Northrop Organ

Organists for Northrop Open House including Dean Billmeyer (standing far right) with Michael Barone (third from right).

By pure luck more than good planning, I happened to be in Minneapolis for the opening weekend of the Northrop Auditorium Pipe Organ at the University of Minnesota.  Friday and Saturday night inaugural performances featured Paul Jacobs and included a Harbison world premiere as well as Saint-Saëns - Symphony No. 3 "Organ symphony" for which the organ part of the latter was played by Dean Billmeyer.

Sandwiched in between was a Saturday organ open house hosted by none other than American Public Radio's own Michael Barone, who proved to be both humorous and as engaging in real life as he is on his long running radio program PipeDreams.

The newly refurbished Northrop Auditorium organ is exquisite in clarity and the registrations sounded very well balanced.   Besides the excellent original organ design and voicing that had over the years fortunately been left largely in its original state (partly thru past lack of funding), there were two additional reasons the organ sounds so good:  Arup SoundLabs Acoustic 3D modeling and organ voicing by Jack Bethards.   More info on Arup SoundLabs here.  Foley-Baker and Associates in Connecticut fully restored the pipes and mechanicals.

Dean Billmeyer, organ professor at University of Minnesota and Northrop organ advocate, demonstrated the various organs and stop families composing the newly renovated organ.  Several other organists followed with an equally enjoyable morning concert.  In the afternoon, the console was also opened to the public, with somewhat less spectacular results to my ear at least, though no fault of the organ.  For example, some of the would-be organists mistook speed and volume for artistry.  I wished for something more suitable for this organ like Elgar's Nimrod (from Enigma variations) but other than the sublime beauty of the piece itself, what additional value would it have provided?  The morning concert organists had already ably demonstrated many of the organ's capabilities.

By the way, I have it on good authority that the organ in Royce Hall, UCLA is a close cousin if not near twin of this Northrop Auditorium organ, although in my humble opinion unless things have changed in the last two decades, the Royce Hall acoustics do not hold a candle to the newly rebuilt Northrop Hall acoustics and I suspect and hope the Northrop organ will see a lot more love than the Royce organ gets.

Read more about the Northrop organ on Minnesota Public Radio website.

Widor

So often I focus on the technical aspects of music, the rhythm, harmony, and melody (if any!).  With recorded music it is even more complicated, especially with pipe organ recordings, because there are so many things that can go wrong.   Audio clipping, over-compression, unintentional rumble, lack of clarity, or on the other hand, sterile harshness.  Sometimes the issue is simply a less-than-ideal instrument or room.

Sometimes I forget that music is really about communication.  Sharing musical ideas, emotions, feelings and aesthetic beauty,  passed over centuries.  This happens most effectively when the performer is able to channel the composer's intent clearly.  It takes incredible skill to make the difficult seem easy.

Someone once said, all history is biography.  Everything that happens in human history is because someone similar to you or I made choices and affected the course of history. 

So it is with music.   The human beings behind the music make it come alive.  Our lives would be so much poorer without the rich mix of composers and musicians who have enriched and continue to enrich our lives with music.

So it was a bit of a chagrin that I realized I had not shared with you my friend and concert organist and composer Dr. Angela Kraft Cross, AAGO, who recently recorded Widor's Symphonies 4 - 7.   She is so passionate about French organ music that she has traveled to France over the past two decades primarily for organ lessons.  She was recently featured on PipeDreams - twice.

Her Widor album is recorded on the 1880 Cavaillé-Coll organ in St. François-de-Sales, Lyon France, installed by Widor's own father and inaugurated by Widor himself with the premiere of Widor's ever popular 5th Symphony.   You simply can't get more authentic!   Even St. Sulpice can't claim that.

The artistic director is Louis Robilliard, the organist titulaire at St. François-de-Sales for over 40 years and with whom Dr. Kraft Cross has studied for 20 years.

Lastly, I am happy to report that the recording quality is superb, the registration is perfect, no doubt in no small part from knowledge of this particular instrument that comes only from years of exploration.  In the quiet sections you can even hear the tracker action making it feel very personal.   In the towering finales the ensemble is glorious.  Everyone enjoys the famous Toccata.   But in fact my favorite parts still remain the tender quiet sections in the first two movements of Widor's 5th symphony.

The 2-CD set is now available on her website:  I know you will like it.

