Category: Composing Organ Music

Thinking in Sound No. 6 - Composing Trumpet Tunes

2/11/2026

Welcome to the 6th episode of my new podcast "Thinking in Sound"! Today I will discuss the idea of composing trumpet tunes because I want to start such project soon. Hope you will enjoy my thoughts!

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SOPP748: How do you choose your keys for your pieces?

10/8/2025

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Welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast episode 748! Today's question was sent by our friend Rien Schalkwijk and he writes:

How do you choose your keys for your recent piece for instance. And how do you choose the modulations in a piece? Next to that I’m intrigued by the style from Ausra where she uses a different key every few bars but it still sounds so smooth.

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SOPP737: Do you also compose for others, after their wishes?

7/23/2025

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Let's start episode 737 of Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast. This question was sent by Kathrin and she writes:

Do you also compose for others, after their wishes? Do you get such requests sometimes? For what instruments do you compose beside the organ or piano?

Hope you will enjoy the conversation!

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SOPP735: Ausra, is your technique for composing the same as Vidas?

7/9/2025

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Let's start episode 735 of Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast. This question was sent by Dawn and she asks:

Ausra, is your technique for composing the same as Vidas?

Hope you will enjoy this conversation!

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SOPP638: As you know, I am not 'original' in my writing as I recognize everything I create is derivative - a fusion of everything I have ever heard or played

2/17/2021

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Vidas: Hello and welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast!

Ausra: This is a show dedicated to helping you become a better organist.

V: We’re your hosts Vidas Pinkevicius...

A: ...and Ausra Motuzaite-Pinkeviciene.

V: We have over 25 years of experience of playing the organ

A: ...and we’ve been teaching thousands of organists online from 89 countries since 2011.

V: So now let’s jump in and get started with the podcast for today.

A: We hope you’ll enjoy it!

V: Hi guys! This is Vidas.

A: And Ausra.

Vidas: Let’s start episode 638 of Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast. This question was sent by Graham, and he comments on my recording of the practice session of his Idyll. So he writes,:

“Wonderful, Vidas! It was written in the summer of 2020 during the first lockdown of the Covid pandemic. I saw a competition advertised for a meditative piece for organ and this composition appeared nearly instantly! I do love Erik Satie's 'Gymnopedies' (I have heard you play No 2 on the organ!) and there is a strong French impressionist influence in this piece. It came together remarkably quickly from an initial improvisation to the finished composition as I was very near the deadline for submitting for the competition. As you know, I am not 'original' in my writing as I recognize everything I create is derivative - a fusion of everything I have ever heard or played. I love the music of Cole Porter and George Gershwin and Irving Berlin . . . so there is a trace of those songsters deep inside the piece as well. It sounds gorgeous on the Salisbury Willis - a sound I never expected to hear. THANK YOU!”

Vidas: So Ausra, do you remember me playing this piece?

Ausra: Yes, I remember it. Sweet little slow meditative piece.

Vidas: Idyll. It’s like a pastoral scene from an antiquity time with lots of nature and maybe some animals.

Ausra: I think it really fits the Salisbury organ very well.

Vidas: Yeah, I enjoyed playing it. So what Graham writes in response to the style, did you hear Erik Satie’s influence here?

Ausra: Yes, a little bit, yes!

Vidas: The triple meter is kind of similar to Satie’s Gymnopedies (here is the score of organ arrangement of Gymnopedie No. 1). I don’t know how to pronounce it either. So yeah. I wonder if it’s difficult to create or improvise a piece like this, Ausra!

Ausra: I think it depends on everybody’s skills!

Vidas: So as a harmony teacher, what do you hear when you listen to this piece?

Ausra: Well, as far as I have heard Erik Satie’s Gymnopedies, and I used to play them on piano, at least a few of them, they are strongly influenced by Jewish music, or at least that’s what I thought when I was working on them and when I heard them played. You played them on the organ. And of course in this Grahams piece, Idyll, I don’t hear that Jewish influence. At least not that remarkable. What do you think about that?

Vidas: By Jewish you mean special modes, right? Special intervals in the scale… augmented intervals. Right?

Ausra: Yes, and of course the minor keys.

