Introductions are so important

Derek Verso

Introductions are so important, whether it’s to people or music - first impressions and all that. The first sounds of music, song or whatever, are vitally important and tend to decide whether the attention is going to be held or not. And so it is with the introductions we play to hymns, responses, and those parts of a service that are intended for the congregation to sing. Essentially introductions are an invitation to the congregation to take part. The intro should engage the congregations interest. From a basic music theory point of view, we all know that intros give the key, time, mood. However, did you ever ask yourself how well they succeed? And what are the many ways of achieving good introductions? Are there tricks of the trade that we have picked up, or can learn?

So often we do the same thing Sunday by Sunday, don’t we? For instance — Intro: play over first line of music on Swell, softish, without pedals. Then down to the Great, louder, coupled to Swell with pedals for the first verse, etc., etc.

Like it or not, we organists do carry a big responsibility

Well I’ve been thinking about this for some time and trying out different things. Also over the last few months I found myself in a variety of churches throughout Ireland, both as organist and a member of the congregation, thus providing new experiences to challenge my status quo. And below is a brief description of my little tour!

At the outset of my rethink, I set as my priority the primacy of the words of the hymn or response, and its context in the service, to decide what I’m going to do. After all, isn’t our first and overriding objective that of communication with the people in the church to encourage them to participate in the service by singing the hymns, responses, etc. Have you ever given serious consideration to the notion that the notes you play and how you play them can and does influence the atmosphere of a Service, and so help or hinder what the worship is trying to achieve for the people. It’s a big responsibility, isn’t it? Like it or not, we do carry an awesome responsibility, as organists.

Maybe over the next few issues, we could share practical tricks of the trade that we feel help. Your experiences and suggestions are most welcome and will be really interesting for us all.

Here’s what I heard

For instance, I was recently at a Service, where the packed church, could not recognise, from the organ introduction, the tunes of the well-chosen and well-known hymns. This was partly because they were played on the Swell and so sounded muffled and distant, partly because they were played very slowly, and partly because (and this is an interesting one), the Swell octave coupler was used in an effort to brighten the sound. However, an octave coupler destroys the melodic line making it very hard to actually pick out the melody. Interestingly, the congregation was in brilliant singing form and a great body of wonderful congregational sound was busy trying to push forward the prevailing extremely slow pace!

While at another service in a Cathedral, the entire verse of the hymn was played as the intro, this time on a good solid fairly big organ sound with pedal. Volume, pace, and mood seemed just right and matched the words and occasion, but I personally found playing the entire verse too long, and my interest had somewhat waned by the time we started to sing. This practice is all the more strange, as the melody was beautifully printed in the service sheet which everybody had. By the way, maybe someone could tell me why some musicians stick precisely to the four-part harmony given, with no deviation at all throughout the entire hymn, with many opportunities lost for a reharmonised verse or descant where appropriate.

At another cathedral, where there is no choir but an enthusiastic congregation, the good solid body of organ sound for the intro was inviting and encouraging, but here, the nonstop overpainting of the words was quite disturbing, and left me wondering whether I was guilty of this treatment in my organ accompaniment. I resolved to check it out with a cassette recorder when I got home again, and I’ll tell you what I discovered in the next issue. Finally I found myself playing for Sunday morning Eucharist in St Nicholas Church, Galway. What a wonderful experience; I expected a few poor souls dotted around a large church trying their best to sing the service, and was delighted and totally amazed to find a large congregation who bowled me over with their fulsome and hearty participation of all parts of the Eucharist. All responses eagerly sung and hymns that lifted the roof! Here the rather out-of-tune, sluggish and very heavy sounding organ (mostly all 8-foot stops except for one lonesome soft fifteenth!) could not be coaxed into a better response despite my best efforts. Galway was a real experience of worship, praise and celebration that seemed at one with the situation and the people there. It certainly met my needs that morning.

Examples

Praise my soul the King of heaven is first hymn on a bright sunny morning. So I put on everything except the reeds (i.e., Cornopean. Trumpet. Oboe etc.) and played the first four bars on Great, Swell and Pedal exactly as if I was accompanying a large congregation. And then played first verse exactly the same, etc. The response was terrific — everyone joined in heartily. Afterwards a few people thanked me for the music and one quiet middle-aged man said that everyone’s singing sent a quiver down his spine and that he was emotional following the singing of this hymn.

Another way of proclaiming the meaning of the words of a strong hymn of praise is to use just the loud reeds (Cornopean, Horn, Trumpet, Clarion) and play the intro in octaves — no chords just the melody (N.B. this needs practice and you need to listen to see if the stops are in tune as reeds can be highly sensitive and may just be wildly out of tune on a bright sunny warm morning (because they were tuned at a colder normal temperature). Suitable hymns for this treatment are “Crown Him with many crowns” (to Diademata) (just the first bar and hail); “Ye holy Angels bright” (Darwall’s 148th), ‘Come thou long expected Jesus” (Stuttgart) or “Now thank we all our God” (Nun Danket). Another way with introductionss is to play melody only with right hand on a clear bright sound whilst the left hand (and pedal) plays the other parts as accomp on the other manual soft stops. For “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” (Repton) this works well and suits the mood of the hymn.

Back to those awesome responsibilities:

Going back for a moment about awesome responsibilities we set ourselves — the Archbishop of Dublin’s Church Music Certificate three-year course is a wonderful initiative, as this really goes a long way to support and train organists to be church musicians, professionally and practically.

As I go around the country looking after pipe organs, (or singing or playing) I possibly hear more than most people do, about what organ playing is like around the country. I can well remember the joy of walking into a Methodist Church to hear the organ being played (using genuine organ repertoire) with great conviction, accuracy, and as the composer intended, in time, and with pedals etc. I couldn’t believe it was one who three years earlier played it as if she were playing the piano, as she never had had an organ lesson in her life. Now thanks to her successful completion of the Certificate course She plays with real gusto.

The same transformation was evident when I called into another church recently. While they always had a very good choir, the fine new Spath organ was not being fully utilised as nobody had learnt the organ — until recently. As I walked into the church I could hear clearly and with absolute accuracy Bach’s big Prelude & Fugue in C major resounding around the building Who was playing? A very accomplished person to be sure. When I got upstairs to the organ gallery and met the organist I learned that she has recently enrolled in Maynooth College for the new part time Diploma in Church Music.

Again in a Midlands church where we had restored a beautiful 19th century organ in 1986, I was pleased to see how the organist had benefitted from the Church Music Course. After many hundreds of miles up and down to Dublin, and many more hours spent practising in a cold church, she has gained the Certificate, and is now playing extremely competently. in an assured and confident style as an organist. And now nearer to home; one of my own choir members has just started the course a few weeks ago and is working away hard. Congrats to one and all

A time to question, reassess and seek training

So whether you are attending a course or not, why not have a reassessment of how you accompany the congregational parts of the service Step one: bring a small cassette recorder into church with you for a few Sundays and don’t tell anyone that you’re recording parts of the service — it doesn’t have to be fancy equipment. in fact the smaller and more insignificant the better, just turn it on before you start playing and forget about it until the end of the service. Take it home and listen to it that evening and you will discover loads.

More about this next issue. And to those of you who try this, why not drop us a line (via the Editor) and tell us what you heard, your reactions — and how you would like to rework your playing.

Derek Verso is organist and choir director in Dun Laoghaire Methodist Church, where the music incorporates an enthusiastic congregation, a four-part choir, young peoples’ music group and soloists, all working together and independently using a wide variety of styles of music and worship.

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