All Love

Pulled out my personal copy of Paul Ayres' Toccata on "All You Need Is Love" this morning and tried to sight read it.  No can do!  Still can't sight read it after all these years of letting it sit on my music bookshelf.  Very surprising how that works!

So I went to YouTube to see if anyone had recorded a good rendition and remind myself how it is supposed to sound, and sure enough, Randall Mullins has a recording of him playing it on his Hauptwerk Milan Digital Father Willis organ.   It brings chills and is well worth a listen if you haven't heard it and a re-listen if you have.

I find it fascinating how pop music of one age becomes the 'serious' music of another, with occasionally detours thru Muzak.  This has happened since before the time of Mozart I suspect.  What do you think of this trend?

As a side note, I'm impressed that he went to the trouble and was able to get permission from both Paul and Sony to record this.  That's the way it is supposed to work.

Swell Pedal Potentiometer

OrganQuest is alive!   Been a bit quiet for what, a few years?  What happened?  Well life happened and continues to happen, but that's no excuse so here we are again.

The two analog organs are still in the garage.  Well one is.  The other is now mostly MIDI-fied. As I think I wrote earlier, I ran into a few tricky spots, the last of which was my attempt to install the oh so important swell controlling variable resistor.  

Most electronic organs use a rotary resistor, but the range of motion is not really compatible with most commercially available rotary resistors.  And if you choose to use a linear resistor as I did, things get even more interesting.

I tend to obsess about details, so it was easy to get bogged down in prototype building.  The ideal solution will probably eventually turn out to be use of a 3D printer to create the desired support for the linear 10k potentiometer, but that means money and/or time.  In the meantime, there are some more straightforward solutions. Here's one way to do it:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/52179600@N06/8895491765/in/album-72157633819682339/

or even simpler:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/7973276@N04/15263468498/in/album-72157648420143055/

You will note that some of these contraptions tend to require a bit of 'elbow room', which I am trying to minimize.  I also am trying to recycle the original Rodgers Swell pedal mechanisms, so obviously things got complicated fast.  Stay tuned for progress and feel free to post your suggestions.

Digital Analog

Progress update: The Rodger 32C console has all keys midified. Now I only need to midify the expression and crescendo pedals, presets, stops, and possibly a sforzando button, along with finding a dedicated computer, amp, and speaker system. Some contacts need cleaning, and some minor ribbon cable shortening is in order, but I ran out of IDC-16 cable end connectors so the photo-op will have to wait for now.

 As some of you may recall, I used the MidiBoutique HWCE2x Bundle #3 along with 5 Keymux 64's and 20 BO-16 breakout boards to eliminate the need for using diodes or solder. Probably next time I'll save money and do my own scanmatrix, but putting together an organ like this for the first time was daunting enough without that challenge.

 Of course, there were a couple of wait-a-minute moments. I had changed out all the reed switches in the pedalboard. One word: Don't! (if you don't have to). But I did. And of course, there were a couple of pedals that insisted on continuing to sound after depressed. Moving the reed switch further from the pedal magnets ever so slightly took care of that easily.

Then there was the section of missing notes on the swell keyboard. All the notes played until about 16 notes up from the left, then stopped for 16 notes, then resumed. Light bulb moment. 16 is a special number with computers, and also happens to be the number of wires in the ribbon cables. Solution: It always helps if you plug ALL of the cables in.

Lastly, a little peculiarity of the Keymux64 system (which allows me to keep the busbar under the keyboards intact and just attach one wire per note to the BO-16 breakout boards). Turns out these Keymux64 boards have two power supply terminal connector screws each, and each of them needs to be connected to a corresponding terminal on the HWCE2x motherboard. I have no idea why, but perhaps there are two different voltages or one is used for switching, or perhaps it is just extra current capacity.  But the two screw terminals do not appear to be electrically connected at least when the system is unplugged.  Solution: Two parallel wiring systems.

Next step? Replacing the swell expression pedal potentiometers. My 32C had the retro-fit modification that uses a light bulb and photoresistor system to smooth out the inevitable glitches that develop in an often used pot, but I'm not sure I will be using that here. Might put it on the 32B instead.

Until next time, enjoy organ music!

PS - here's a quick snapshot of the mounted PC boards before adding ribbon cables and modifying the power supply wiring slightly.

MIDI pedalboard

So the Christmas rush is over, and on your New Year's resolution list is a project to finish your Hauptwerk setup by building a MIDI-pedalboard to go with those MIDI keyboards you have, plan to build, or plan to buy.