Vidas: No, probably most similar this with Satie’s work stem from the triple meter in my mind. But other than that, it’s like a major key, idyllic character, slow moving tempo, and in general a very gentle rocking sort of feeling. It’s like a little bit… remember we played this piece by Ad Wammes about the boat.

Ausra: Yes, I remember it very well.

Vidas: Something about the lake, summertime, breeze…

Ausra: Yes there was sort of a like a suite out of like four movements.

Vidas: And one of them was probably in triple meter, too. So I imagine lying on the bottom of a small boat in the middle of the lake on a hot summer day, and this boat gently rocks back and forth. I can hear water splashing on it, on the sides of the boat, and maybe some sounds from nature, you know, gentle breeze blowing, also. Sort of idyllic vacation feeling. Do you like this feeling?

Ausra: Yes, especially now when it’s really cold outside. I would wish it would be summer and I could be on the lake!

Vidas: Do you usually spend your vacations like that on the bottom of the boat?

Ausra: Well, actually no, I don’t own the boat, so…

Vidas: Yeah, it’s new to me, but I can just imagine how it would look. Looking, obviously, up to the sky, right, when you lie on the bottom of the boat. It’s a good feeling. Could this piece work as a liturgical music, too?

Ausra: Of course. You could play it for communion. It wouldn’t hurt, definitely.

Vidas: Even though it’s not based on any preexisting chorale melody or hymn tune. But the gentle character fits the liturgy well; especially for communion, maybe offertory, maybe at the beginning, too, for gathering, as a prelude. Right?

Ausra: Maybe it’s too soft for a prelude.

Vidas: Why too soft?

Ausra: You would want something louder in order to quiet people who are walking downstairs.

Vidas: Oh, you mean like Brenda?

Ausra: Yes.

Vidas: Tell us about it!

Ausra: I think I already told about it a few times, about that comic strip that I saw when we were back as students at UNL, and there was an old lady in that drawing who actually had a hunting rifle, and she was sort of silencing the crowd for her prelude with a gun!

Vidas: Right. That’s probably very symptomatic of the situation before the service in any church. Right? People gather and they talk, they haven’t seen each other for a week, probably, or longer, so any music that is played before the service is not on their radar just yet. Just like, obviously, the postlude after the service.

Ausra: Yes, you finish the postlude and there is nobody left in the church. Everybody is having coffee.

Vidas: And if you are playing a fugue as a postlude, then voices are enter one by one, and people leave one by one, which is not true. Right?

Ausra: I think it’s nice that at least some people stay to listen the postlude and they applaud after that.

Vidas: I was just going to say that people do not actually leave one by one, but they tend to leave in droves. Excellent. Shall we wish Graham to keep creating?

Ausra: Sure! I think it’s a real gift if you can compose music, so just keep doing that.

Vidas: And to make your pieces available, because it’s really hard to get! You have to write an email to the composer and the composer has to write you back with the score. It’s obviously complicated to both the would-be-performer and to the composer. It should be frictionless. I suggested that he could upload it to Sheet Music Plus and he could sell those scores, but Graham wanted for people to have them for free, so why not upload them to IMSLP like Petrucci Music Library?

Ausra: Yes, I think that’s a great idea.

Vidas: And it would be free, available instantly for anyone.

Ausra: That way maybe more organists would get access to it and would perform it more often.

Vidas: Yes, for this, we really hope this will happen in 2021. And please send us more of your questions if you have about the composition process, about performance issues that you encounter in the works you play for perhaps, we would like to help you out. And remember, when you practice,

Ausra: Miracles happen.

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SOPP516: Paul Ayres on His Organ Music

10/27/2019

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Composing, Unda Maris and harmony

10/1/2019

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I'm in my car right now, parked just outside the cultural center of the university and waiting for our secret training session to begin. They said, "Don't wear high heels..." Not sure why. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

This week my main focus will be on composing "Puer natus est nobis" for organ duet, sight-reading new music, playing organ duets with Ausra, starting to practice Toccata by Paul Ayres, going to a couple long training sessions at the cultural center today and tomorrow, having Unda Maris organ studio rehearsal, interviewing my former organ professor Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra for the podcast, recording another organ demonstration for art students with sound experiments, preparing for Saturday's Harmony class and recital of my colleague at the church. This recital will be dedicated to the 150 anniversary of Lithuanian composer, organist and choir conductor Juozas Naujalis. I need to check if the posters are all printed out and prepare program notes.

