Sight-read? Sight-read. Sight-read!

At the Unda Maris rehearsal yesterday I improvised a canonical dialogue in F before people started gathering.

The first to play was Audre and I showed to her 3 methods of keeping the hands while the feet were playing because she wanted to play with her feet. I suggested the same hymn that she would play with her hands. So the first method was to keep the hands on the edges of the keyboards which she liked very much. Then she held the hands on the organ bench and the last way was to hold them simply on the knees. I explained why this method is the best one, even though the hardest - because there is no danger to accidentally depressing the keys like in the first one.

Then Rokas played Prelude and fugue in G Minor, (little), BWV 558 and said he struggled with the last pedal entrance in the fugue. I reminded him and demonstrated how practicing in 15 voice combinations work.

@drugelis played two-part Invention No. 1 in C Major, BWV 772 by Bach and struggled with picking up from the middle of the piece. I asked her to start from a specific measure quickly but she couldn't do it most of the time.

I had a suspicion she didn't practice in short fragments recently. Now I also asked everyone who has been sight-reading regularly and it appears no one is. So I suggested for @drugelis to either sight-read two-part inventions hands separately or hymns, like Taize songs. At least one page a day.

Alisa played the 3rd short trio by Lemmens and struggled with hand crossings on two manuals. After several tries she got better. Regular sight-reading wouldn't hurt her either.

Then came Ignas from the university choirs and wanted to check out choir stands and how they could be moved to the altar for "Classics for Everybody" concert on December 7th. It appears it's best to order an official team from the university to disassemble them. Ignas told me how one stand fell during rehearsal several years ago. Luckily no one was hurt, only scared.
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By the way, Ignas took up the position of artistic director of choir "Dobilas" recently and is looking for concert appearances. I suggested he contact festivals in Rokiskis, Anyksciai and Moletai. He invited me for coffee when we left the church but I had to rush home to @laputis and finish practicing our organ duet arrangements from Bach cantatas.