Historically speaking, until about 3 minutes ago when digital organs finally made it possible to own an instrument at home (and even then, at great cost!), if you didn’t have lessons at church, where on earth did you have them? Apart from university students who have access to university instruments for lessons and practice, every organist has had to learn and practice at church. I find it exceedingly curious when churches try to forbid this; organs aren’t like a trumpet.., students can’t just go out and buy one, and the vast majority of professional organists still don’t have any kind of instrument at home even with the burgeoning digital / hauptwerk market. To wit, I’ve even seen particular job postings that stipulate the right to teach students at the church as a source of potential extra income. (I have similarly seen it forbidden a few times, but I think this is a strange error in thinking.)

To put it simply: you can’t learn to be an organist without playing an organ, and the organs are, well, in church.

I cam perhaps understand a parish (particularly if there is perpetual adoration that isn’t in a dedicated chapel) being a difficult venue to try and make this work, and you certainly don’t want your music director giving lessons for 10-15 hours a week to a huge studio… but one or two kids, ESPECIALLY if they are from the parish? It would sure seem STINGY to me to not allow that. I was giving lessons to one of our sons of the parish for a while. Now he is considering becoming a Catholic organist.

He moved to a different area about 30 mins away and the church there has been making it onerously difficult to practice, so he had been struggling immensely. He even offered to go over to the church at 5am, but they won’t even allow that since there’s a parishioner that likes to pray at that time. It’s utterly ridiculous. “Don’t hide your lamp under a basket…” and all that. Christ was generous with everything he had; I cannot believe he wants us to be stingy with the treasures kept in His name.

Sounds like an insurance issue to me. in other instances when this has happened, the insurance policy was the driver.

Tell him that he probably shouldn’t be receiving any more stipends for weddings, funerals, and baptisms, then. (He wouldn’t want to be making money on church property, after all.)

“Come work for the church! — we will pay you meager wages and then complain when you try to better your situation on your own so you can remain in servitude service to this august institution!”

Sorry for the snark. This just saddens me. It’s an insidious way to make sure there is no new generation of dedicated and trained musicians. And it’s hardly like teaching a few lessons on the side is a “get rich quick” scheme. I’ll grant the benefit of the doubt that the priest’s heart is in the right place, not wanting to see our Lord offended. But I still believe him misguided.

Snark is very welcome today!

This is the best way to protect oneself. My boys took private music lessons and I always stayed within earshot during the lessons. I would often correct school papers while I sat there.

My parish has a program to train young organists. The music director, however, does not personally charge for lessons. Rather, the parish conditions the lessons on playing at mass when the organist is sufficiently far along. Indirectly the director benefits. She gets free subs when she needs them.

I can see how this can be a fuzzy area if looked at through a legal or tax perspective. Although the possibility of me having a violin student come to my office before a choir rehearsal causing any legal or tax problems seems impossibly remote. I am an adjunct professor at a local university as well and my pastor thought I'd be in trouble if I used the university for private lessons. Most every college professor I know take a couple students outside of the university. My 11 and 12 year old take piano lessons at a local university after hours.

My experience has shown that most pastors could care less as long as it didn't interfere with my job performance or any church activity. Others are much more concerned with crossing all their eyes and dotting their t's.

Many organists in my area have contracts that allow the organist to teach using the church organ. The only one I know of that doesn't assumes the practice and teaching usage would increase maintenance costs on the instrument.

True Honest To God Story...

I was the DoM for a large church in VA. The entire congregation sang four complete Masses from the Kyriale at full voice... I kid you not. I was dumbfounded when I discerned the Bishop was trying to squash the effort. After a year as a temp (they wanted me full time), I left.

However, during that time, there was a savant, a teen of maybe 18 or so (and his parents), who attended the parish, (most likely members), and God forgive me for not remembering his name, he was the epitome of JOY for me. He was the apex of why I existed in this temporary position. He WANTED to play the organ! ...and right so he should, because it was a beautiful pipe organ built in the Austrian tradition and perfectly set in the choir gallery (and the rest of the block long church) to the extent that when you listened to the organ in the gallery it matched the tone and volume at the altar. [I was amazed when I had someone play the organ and went down to the altar to hear it for myself. I have never heard such a perfect acoustic.]

This charming soul (I wish I could remember his name) would come up after every Mass and be staring at me while I played the postlude, and everytime I finished, he asked to play the organ. I always accommodated his requests as best I could.

Eventually, I gave him the NOH of Mass VIII and within a couple of weeks he was playing it (post postlude) with my exact registration as used at Mass. I will never ever forget the gift of this simple and beautiful soul. (I believe he was entirely self taught).

The church should never deny the wondrous and beautiful pipe organ to anyone. Ever.

Andrews, you need a new parish business manager

And this is how the church conforms itself to a worldly corporate structure that treats people first as liabilities.

Imagine a full time choirmaster position which required the employee to clock in, to clock out, and to be paid 40 hrs only when 40 hours are worked.