And of course I will be writing blog posts, creating podcasts and drawing Pinky and Spiky comics.

Now I have to run to this secret training session because it will be starting in a few moments. I'm glad I'm not wearing my high heels today, haha!

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Composing, submitting and playing duets

9/28/2019

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In the morning I worked on composing my new piece for organ duet "Puer natus est nobis." Yesterday I had all the material composed but today I noticed the middle part lacked interest, so I re-did it again into a fast-paced section. Will need to work on simplifying and clarifying the notation later on.

Then I submitted our letter of intent of participating at the international organ festival in Anyksciai and Ausra and I sight-read Tarantella Dementa by Carson Cooman. After lunch we again played another duet by Cooman and I drew a Pinky and Spiky comic on my 18th notebook.

Later we watched Hunger Games on TV. Parts 1 and 2.

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Making it sound interesting

9/28/2019

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This week I've been struggling with creating an interesting piece for organ duet. I find that it's difficult to control the texture when writing for four hands and four feet. When you make an interesting texture, it's possible to lose yourself in it and forget the flow of time, forget how the listeners would perceive it in motion.

For example, at first, I created a piece with one eighth note motion flow. It seemed interesting enough. But it went for 5 and a half minutes. The rule about keeping interest going is to change something before it gets boring. Usually it's less than 2 minutes.

It's like scenes in movies. One scene usually lasts about 1 minute, sometimes up to 2 minutes. Of course, there are slow movies with long scenes but they are a separate breed.
So I today thought about inserting a middle section in the piece. This had to add contrast. How about a smaller note values? Maybe 16th notes.

And sure enough now my piece has 3 sections, like in ABA form - eighth-notes, 16th notes and eighth notes again.

It doesn't mean this piece will be interesting when I finish it though. It just means I eliminated just one problem.

Quite a few more to go.

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SOPP367: Does it take three times the knowledge of music to be able to compose?

1/6/2019

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First of all, I want to remind everyone who is planning to enter our Secrets of Organ Playing Contest Week 1 that less than 24 hours are left to submit your entry. We already have the first contest entry. Congratulations @savagirl4! The future belongs to the brave and curious.

And now let's go to the podcast for today.

Vidas: Hi guys, this is Vidas.

Ausra: And Ausra.

V: Let’s start episode 367, of Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast. This question was sent by Leon. And, he writes:

Galsworthy encouraged Streatfeild to know three times more than she needed to about whatever she chose to write. Does it take three times the knowledge of music to be able to compose?

V: So this question Ausra, is taken from our correspondence with Leon, and he sent me a link to the biography of an English author, Mary Noel Streatfeild, who is best known for her children’s book, including the ‘Shoes’ Book. And this citation which John Galsworthy, English novelist and playwright, that wrote the Forsyte Saga, basically suggests that Galsworthy recommended for Streatfeild to read three times as much as she writes as a writer, right? To read more than you would write. It makes sense, actually, right? You cannot really write anything of value if you are not knowledgeable about your field. You have to get expertise by reading many books.

A: True and you have to increase your vocabulary.

V: I just wrote to him that for example, Voltaire recommended reading 100 books in order to be able to write one. So it was maybe different area, different, maybe background. He was maybe talking about encyclopedic knowledge, not necessarily life experiences. But Leon is wondering about how it relates or translates to musical composition.

A: Well, it’s obviously that since very early times, composers studied each others music. Think about young Bach, what he did when he copied the scores from his brothers library, at night in secret. It means that it meant a lot to him and he learned a lot from those scores. Because can you imagine just writing by your hand, copying all those scores? It’s a long process.

V: And by this process, that was one of the main exercises to learn copying…

A: Sure.

V: Other composers music.

A: And I think now we are missing this much because we are not copying by hand and sometimes it’s probably would be a nice thing to copy something by hand.

V: I actually did…

A: Just really internalize it.

V: I copied C major invention by Bach. Taken not from modern edition but from his handwriting.

A: Mmm-hmm.

