Well, it’s been a few weeks since I posted here. I was on
medical leave from major surgery when I started this blog, so had a little more
time to dedicate to it. I have since returned to work full-time, putting in 1-2 hours a day practicing the organ, and other life
responsibilities, this blog was put on the back burner until I had a few spare
minutes to type up an update. :)
In a nutshell: I am progressing very well. It is definitely
slow-going, but I do not expect anything more. Learning a new musical
instrument is difficult at best, and it is unreasonable to expect to play like
a pro overnight.
Since I last wrote, my bishop, or pastor, has agreed to ease
me into playing the organ for services. That really, really helped me feel less
overwhelmed, because it meant I could take a little more time to learn the
hymns I needed to play. See, in my faith, which is LDS (Mormon) we typically
sing three to four hymns every Sunday service. That would mean I would need to
learn four hymns a week, or 16 hymns a month. That is a bit much, so we agreed
that I would play prelude and postlude the first Sunday, then the next Sunday,
add to that list, the opening hymn. I will continue that until the end of February,
then will add in another hymn for March, and then by April, I will be playing
the full service. Yikes!
But, I am happy to report, I survived my first service, but barely! I was
well-prepared, and had all of my hymns properly registered for prelude and
postlude, thanks to the help of my wonderful organ teacher, Jennifer. This
meant that I had different sounds programmed into the church organ for each verse. For
instance, the text of the verse would guide what sound I wanted to choose to
come out of the organ, and I would select the stops for that sound accordingly,
then program that into the organ’s pistons (or buttons.) . So, I would have a
nice flute-sounding solo on one verse, then the next verse would add oboes or
horns to that, etc. My job would be to select that piston (or button) that I had programmed into the organ for each verse I played, so that
each verse would be highlighted by the sound coming from the organ. It creates
a very beautiful effect from verse to verse, and is something that cannot be
done on the piano. You basically play all verses of the hymn the same on the
piano, and could possibly articulate the strike of the keys differently to
change it up, but that’s really all you can do.
I do have to say I love that the organ is somewhat more “customizable”
if you will, with the different colors of sounds one can produce when playing. Having the ability to make certain, joyful
versus stick out, versus some of perhaps the more somber ones through proper
registration of sounds, really is something I am having fun, and enjoying,
experimenting with.
So, how did my first service go, playing prelude and
postlude? Here is what I posted on my Facebook wall the day of the service:
“I shook like a leaf, and my legs were so
shaky, I could barely push on the organ pedals. But, it was good, and I did
well for a beginning organist. Stage fright sucks, though!”
Yep. That’s exactly how it went. The first
hymn, my fingers and legs were shaking uncontrollably. I have no idea why! I
knew I was well-prepared, and I had put countless hours in for this day to
arrive. By the second hymn, I realized, “Hey, you survived without anything
blowing up.” The shaking stopped a little bit after realizing that, not by
much. But, I was able to relax, and enjoy the experience a little bit more. It
is definitely more “fun” to play on the church organ, because it produces more fancy and neat
sounds over a very large speaker, versus my home organ, that is more limited in
its stops (sounds.)
Here is to hoping nothing blows up next
week, as I play prelude, postlude, and add in the opening hymn to my playing
repertoire!