A somewhat related point: There are liability issues involved, and for this reason many (all?) dioceses may, officially, require instructors regularly using church property and resources to have a certain amount of liability insurance coverage, and to name the bishop as having no liability for anything that happens during/as a result of that activity. This would apply to outside groups that rent/use church property for their business purposes, and technically that would include regular private instruction.

It's to prevent someone from suing the diocese for something you do wrong while you are using church property for something other than what the diocese is paying you to do. If a summer camp is renting the space, and a camp counselor is negligent and causes a camper to get injured or killed, the parish shouldn't be legally responsible for that.

In practice, I suspect this is lightly enforced as regards private music instructors.

But then, a parish might just say, no outside groups at all may use the property for business purposes. It's a pastor's prerogative, for better or for worse.

EDIT: I think I'm conflating the contract with the parish/diocese and the liability coverage, which names the bishop as being the one covered in the event of a lawsuit (but the basic point stands). I had to do this years ago for something and I'm a little fuzzy on the details.

Where it has been problematic is in getting minor repairs done by small vendors. In one place there was a great piano tech I wanted to use for the choir room piano, but he didn’t have $1m in liability insurance, because, um, it’s nearly impossible to cause $1m of damage to even the most precious of pianos. So I had to use a less-great guy who did carry that much insurance, because he had a bunch of institutional contracts.

BureaucraZy at its absolute finest.

———
As an aside, I find myself honestly shocked that there are organists on this thread espousing not using church for lessons (if not there, then where?) regardless—this leads me to the next logical question: how do you feel about people practicing in church? I owe my career to a number of churches that were kind enough to let me come and practice there regularly. Without that access as a young man, there would be no me, here today. It's that simple.

One solution to lessons in this tortious world might be for Joe Organist’s student to pay the church for the lessons, and the church to then pay Joe Organist this amount via payroll. The church typically already has the ability to do this easily for weddings/funerals/other one-off music payments.

That way, there is no apparent conflict of interest (Joe’s Awesome Music Studio making money at the church where Joe works), and organ lessons can be one more non-sacramental spiritually-edifying service the parish provides and promotes to the faithful, just like spiritual direction, or a Bible study, or a youth programme, or….. And it’s quite a statement, too, for Fr. Pastor to say “the organ is so important to the Catholic liturgy; we are going to be a place where people can learn to play.”

What part of "professional development" do the bean counters/insurance worrywarts not understand? The organ is being used both to accompany Mass and train the next generation of those who will accompany the Mass. The teacher is engaging in a kind of Catholic outreach, too, since not all the students will always be Catholic.

Trying to combine a full time paid job with a side-gig is a nonsense, unless that side gig is trivial and totally unrelated to the main job.

...Or unless the primary gig doesn't pay enough, and/or you find fulfillment in the side gig, which cannot be met by the primary job.

[To be clear, I'm not complaining about my current post. Just stating an obvious flaw to the argument above.]

Pax - You seem to have an axe to grind here; I'm not sure about what, precisely. It's commonplace in our society for people to work extra, side gigs on top of a full time job - whether for extra money, for fulfillment, to start their own business, etc. The entrepreneurial spirit in fact is best grounded in the classic advice "don't give up your day job!" Every serious musician in history (church or otherwise) has had a busy life, made up of multiple jobs and income streams (publishing royalties, conducting, a church job, private lessons, teaching in a school or university, etc., etc.). The idea of rigidly squeezing hours out of a church musician or trying to crack down on side pursuits is an odd, bizarrely modern American mentality (which, fortunately does not even seem to be that widespread here - I do hear about it sometimes from colleagues, but usually in the context of describing a toxic situation that they left). I suppose some corporations and even churches do believe that "full-time" means they own their employee's entire life and are owed every bit of possible energy that could be given to any pursuit, regardless of work hours. But hopefully every well-formed human being would be horrified by that disgusting mentality, and flee it. Regardless, it's nothing to be proud of, or hold up as a standard or model.

Meanwhile in very many European posts, the church job is more honorary than lucrative, the organist has many outside jobs, and the quality is very often much higher than our American standard. Granted, this is in large part because the general level of musical training is higher - particularly with young choristers, school music, and improvisation, but it seems that that is a better thing to look at than whether more office hours could be squeezed out of church musicians.

If you have a full time job, and start using your employer's resources (time, electricity, whatever) to support your side gig, that is stealing. It is really very simple.

If you want to be a gigging musician or a private music teacher, then by definition you cannot also do a full-time job too (unless your full-time job description includes playing gigs or teaching.

Using the organ (with permission) to give private lessons is not stealing. Where did that ridiculous idea come from?

Pax,

If the employee is using resources consistent with company policy, such as the organ at a time it is available, with the prior knowledge and approval of the pastor, what's going on isn't theft.

I will come a small portion of the way to your position, though, if the organist is sneaking behind the back of his employer, using Catholic parish copiers to print screeds against the Catholic Church or, say a Macdonald's worker is printing "Buy Hardee's burgers" at work, on company time, and using company ink and paper, and asking for reimbursement though the action undertaken is expressly prohibited by company policy.... then, clearly, theft is taking place.