V: Just for fun, you know, like, Pamela is also very, Pamela Ruiter–Feentra, our former professor, is very enthusiastic about copying by hand so, she knows the value because she did the research about Bach and improvisation. So then, I thought maybe I could also try copying just one to see. I didn’t notice any miracles happening right away, but maybe that’s because it was just a single piece.

A: You need to write down, to rewrite and copy all of his inventions. Anyway...

V: Yes.

A: Now I think we have all this modern technique that allows us to copy easily things.

V: Too easily.

A: Yes. Too easily.

V: Mmm-hmm. Things get too fast for us.

A: Yes. But now I think that it would be very beneficial if many young composers would try to study other composers as well not just create their own music. Because what is happening right now in Lithuania, maybe in other countries too, that there are so much more people who are creating music and composing music, that it’s sort of like a new fashion.

V: Really?

A: Really. Because, like in our school, earlier, we would have very little students who will study composition. But now it’s almost like a, I don’t know, infectious disease.

V: You mean like a fashion?

A: Yes, like a fashion. Let’s say if you are incapable of playing instrument well, or you are incapable of doing something in the music well, ‘oh, okay, I’ll be a composer’. That’s a new fashion and it’s just bad and it makes me really sick and upset and I think it’s a very, very, very bad thing—very bad tendency.

V: You know what they say, Ausra, ‘those who cannot play, create. Those who cannot create, teach. Those who cannot teach, criticize’. (Laughs)

A: Well, I guess there might be some part of truth of each of the saying, maybe not entirely true but there is certain true about it. And I cannot force myself to perform a music, by let’s say by a contemporary so-called composer that I cannot respect—that I know that let’s say he or she or whatever, cannot do something for themselves with the music. Because I know instances for example, people who have no, or I would say, a man who has no musical pitch…

V: Mmm-hmm.

A: Composes. And believe me, I have heard these stories both in the United States and in Lithuania as well.

V: Mmm-mmm.

A: Because now we have all wonderful technology, all this music systems, Sibelius and so on and so forth, that any of us can compose.

V: It’s a double edge sword, or knife.

A: But do I really need to spend my time, to waste my time of learning a composition that is written by somebody that…

V: Cannot perform.

A: True.

V: Cannot play.

A: And cannot hear what he or she writes.

V: Uh-huh. By hearing you mean that they need to play back the music to them in order to hear it. They don’t hear it inside their head.

A: Not only that, I’m not talking only about inner pitch, I’m talking about musical pitch at all.

V: Really?

A: Yes. In general.

V: So serious then.

A: It’s very serious. It’s really serious, so now when talking about contemporary composers you really need to select carefully that you wouldn’t waste time for worthless music. I’m sorry to say it but so it is—at least that’s my point of view.

V: Wouldn’t you think that people somehow should—your not talking about people, your not suggesting for people to stop creating, no? You are advocating for people to start developing other skills in their vocabulary, that they could actually understand the music they’re creating, and even sometimes perform. If it’s their instrument of course.

A: Well because if you would look at the back at the musical history, all the great composers, their performances, well, and they started by performing other composers music and studying other composers music.

V: Mmm-hmm.

A: And now some of these young composers, that they cannot play, that they haven’t studied enough other compositions, they start to create music of their own.

V: You mean like reinvent the wheel?

A: Yes.

V: They don’t know what came before them, and they think ‘oh, I have a clever idea. Nobody else had it before, and maybe I will be unique.’

A: Well, be honest. By now, I think all those possibilities are almost exhausted…

V: Mmm-hmm.

A: And if you do something a little more creative than another, it doesn’t mean anything, at least for me. Because trying to compose without having this good musical education or this understanding about musical history, about other composers, not having any skills of yourself, it’s like building a house from roof.

V: Maybe what hasn’t been done enough, is to create music out of combinations of various different elements. For example, let’s say you like this genre of the fugue, but fugues have been written thousands and thousands of times before. It’s nothing new. But you could take another genre and combine it with the fugue. And maybe it has been done also, so maybe you need three things to mix in this pot to be at least partly original. What do you think, Ausra?

A: Yes, I think it’s a good thing.

V: But for this to happen, just like Leon says, or Galsworthy, you need to be knowledge about other works that came before you and read a lot and basically sight-read a lot, study other works, so that you could take those elements with your, within reason.

