Recommendations for online organ tips
  • JBuckCC
    Posts: 12
    Hey y'all.

    I'm a trained pianist who needs to learn how to better play the organ.

    Whenever I've been asked to play the organ for mass, I find myself playing it like a piano, timidly tucking my feet up under the bench to avoid the pedals, and not venturing into experimenting with the stops.

    Do any of you have free, online recommendations for budding organists? Maybe, a Youtube channel you really enjoy? I ask only because of the lack of organists in my area, and because I can't budget for lessons at this time.

    Pax,

    JBuckCC
  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 875
    I would check out the SACRED MUSIC LIBRARY they offer alot of resources for pianist transitioning to organ.
    Thanked by 1JBuckCC
  • Bobby Bolin
    Posts: 439
    I remember someone saying piano is about the attack on the keys and organ is about the release. That resonated with me.

    Regarding stops, I think the best thing to do is figure out which stops are principals, which are flutes, which are strings, which are reeds, and build registrations from there.
    Thanked by 2JBuckCC Abbysmum
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 817
    The Mormons have you covered. Basically if you can play piano, you’ll become the new voluntold
    organist at some point in your life.
    https://organ.byu.edu/newldsorganist/packet.pdf

    Thanked by 1JBuckCC
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 12,094
    I still think the Flor Peeters Little Organ Book is an excellent place to start. It is inexpensive and has some good information on playing the organ. It is available on Amazon.
    Thanked by 4PaxTecum CHGiffen Roborgelmeister JBuckCC
  • BRIFFHU
    Posts: 14
    The New Oxford Organ Method book is a must-have in my opinion. By far the best for this purpose. Also there is a trap for trained pianists: they start with difficult stuff and then miss the good foundations, and sound bad.
    Thanked by 2JBuckCC Abbysmum
  • dguenther
    Posts: 1
    You will likely find that the most difficulty comes from coordination between the left hand and the pedals. Especially when they have different rhythms, notes going up in the left hand and down in the pedal, or vice versa. The resource SponsaChristi provided is very good, and I have found it very helpful. I have to give it to the LDS on this one...

    My 2 cents:
    1. My biggest advice is start with hymns, especially hymns with simple bass lines. You can learn fun pieces if you want, but for both practicality and versatility you will want to be good at hymns.
    2. It is tempting for all musicians to play a piece start to finish. If you are making mistakes, don't do that. The second you find a mistake, practice that measure, or few measures, until you get it right.
    3. When practicing difficult sections, break it up by part. Like I referenced earlier, most mistakes will come from the disconnect between the feet and the left hand. So sometimes you can try playing just the bass with pedals, then next add the tenor with left hand, then alto, then soprano. Start slow, gain speed with familiarity.
    4. Also with difficult sections, notate your score, heavily. If you constantly make a mistake in a certain section, put caution signs, circles, exclamation points, really any sort of mark up that will make sure you remember. Even for simple music I do this often.

    Other than the free resource that SponsaChristi provided, there's also the American Guild of Organist's Lessons for the New Organist series, which you can find entirely on Youtube.

    Hope this helps!
    Thanked by 4SponsaChristi CHGiffen JBuckCC irishtenor
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 817
    Also, when accompanying a choir, it helps if the organist is paying attention to the natural phrasing of the text rather than just bulldozing through it.
    Thanked by 4CHGiffen JBuckCC CharlesW Abbysmum
  • francis
    Posts: 11,391
    think more like you are 'playing' an orchestra...

    -the stops give you sections of the orchestra
    -the swell shoe controls dynamics
    -the manuals and pedals allow for independent simultaneous voices of sections in orchestra
    -instruments can 'fade in and out' and getting louder over time unlike a piano which is simply percussive and decays
    Thanked by 3Charles CharlesW Abbysmum
  • AbbysmumAbbysmum
    Posts: 205
    Also there is a trap for trained pianists: they start with difficult stuff and then miss the good foundations, and sound bad.


    Ah, this is so true and I struggle with this so. I've only been playing the organ for about 4 or 5 years, but the piano for 40 years before that. What my hands can do vs what my feet can do is very far apart. My ability to play things is dictated strictly by the pedaling still at this stage, which is SO frustrating! And then with the weekly churn of liturgical music, it's hard to learn anything properly anyway, so you end up playing it all badly.

    What I found really helpful was to play just one song with pedals that week. The rest would be manuals only, which I'm just generally sight-reading anyway (I'm a very good sight-reader under normal circumstances). That let me focus on actually learning a song properly with pedals. Once I got efficient at that, I would do two songs. I'm up to three now, not counting the Ordinaries (some of which I have finally learned with pedal and some without, depending on the difficulty). I've been gradually building what I know that way too without it overwhelming me.

    The New Oxford Organ Method book is a must-have in my opinion.


    Someone had recommended that one awhile back so I bought it, and I found it very helpful. It helped me understand the differences in touch etc, and the pieces are graded so that they are very easy to pedal at the beginning, and they get gradually harder, but without the manuals part being easy as well.

    Someone had also recommended the Pedal Mastery book by Joyce Jones, and I am working my way through it. It was also very helpful for systematically letting me get a feel for the intervals and how to move through the pedal board. I'm about 1/3 of the way thru it and it really helped make things click for me.
    Thanked by 2BRIFFHU CHGiffen
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,284
    This video series from the AGO might be useful.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • lmassery
    Posts: 447
    This website of simplified hymns is useful as you get used to playing hymns on manuals

    https://organistsonline.org/hymns/
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