How to Find Suitable and Playable Organ Music?

Although organ repertoire is vast and spans for about 7 centuries, it is not always easy to find pieces that you both like and are able to learn. In fact, this wealth of pieces available is precisely what makes it so difficult to choose. Sometimes you think you found a beautiful organ composition but when you try to play it, you will simply discover that it is beyond your technical abilities.

So in order to advance and perfect your skills, the pieces should work for your level. In this article, I will share with you my personal recommendations on finding organ music that would be suitable and playable for you.

The best way to go about finding out if the piece is playable for you at the moment is to look at the two determining factors which are tempo and texture.

1. Tempo. Open a score of the organ piece that you like and play the first several lines at the half speed. In other words, you should perform them much slower than at the concert tempo. The reason for this is to see how many mistakes did you make in each line.

If you make more than 3 mistakes in each line while playing very slowly, then it means this piece is too difficult for you today. In order to avoid unnecessary frustration and speed up the learning process, pick an easier organ composition.

2. Texture. Another test you could make if you want to discover whether or not the difficulty level of the piece matches your abilities, concerns the texture. If the piece has 4 voices or parts, reduce the texture to one simple voice and try to play it at the concert tempo.

Again, if you make more than 3 mistakes in each line, then this composition is too advanced for your current level. The reason for playing at the real tempo here is because now you have to play only one voice. So reducing the speed as well as the texture would give you unrealistic environment.

I believe you could stil master the piece but it would take much more time. Many people might feel that their progress is too slow and get frustrated. Again, in order to feel better about your organ practice, I recommend choosing an easier piece to learn right now.

By the way, do you want to learn my special powerful techniques which help me to master any piece of organ music up to 10 times faster? If so, download my organ practice guide "How to Master Any Organ Composition".