Yes, that seems completely reasonable.

Except that they didn't have keralophons in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Should we assume that your high Victorian instrument is in pristine condition?
We have a Walker of some 25-30 ranks here in Houston, at St Stephen's Episcopal.
A very fine and versatile tracker instrument, a neo-Baroque tonal design through an English looking glass. It's about 20 years old now.

Used to have a Jardine tracker at a school in their gorgeous little chapel where I once was the director of music. still has train station written on the side of the case when it shipped in
the mid 1800s. was about 10 ranks

was restored while i was at post

loved it

You might try to educate the priest you're working for in the differences between these "religious songs" and real "hymns". [but it's usually hopeless, if you're male you have a chance, if you're female, the priest won't listen at all].

Wow. That's a pretty insulting generalization (towards priests.)

And frogman, you've experienced that personally? ;-)

It would be wonderful if this forum could consistently seed hope and inspiration, rather than despair. Just sayin'.

Pegwhit, that is the key, I think. You have to know your congregation and pastor. Mine would run me out of town over contemporary music and pianos. Evidently, it works for your people.

The best argument I have made for organ over piano has been to use the organ. The congregation hasn't heard much of it for a long time (just one other organist, who is a sub, not a regular Sunday musician). Many people have commented on how they find the organ much more reverent and how the music is so much more beautiful with the organ involved. I've received zero complaints about it, which is odd, because usually the whiners are the loudest ... so I can only assume good things from the lack of complaints so far.

The best way to argue beauty is to present beauty. It speaks for itself.

I came for the answer, "how to convince pastor that organ and not piano is liturgical instrument".
I expected the documents, and they are existing, but in USA there are "smart" documents of Bishops that intentionally leaving the hole for a commercial use of liturgy.
Sorry for a bitterness. The architecture of Altar and Sanctuary never meant any instrument especially baby grand piano even to be able to have a spot. To play PIANO as PIANO in a big hall it designed only to have the desk to be opened! Also I do not know a SINGLE piece of music WRITTEN as a sacred music for a liturgy. I do not take poor composers as pop/rock etc , OCP guild etc, nor I mean Protestants. But even Protestants did not forbid use of piano as strict, I do not see a composition written for PIANO. The arrangement of orchestral music is another situation!
I was expecting the documents, and was expecting that the cultural level of priests would let them to understand, that piano as upright is no use in Sanctuary, piano as baby grand C,D, or any possible size has a history of developing a CONCERT instrument, has obviously a great sensual quality unless organist playing it:-) and I just have now a dilemma: I am ruining liturgy even if I use it: after Communion; with only classical music selections; as an accompaniment- no matter: I am put in a position to make the distraction from praying and from religion.
What I am trying:
1.I will leave stupid priest- hah , where for God sake the intelligent one?
2. I will better to do it after Communion with classical music- at least to educate the big mall, the big church McDonalds
3. well, I will IMITATE organ, as best arrangements, I will imitate a harpchichord...
ALAS: they all saying after Mass: "It was SO beautiful when you played piano, we enjoyed"-
and I am cursing catholic priests who made me to be an abuser for a privilige to pay rent and bills.
It is my ESL , do not pick on grammar, i will delete anyway soon.

We have a very small community. We can only fit approx 180 people in the church.
When we first arrived we used a small Yamaha piano and guitars. Someone donated an organ but no one ever played it.
For Easter I talked my wife (pianist) to play the organ every Sunday. Now that she is used to the sound, when she does sit down to play the piano it sounds very weak. There is simply no better sound than an organ for Mass. It fills the church with beauty and just makes you want to sing.
The Organ is a "Lowrey" so its not perfect but it sounds way nicer than the keyboard.

I have a hard time thinking that a Lowrey would be a better instrument than a well played Yamaha (real) piano. Or is the Yamaha an electric keyboard?

Perhaps this is the answer. It's got something for everyone: organ, piano, percussion, and it's "upbeat" or "spirited" or whatever other adjective you prefer to indicate non-sacred entertainment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LJExKB_0U70

Much to my disappointment, a local church of mine has a hybrid organ (diapasons from 8' through to mixture and a festival trumpet are real pipes, rest electronic sounds), but the darned thing is nearly never played. I demonstrated my ability to play it and the parish priest didn't want me there because of the risk of turning parishioners away who didn't like traditional music...

