June 2002
Naughty Tips for Novice Organist	Show Menu

Adrian Somerfield, St Thomas Mount Merrion Dublin

This article is not intended for the professional organist, who may laugh and pass by, but rather is intended to help some of those many people who have never had an organ lesson in their lives but who, week after week, serve their congregations by playing the organ, often in rural areas.

The Pedals

Because many novices have only learned piano, they are scared of using their feet. This is a pity, and it is worth trying this method. Forget about the right foot: you can (and in many organs must) keep it on the swell pedal. Forget about any pedals to the right of middle c (the one almost under your own midline) and work entirely in the lower octave. playing the bottom line of the hymn or chant. Never mind if your left-hand little finger is also Playing the same note the more Sound the better. Many ‘fun organs have only the lower thirteen pedals anyway, and once you have mastered this technique, rudely called ‘one foot in the swellbox and the other in the grave’, you will be in demand for karaoke sessions as well.

It is surprisingly easy. Bottom C and C sharp, and the top B and B flat, are easy to find. By feeling the gap, E flat, F, F, and F sharp are a “doddle”, and if you occasionally miss the others it won’t really matter, and your confidence will improve. Get the congregation singing well, and you will be the only one to hear the mistakes Having the pedal line enormously improves the whole tone and helps the singing by having a firm foundation Don't be misled by thinking that using the 16 foot stop on the manuals (if you have one) is as good It is not, It is nasty. And don’t be afraid to glance down at your feet! “it is better to have pedalled and made a few mistakes than never to have pedalled at all’.

You would be surprised at how many “real” organists, when they are feeling a bit lazy or think nobody is watching, pedal this way too.

Use a pair of narrow shoes, with leather soles so that they slide over the pedals easily. Dancing “pumps” or even bedroom Slippers work well, And make Sure the congregation sees you changing your shoes before and after Service; “if he/she uses special shoes for the organ, he/she must be an expert, so we must do our best too”, That is psychology!

Pitch

Many people give up the attempt to sing because they find it a strain to reach the high notes. The people who arrange hymn books are cathedral organists or musicians who work in big churches with choirs, and the pitch of most hymns is too high for ordinary folk. Some tunes have been lowered slightly in the new Church Hymnal, but hardly enough. My rule of thumb is that if the tune goes above D, it would be better to “knock a tone or two off. It is better to squeeze the contraltos down a bit than to have people straining at the top. And it encourages the men to come up out of the gravel too. Most people have only a short range of a few notes: listen to a “pop” song — the musicians may be playing lots of notes but the singer probably uses less than five!

Now most organists can’t or daren’t, transpose at sight. So get a twelve. stave manuscript book, a 2B pencil and a rubber, and write it out. It is so easy! To go down a tone. say C to F or D to C. install the new key signature and then write each note that is on a line in the original in the space below it on the MS paper, and each line that is in a space on the line below it. Oh, the dreaded accidentals! Just think it out, A tune in the key of G will almost certainly ~o into its dominant key of D somewhere and so acquire a C sharp. But that note will now be on the B line and all you have to do is put a “natural” in front of it. And so on. And you’ll only have to do the transposition once; next time the tune comes up, you have it! You will he rewarded with far better. if slightly mellow. singing, and the congregation will think they are great singers. And so they are!

A lot of the Christmas music is absurdly high. Try putting ‘0 Little Town” “Hark the Herald and Once in Royal” right down into E flat and your congregation will love you. They will also see that you are not using the hymnbook and say ‘Look, This organist has made a special arrangement for us: he/she must be an expert. So we must do our best too!”

A very useful publication is Hymns Ancient arid Modern Transposed; they sometimes have it at the bookshop at St Ann’s in Dawson Street. Most of the hymn tunes you are likely to use are in it and can be located by their tune name, For example, “Blaenwern” is “Blaenwern” whatever book it is in. But be careful’ some versions of some hymns have slight differences from Irish custom, Look through them before the Service starts!

Chants

Anglican chants are a bit frightening for the novice, and perhaps it is better to read a psalm well than to sing it badly’, But why not try a paraphrase? In his book Sing to the Word, which is an invaluable guide to the music for the Revised Common Lectionary and the new Church Hymnal, Bishop Edward Darling lists the appointed psalms, and in most cases lists hymns which are paraphrases of them or have the same theme, But it would he a pity to have no chanting, and it would be worth keeping a few canticles handy, The answer again is manuscript paper Write out the text from your Alternative Prayer Book, Book of Common Prayer, or whatever you use, including the pointing, to form a line between the two staves. Then choose a simple chant, such as Soaper in D, transpose it if you wish down to C. and then put the notes in the appropriate Positions on the staves. Depending on the length, you may have several pages, but you will then be able to sail through the canticle with the confidence that suggests you have been doing Anglican Chant all your life; it helps the flow if you sing yourself. Take it slowly and deliberately like the careful reading you should do if reading the Lesson or Prayers. Prepare a few, such as ‘Great and Wonderful”, “Sac jour of the World’, ‘Jubilate’, “Te Deum” parts 1,2 and 3 (the triple chant Harty in A, chant 270, is nice for part 3, but it needs to be lowered to G: and daring to use a triple chant will earn you respect!), “Venite’, “Nunc Dimittis, ‘Benedictus, and (if you must) “Urbs Fortitudinis’. Don’t forget when wr1ting these out to include the Gloria if appropriate; you get a dreadful feeling of insecurity if you are approaching it and then suddenly realise you have forgotten its pointing!

The main problem with this writing out, apart from the fact that it takes some time, is that you are stuck with the same chant for the same canticle in future, but the up-side is that once it is done you have it for the future, or at least until the authorities decide that yet another Prayer Book or Psalter is to be imposed on our Parishes. Surprisingly, you will probably find that once you have done some, you will become confident enough to chant directly from text and music, without writing out.

The APB has the pointing marked, but it is a bit faint. If you are reading from it, it is a useful tip to go through the psalm or canticle and mark the bar-lines more prominently. Put a very prominent mark where a second part is specified. Also draw lines below the verses which will be sung to the second part of the chant throughout the piece; this will help you not to lose your place.

The Top End

It is a fact that a chord played at the upper end of the treble clef sounds louder than the same chord played an octave lower. So if you have all the stops out already and you want to be louder for the last verse, try playing the right hand part an octave higher, leaving the left hand in its normal place. Blow the dust and spiders out of that octave of pipes above the treble clef that haven’t sounded for years, and make those pipes work for you. It is almost, though obviously not quite, as good as having that useful accessory, an octave coupler (why did not all organs have them?). And don’t be afraid to add more notes; the usual tune only has four notes in each chord, but that is for part singing; there is no reason why you may not double some of those notes when you can reach them, and it all helps to add to the merry noise.

Many organists are diffident about playing at a good volume. All right, a quiet accompaniment is fine if you have a choir, but don’t be afraid to give good support to the ordinary congregation, and take a good, firm tempo. We are worshipping, not mourning! Notes do not really matter all that much (well, you have to get most right!) but rhythm does. Keep it moving. Keep it happy.

Pundits will say that I am encouraging bad habits. No; what I am encouraging is that those who may not be experts should get the best they can out of their resources.

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