Thank you, Susdem. It's a recording session from a publishing company, so a private event. They said they record about 4-5 unaccompanied (2-3 minutes length each) and others need the organ accomp. And also mentioned that a few pieces with organ are very easy and sightreadable and some are demanding. This lady has played at my church several times in the past and the organ for the recording is two manuals-tracker with 18 stops...It's small organ. I also participated in one of their recording sessions in the past, so I know what it is exactly. Based on my experience with it, I don't think she needs that much time to work on the organ for it. But I want to get ideas from other organists.

Have you talked to the person in the office who is scheduling it? If you're telling her she can't, they should be backing you. I have to sign off on any practice with our organ even though the office schedules it. If I say no, the office would tell them no as well. Sounds like you might need to have a talk with whoever is scheduling the practice after you've said to limit it.

Lock the organ and the loft. The organist gets the last word over the instrument.

We have had someone come in for a few hours before weddings. A few hours here and there for other occasions. There’s actually quite a bit of time since our organist is flexible enough, but if you don’t turn the organ off (this happens), you leave lights on, you leave a mess, and/or you don’t respect any other limit, you’re gone. It isn’t hard.

Thank you all for advices! I spoke with a staff about scheduling in the office last February, but she said at this time that when that organist contacted the office for scheduling, the organist was stubborn in getting time she wants. So the staff asked the priest and he said OK on giving her much time she wants, trying to be nice :-( This is another story with the same person happened two days ago. That's why I want to set an officially documented guidelines/ policy.

Look at the websites of the various UK cathedrals and colleges. They will often have a lengthy PDF of “information for visiting choirs” (such as frequently come through for residencies, special evensongs, etc.). These always include a page or two about playing the organ, not just how/when to book practice time, but what memory levels to use, how the organ sounds in the space, cues for different parts of the service, approximate registrations for different moments, etc.

Making and enforcing a document like that would prevent you from losing practice time again. Speaking as one who has frequently accompanied “visiting choirs”, such guides are invaluable and much-appreciated, helping me to make the most of limited time and to avoid disrupting the host institution’s daily rhythms of life.

When we go to other church to prepare an event, most organists work on registrations and getting used to the organ within reasonable amount of practice time under their organist's approval. She has no respect on my guidance at all! She completely overrides them. She even has access to church after the office is closed or Sunday afternoon when no one is in the building. She was a sub-organist for me for a few weeks in the past, so got our door code to enter and knows where the organ key was. I didn't give them to her. They were given by the music director. Now I moved the organ key to somewhere else, but she has been freely in and out to practice/ schedule.
I think the main issue is with our church. Many policies on other things are absent, too. So I hope to establish some guidelines to manage organs properly.

Thank you all! It's sad the priest and the music director are not very supportive. They are not organists, so don't know. They think I am unnecessarily too picky about it. I wish I turned off her code, but it's for the priest's decision. I don't think he would do it.

It becomes everyone’s problem, and to suggest otherwise is incredibly dismissive.

It might be moot and counterproductive in the short to medium term, but it’s just not acceptable for the priest to run over his own team like this. Or for the office staff to not have a spine. No is an answer. If they argue, so is Noooooo!

Sometimes you have to take an L in a specific situation to then change the circumstances and prevent it happening next time. It sounds like that’s what’s happening here.

If she has been given permission, I don’t really see the issue with her coming in after hours so as to not upset the rhythm of the parish. If she doesn’t have permission, that code should be changed immediately and it’s grossly inappropriate. We shouldn’t be stingy with our instruments, but strangers shouldn’t have unfettered access either, especially if they know the incumbent is uncomfortable with it. It sounds like this situation might need to meet in the middle: you need to ease up and not fixate on the amount of time as long as it’s not interfering with yours or the church’s schedule, but she also needs to respect boundaries.

We have had someone who would move everything off of the organ. Mind you, it was not visible over the stand, it was just there because it needed a home. (Well, okay; in our chapel versus the church, it’s visible, but I had no storage!)

Anyway this visitor was playing the Fauré Requiem accompaniment for us at Mass and I needed her to give the intonation for the Requiescant (Fr just can’t learn it.). I had told the DM who was new to the TLM to please do this like on Sundays with the incumbent, she was fine with this…then it fell to me to do all sorts of things because the choir was warming up when the organist got there. Well I had checked in over the intonation, because it explicitly fell to me to cue her. The DM even said so. But it was missing. She had moved it, along with everything else.

Canonically, all authority in the parish comes from the pastor. He can then delegate responsibilities to other people.

It sounds like you’ve suggested a way that things should work - but it really is a matter of him formally agreeing and delegating that authority, otherwise it remains his call.

It sounds like he’s personally decided that the rehearsal time is okay. Absent an employment contract that says it’s someone else’s paid role, I’d say it remains his prerogative to do so.

Agreed, Francis. Nonetheless, the buck does stop with the priest.

How he chooses to exercise his authority is a separate question.

I once was interim music director/organist at a church where a former organist (who had been there several years before) requested that I not change her set registrations * just in case * she ever had to sub there in the future. Sigh.

Our emeritus still has levels 1-20. Fortunately, we have plenty.

It’s a lot of time, this person doesn’t seem to be cooperative, and I find that people are not their sharpest after hours which causes problems. Someone at our place kept leaving the organ on overnight.

Because it actually can interfere with it…I now can’t do anything in the choir loft for example.

Because the organist won’t agree to be reasonable.

uh, well, sorry, but the organist does get more of a say, even if the pastor's a ninny about this.

s (including me in scheduling email and practice during office hours).

this is a reasonable request. The guest refused. (In fact, we had to put up with a harpsichord in our chapel for two weeks because the player — the same one who would move my stuff without really asking — refused to either come in during the day or use the code provided by the Methodist church where we were supposed to have the concert, so she got a key to our building to come in at night, putting that instrument at risk: wanting to come in at your leisure is not reasonable.)

And the music director said she has never heard in town that other churches have guidelines for it.

Nonsense, of course they do. The guidelines are that even the organist of my parish who knew the emeritus of the cathedral for decades was not allowed to use the new organ with the console in the loft.: we had to use the digital organ and its console on the nave floor. And our guest organists (few and far between) routinely forget to put things back.

The organist clearly seems to not care that there's an incumbent whose settings need to be left alone, and the DM wants to walk all over the incumbent too.

of course the parish organist gets a say. I'm really not seeing the issue here.

And again: just because one isn't at the organ doesn't mean that I don't have things to do and can freely let someone practice at any hour, any day of the week, without them a) letting me know and b) limiting themselves. A substantial chunk of our library is in the loft. It needs organizing. It needs cleaning; the organ needs to be tuned of course. We have work to be done. There needs to be better communication there.

Well, The priest informed me yesterday that he will take care of the organ from now, so I am out of duties on organ. He said he will control all with the aid of the consultant. ..Not sure if it works...I don't understand. He seems upset with me and scheduled the guest organist's practice for another 4 hours today. Is she the winner? lol...She is acting out, I think. But this is what it is now. The music director is not happy with his decision, so will bring it up again after a while, she said.

It’s entirely fair to tell a visitor (who otherwise has ample time without you being around) “hey—you can practice at such-and-such time, but just fyi I need to be in and out of the loft to do some admin and filing. I’ll do my best to be discreet and quiet, but If that won’t work for you, we will need to schedule you a different time.”

Since this activity is related to a commercial recording session, the parish should be getting paid for the session time and practice time.

They use the church for free, but donate some instead.