Just going to wait for him to retire, or stick with being in a Cathedral Church choir.

"Also, if some fat contributors just like "piano sound" because it is a nostalgia for youth and church of 70-80th, priests are, again, in slavery, they are saying "those people are a huge givers, we need to please them"."

This strikes a chord (no pun intended). I also support the theory that some people are anti-organ (or anti-anything else inserted here) because they have a preference for something, or as Sigrid mentioned, it reminds them of something else and they would prefer not to have the reminder in their face every weekend. We have a little Hammond organ where I am the music director, and it actually doesn't sound bad, especially with an actual organist playing it (used to be pianist who refused to touch organ but the choir director convinced her to try it). However, I played it two weekends in a row and then Father asked me not to play it anymore: we have a Roland keyboard in the front of the church that we just purchased about a year before I took over as director. Sigrid would also mention that this is also about the money spent on the keyboard ("Why is our director not playing the keyboard we just bought? Didn't we buy that to replace the organ?") This really reminds me of a passage from a great book that I'm reading "Why Catholics Can't Sing" by Thomas Day. Specifically, I'm reminded of the passages on de-ritualization regarding the High Mass: two examples given, both examples included people running in fear from the Latin High Mass. These days, the organ and chant remind some of our older parishioners of exactly that: the "horrors" of the High Mass, and they want nothing to do with it. Therefore, they kick and make a scene because Vatican II was supposed to "do away with all of that" (even though V2 didn't say anything of the sort).

Just to comment on the above post, I often tell people that the difference between playing organ and piano is like the difference between playing tennis and squash. Both games involve hitting a ball with a racquet, but the technique is very different.

I particularly make the point that the way the piano and organ sustain sound is different. Sustain pedals do not exist (well, not on church/classical organs anyway), and it isn't just a matter of loud/soft, but of tone colour (ie registration).

Another way to put it is that it's like watercolours and oil paints. Both involve using brushes to put paint onto a surface, but the techniques are very different and you can make a real mess of it if you don't understand this!

We just fired our Music Director who insisted on using an electric piano on virtually everything and only used the organ when threatened with their position. This MD had NO concept of organ registration and apparently had no feet. The 4th grade level piano parts were taken over directly from piano to organ and occasionally the "Manual to Pedal" coupler was used. This MD also rode the transposer control like American Pharaoh. No wonder the organ was not better received.

I was pressed into service as organist to fill the gap until a permanent organist is found. My first act was to help haul the piano out of the church.

At our first 'organ only' choir rehearsal there was a little pushback, the choir wanted to use some of the 'canned' piano accompaniments, but I said "just try this, I'll win you over." For all the reasons some of our distinguished commenters brought up previously, the choir AND the congregation found the organ much easier to sing to. The organ's sustaining, 'breathing' like the voice, and lack of percussive attack were all apparently factors. Our deacon, reportedly the parish's most severe liturgy critic, said that it was the best music service he had ever heard at our church. Of course a lot of this had to do with the heroic efforts of our young stand-in choir director, but the switch from piano to organ made a huge difference, and comments from the congregation after the masses bore this out.

It is my personal opinion that a piano makes a church sound 'small.' The mass, or any service of any denomination, sounds like a grade school play. The piano has many revered places in the world of music, the church just isn't one of them. The organ is such a versatile instrument that it can roll with any of the punches, you just have to know how to use it. It can be subtle with Salicionals and Celestes or Dulcianas, or majestic with full Diapason choruses up to the mixtures and chorus reeds. Contrary to many people's thinking, it can be used with traditional or contemporary music equally well. You just have to know how to do it.

The use of the organ with traditional settings in the Catholic Church such as chant and old-school hymns is well known, and is a musical no-brainer. The best chant and small congregation registration is the old standby Great 8' Flute and 4' Principal (thank you Virgil Fox). You can build from there.

