of the first theme. I recommend using the New Bach Edition for playing this piece. It is reliable and solid. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" here: http://www.organduo.lt/organ-tutorial.html |
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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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