A: Yes. And you know what I’m talking and criticizing in this podcast, I don’t think it applies let’s say for church musicians. Let’s say you are an organist, and you really need to have a new hymn composed or any kind of composition for your liturgical works, you can easily do that, because you know what you really need. And it’s I think very fine and I encourage people doing that.

V: Mmm-hmm.

A: Because sometimes we really need to know good liturgical works right away and you know what, let’s say what our choir is capable of singing, or what we are able to play or what our congregation likes, but I’m talking about that sort of very high professional composers who pretend to very high professionals.

V: Academic.

A: Yes, academic, and who creates sort of non-sensical piece and want to push it to international festival to be performed, let’s say by a great orchestra.

V: Mmm-hmm.

A: I’m talking about these kind of things.

V: Right.

A: I’m talking that nowadays, maybe ambition of some young composers are way too high, for let’s say the beginners.

V: But you know, what I can relate a little, at least a little bit, partially—I can understand a little bit why they are ignoring other composers, other works of previous generations—because they want to be original, right? And that’s the thing that matters—novelty, originality, uniqueness. And they feel that everything was created and so it’s better even not to bother with old stuff and start from scratch, in their mind. That’s how they think maybe.

A: I’m not telling that you have to copy all composers, that’s not what I’m meaning, and that’s not what I’m telling. I’m just telling that before composing your own you need to know that history. It will enrich your understanding about things.

V: Definitely. Yeah.

A: Because I think it’s very fascinating that if you think about music that it’s only twelve different notes, and all that music was made and created out of only twelve notes. It’s truly amazing.

V: Mmm-hmm. And if you know the history of music, you can better be equipped of creating the future of music.

A: True. Because I really think that music needs to have substance. It needs to have it’s form.

V: But again, this is within reason. I know one professor in musical academy in Lithuania who is probably world-class expert in musical history and musical theory in general, analysis. And he knows everything that there is to know. And he’s already in his 70’s I believe. And only a few years ago he started to compose, because he said to one of his students, ‘now I know everything, and now I’m ready to create.’ Which is kind of craze to me.

A: Well I that preparation time for composing for every person is different.

V: But waiting until you are seventy…

A: I think it’s okay.

V: Why?

A: Well, sometimes it’s enough to write one genial composition for people to remember you.

V: But don’t you think that this professor knew enough to start with, like twenty, thirty years ago?

A: Well you just can do whatever you want with your life. You cannot do something others lives. You cannot enforce people to do what you want.

V: Silence! Let’s listen to the snow.

A: Vidas is, to wake up my words, because I don’t think he likes them so much.

V: I’m just saying that, no, you cannot influence others, of course. You’re right. And...

A: You can do influence. You can try to do influence, but you cannot force them to do what you want.

V: Mmm-hmm.

A: And sometimes I think when you want to make influence for somebody, you need to find subtle ways to do it, rather than push forward.

V: Let me then clarify a little bit my thought: I think that particular professor didn’t create music, not because he wasn’t knowledgeable enough to begin with, maybe decades ago, but maybe he had another reason. He was telling official reason, and he had another true reason. What do you think?

A: Probably yes.

V: That’s more plausible explanation.

A: Sure!

V: Right? Because why did he start now? Maybe...

A: Maybe now he has more free time.

V: Oh! That’s right. That’s right.

A: Because some people cannot create when they are under pressure under all kind of activities—working, raising family, doing all kind of stuff. And maybe now it’s time in his life when he can do it and enjoy it.

V: Okay guys, we hope this was useful to you. Please send us your questions. We love helping you grow. And remember, when you practice...

A: Miracles happen!

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Thinking in Sound No. 6 - Composing Trumpet Tunes

SOPP748: How do you choose your keys for your pieces?

SOPP737: Do you also compose for others, after their wishes?

SOPP735: Ausra, is your technique for composing the same as Vidas?

SOPP638: As you know, I am not 'original' in my writing as I recognize everything I create is derivative - a fusion of everything I have ever heard or played

SOPP516: Paul Ayres on His Organ Music

Composing, Unda Maris and harmony

Composing, submitting and playing duets

Making it sound interesting

SOPP367: Does it take three times the knowledge of music to be able to compose?

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