I detected some negatives in this thread about some of the newer 'pop' hymns introduced into the church, and I guess this is a matter of taste which I would not criticize, each to his or her own. What I would say about the use of organ for this music is to play it more like a Theater Organ. If you have some large Flute ranks (especially with a good tremulant) and sharper Strings, use them in theater style registrations and change from single manual playing to a two-manual approach with block chording as is a common Theater Organ approach. We have also very successfully integrated the use of a more 'traditional' organ with guitar by using very neutral registrations as well as sustained, non-melody-driven accompaniments similar to those that a keyboardist in a pop band would play. Pedals come in handy when a bass player does not show up. These can always be MIDI-ed to a synth producing an electric bass sound if need be.

Another argument against the organ appears to be cost. In recent years, technology has helped to solve this with computer programs such as Hauptwerk which can turn ANY MIDI-equipped keyboard into as large or small an organ as you would like. With a keyboard or two, MIDI pedals if you are so inclined, a moderate computer and the church's existing sound system, you can have a good sounding organ of any time period for your services, even switch-'em-up during your services if you want. Last Christmas, I played most of the mass in our auditorium (used for additional masses-church was full-happens every Christmas and Easter!) on a beautiful traditionally voiced English 'pipe organ' of some 25 ranks. During the more 'sappy' Christmas carols, I used a Mighty WurliTzer! If you want a good all-around service-playing organ, that comes with the Hauptwerk software, there's even a FREE version. Those who favor the Baroque have an entire palate of organ programs (called sample sets) to choose from. There are magnificent French Romantic organs available as well, all stored within a computer and available for less than the cost of an electric piano normally used in saloons.

We are blessed with an organ with some modest resources, definitely not an Allen or a Marshall & Ogeltree, but a workable service-playing instrument, fortunately with MIDI capability. Our sister parish 20 miles away is considerably more wealthy as indicated by the contents of its parking lot on Sundays. They have the same brand of organ as we do, but a 3-manual drawknob console version with about 5x the resources. I talked to them recently and they pretty much looked down their noses at our modest instrument. My comment to them was "It's not the size of the locomotive, but the engineer at the throttle!" So be it for ANY organ used in worship. In capable hands, most all, INCLUDING HAMMONDS, can be made to be musical.

In our church, one of the directors for another choir was pushy and can't even read music. It is important to have adequate experience to run a church choir, and with proper style music. Also, I like Noel's statement "sustained sound over percussion sound". It works well when we have organ sound and we had more attendance when we started because we used organ.

Some in my congregation tell me they like the piano essentially because they can't hear the piano, and like to hear the vocal harmonies alone. I don't argue with them, and then I do more stuff a capella. They appreciate this, as well.

(And yes, I register the organ modestly when it is just choral numbers, but recall that many Catholics treat congregational hymns as choral numbers, as well, which is the group from which, I think, this comment comes).

Well, I hate to disagree with folks, but I prefer the piano (as long as it is decent and in tune) to an awful organ or any number of guitars.

PolskaPiano, the melody has to be much of the reason for disliking OEW. One could sing the verses on a psalm tone, and they'd be no problem (try it if you want).

On the other hand, the refrain doesn't come from Psalm 91. It seems to be a few lines cherry-picked for sentimentality and consolation. That may appeal to people when they are feeling emotionally needy, but when they aren't, it can eventually come across as patronizing and annoying in a song that is so overdone.

As an aside, though, your 'baby steps' approach sounds quite savvy.

OEW is just poor music—it's not outright heretical like some of the more blatant Vox Dei ditties out there. I would certainly take it over many of the other sacro-pop travesties out there.

Schoenbergian,

The composer does to that text what the Devil himself does, quoting it in the Gospel.

Which must be how Catholics got this two generations after Trent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GYjNj75MFI

Let's face it. A good organ costs a heck of a lot more than a piano. Then someone has to be paid to play the organ. We don't spend all those years in school at great cost to work for nothing. There are more people who call themselves pianists even if some of them are not very good.

I did all this a bit backward. I played organ and didn't have piano much until I got into college. I had enough piano background to read notes and such but not much more than that. I could do the 'proficiency' thing, but much preferred the organ. I took two semesters of piano to keep the department heads happy. I do not call myself a pianist and the voice went sometime in my fifties. Still an organist and do some conducting.

Piano player as organist? Sure!! There's one at a parish near me. Uses about 25% of the organ's stops and none of the shades or pedals. Coulda saved about $200K of the $300K cost of the instrument if the parish had know that in advance, eh?