Will this help break bad habits from about 15 years of self-learning?

The organ and the piano are two totally different instruments

RMS, you've got it!

Bobby, it might.

Francis, this project ignores that the piano was ever invented.

Francis, this project ignores that the piano was ever invented.

The modern piano or the fortepiano?

I studied piano enough to learn notes and read scores. Then I began organ. When I was in college, I had to take two years of piano since it was a required. I still don't think I play that instrument very well, and have been an organist from the start. Other than learning notes, I am not sure piano is essential if you don't plan on playing it much.

That was me when I first started. I can tell you what worked for me if you need a testimonial. However, I came from a professionally trained music background: degree in music education (studied clarinet). However many of us who aspire to teach publicly do not make it into that profession and land jobs as music teachers for Catholic schools or music directors for churches, but didn't have adequate keyboard training to do the job initially. I think this is a wonderful idea and I would love to be of help in any way at can.

I am interested and will sign up.
I have a piano at home and home organ at church. I have 3 keyboards, one with weighted keys, the others not.

So basically I do not have an instrument to practice on. But I'll give it my best shot with what I have.

I am the Leader of my choir but do not play, so this will help me.
I do know some piano.

The two keyboards without weighted keys are EXCELLENT for this purpose, along tine the organ at church. Welcome!

Jani, I've been giving my personal info to Noel for a couple of years now and have had no issues... yet.

To learn organ, one needs to be proficient in playing the keyboard and piano is usually the most convenient way to get started.

Wayne Leupold of Wayne Leupold Editions, Inc., has also produced a series of methods that are based on learning the organ without having learned the piano. They are excellent books, and I have used them with students.

http://www.wayneleupold.com/organ-teaching-methods.html

The problem is that organ literature from the mid-19th century on is so deeply influenced by the piano that a certain amount of study is necessary. I use the Leupold books and while I am happy with them, I have found going to the piano is necessary after some time.

Please, Bach and Buxtehude were harpsichord players, so please do not say that they only played the organ. Harpsichord technique is closer to the organ than the piano but it still takes work.

My organ students still study the piano so I am not a good voice on this question.

Hartley,

Of course "piano is usually the most convenient way to get started" is true - but the question has always been in some minds...can it hinder a student to spend much time learning to do things to make the piano sound that you never, ever, use on the organ?

So, is it better to practice on an instrument for hours that demands you do things that you do not need to do - and that can even cause tension that is detrimental to playing the organ - or better (and this is aimed towards adults) to spend short periods of time doing exactly and only what you need to learn to play the organ at the organ.

This is because the basic keyboard concepts involved are the same.

They really are not...in fact, I do a Playing the Invisible Notes clinic which is only open to people who have been yelled at by a teacher for using the sustain pedal at the piano when playing Bach and baroque music.

There are shared musical effects (some, like playing the invisible notes, ignored) but playing the piano is much much more like playing snare drum than playing the organ. Wasted time mastering motor skills just to get the piano playing can better be spent in concentrated playing at the organ or the harpsichord - two instruments that do have a shared technique.

But there's no reason to beat this issue into submission on this forum, instead let's let the students try it and report back.

Noel, if you can take students who are not organists, but who want to learn enough to be able to play at liturgy, then this is a very good thing. You are not creating organ majors, so it isn't necessary to get into heavy organ literature or the characteristics of various keyboard instruments. It seems to me you are attempting to develop service players, which many smaller churches don't have, and can't get. I like it!

So I told my wife how excited I was to be taking these lessons.
Her comment was that I will have to wear organ shoes along with the other organ dorks.

One of the reasons I love my wife is because she is so supportive.

so much of the repertoire that we use is heavily influenced by piano technique that I believe piano is really a prerequisite

Some of us just want to be able to accompany hymns and chants, and do simple preludes and things as needed.

BruceL and Kevin,

Please lay out exactly what piano technique is needed, I am sure that there are many here who really want to know and understand so that they can, themselves, decide whether or not they need to learn more piano technique for their playing at the organ.

Examples of music and the rationale would help - including youtube or training videos that explain this.

Agree w/ @Palestrina
The clavichord is a mighty delicate instrument with a lot of expressiveness. Very unobtrusive accompanying the voice or other quiet instruments.

I need to jump in here - sorry for the long silence from the deep antipodes but work sometime has a way of interfering with life

"What Piano technique is needed" is a bit of a loaded question; there is technique that allows a pianist to turn notes on the page into music, then there's a more fundamental technique of being able to put your fingers in the right place at the about right time (and also in being able to workout exactly which finger to use on that tenor D to allow you to play the next bar without needing to turn your arm completely around at the shoulder...)

I submit the more advanced elements of the first are not truly necessary if you intend to learn the organ whereas the second can be learned on any keyboard to a degree. Why did Bach teach and practice on the clavichord? Some of it was probably because having to head out to an unheated church and then find pay someone to pump wind into the organ just wasn't that attractive a proposition on a cold winter's evening and there would be a fair chance the student would have easier access to a clavichord at home than an organ.

The benefit of learning the basics of the keyboard on an instrument such as the piano is that there's relatively little to distract the beginning learner from the basics of playingthe right note at the right time, whereas organs or (ahem) electronic keyboards have such an array of sounds available there isa chance that useful practice time might be lost to the gee-whizz of "what does this button do". (Even some supposedly responsible...ahem again... adults are occasionally prone to this when struggling with awkward passages...)

Having said that, in an age where an organ simulacrum is well within reach for many people to practice in their homes, I remain unconvinced that basic note pushing cannot be learned on one of these as well as on a piano provided some of the obvious distractions can be overcome.

Eccles, if it had been a matter of convenience alone, Bach could have taught his students on the harpsichord just as easily. He didn't. In fact, there are references in the literature of the period to the difference in sound produced by a harpsichordist taught only on the harpsichord, and harpsichordist who had mastered the clavichord - the latter have a more solid and expressive technique.

Organ technique is about so much more than putting notes down: it's not some kind of glorified computer keyboard. That's why I hate toasters - they reduce organ music to an up or down motion, failing to take into account that it's all about how the key is pressed and released that changes the sound.

As to the variety of sounds on an organ - the student really must sit with these. Not all pipes speak at the same rate, not all ranks have the same colours through their range. If more organists did this, then some strange effects might be avoided!

"Cameron Carpenter". I rest my case.
I would sooner watch a 3-hour "Best of Andre Rieu" special.

they reduce organ music to an up or down motion, failing to take into account that it's all about they reduce organ music to an up or down motion, failing to take into account that it's all about how the key is pressed and released that changes the sound..

What percentage of pipe organs playing in churches in the USA actually respond to "how the key is pressed and released that changes the sound". We really want to know.

And it no longer not true of digital organs.

What I do know is that aspiring organists should be taught the full expressive possibilities that the organ provides, when properly built.

I think you have hit on the heart of the matter WHEN PROPERLY BUILT!!! Unless an organist is lucky enough to be involved in the design and purchase of a new instrument, said organist will be playing what the church already has. It is always cheaper to get a new organist than to get a new pipe organ.

You've missed my point, CharlesW: the organist should always be aware of what an instrument should do, whether or not their instrument at any one time does do it.