Basically you have two major options: Money or time? If you have too much money, and not enough time, your problems are over. Just head over to Classic MIDI Works and for only (!) $1725 you can have a brand new pedalboard that produces excellent MIDI signals for your Hauptwerk, GrandOrgue, MIDItzer, or jOrgan setup.
http://www.MIDIworks.ca/index.php/products/details/145/2/pedalboards/classic-ago-MIDI-pedalboard

Or if you have tons of time and amazing craftsmanship skills, you could build your pedalboard like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53505621@N07/sets/72157624882970350/

But if you are somewhere in between, like me you will probably find it easier to start with an AGO pedalboard from an old analog or pipe organ and convert it to MIDI. That's what this blog post is about.

In theory, it's simple: A pedalboard is basically 32 switches which are activated by pressing the pedals. You convert those switch open and closings to MIDI signals which are then fed to your computer for use with virtual pipe organ software. Some systems go one step further and send the MIDI signals on to the computer via a USB connection. Historically, however, you would use a sound card or other type of adapter to accept the MIDI signals using a 5 pin DIN MIDI cable. I will assume for this discussion that you want to output via a generic MIDI connector rather than a USB cable. MIDI output from the pedals will allow you to connect to a MIDI merge device (with the keyboards and pistons) and from there to the sound card MIDI input or perhaps a MIDI-2-USB converter. When you do so, just remember to watch for latency (lag). Each conversion can introduce just enough lag that it might become difficult to play. This is because MIDI itself is not a very fast protocol and merging and converting it can be slower than we might like, especially for continuous output signals from the swell expression pedal if they are too verbose. One way to minimize this lag when converting multiple keyboards from analog to MIDI is to use the same manufacturer's conversion system for all manuals and pedalboards. Doing so usually allows all the merging and mixing to happen BEFORE conversion to MIDI, and you only get one final MIDI output signal which has minimal lag.

If you are an electronics engineer, you could even build all this circuitry from scratch. If you are really ambitious and have time on your hands, you might even like to check out the Highly Liquid forum:
http://forum.highlyliquid.com/

I am not an electronics engineer. Wish I were, but not even close. Fortunately there are several commercial circuit board kits available that have worked out all the details for me. Almost all of them directly output MIDI on/off signals. But because there are minor differences between the conversion kits, you do have to make a few choices however.

The first choice you must make is how to connect the pedalboard switches to the circuit boards. You'd think it would be simple: Just connect wire 1 from note 1 on the pedalboard to input 1 on the MIDI converter. Well, yes it is, but only for SCANROW style systems. There are two major categories of connections: SCANROW vs. MATRIX input. You don't need to understand these fully, but here's the bottom line: SCANROW simply connects one pedal switch to one input on the converter in a one-to-one ratio. It is the simplest system to visualize. MATRIX input is a bit more complicated, because it uses a kind of indexing to reduce the number of wires needed. Rather than 32 wires connecting to the MIDI converter as with a SCANROW system, you might have only 8-16 MATRIXed wires. The MATRIX is cleverly designed so that you have one wire for each note in a short sequence, say 8 notes, and another index wire for each sequence. Each played note (closed pedal switch) activates two wires, which combine together (MATRIXed) give your MIDI converter all the information it needs to know which note was pressed. MATRIX wiring is basically dividing the pedalboard up into several sections, each a sequence of notes. You are telling the converter something to the effect "The organist is pressing the 3rd note of the 2nd sequence of notes". These might be 8 note sequences (for digital computer reasons, not musical reasons), but a musician might wish to think of the MATRIX system as analogous to the way keyboards are full of sequences of notes that we call 'octaves' and each octave (of 12 notes) is designated differently. There would be one wire for each note in an octave (C,C#,D, etc.) and one wire for each octave (CCC, CC, C, etc.). Each time the organist plays a note, one wire from each group is activated, and the MIDI converter is smart enough to figure out what note it should play by combining the note wire and octave wire together. Same logic with MATRIX keying, except shorter (8 note) intervals are usually used to keep down the number of wires. Here's a nice little graphical illustration:
http://forum.highlyliquid.com/showthread.php?t=1115

The advantage is we can get by with using fewer wires. Perhaps a ribbon cable with only 8-16 wires in it to connect the pedalboard switches to the circuit board. MATRIX has a downside that you have to use diodes, one for each note, to make sure currents always flow one direction and don't allow the sequence wire to activate wrong notes by allowing current to flow backwards. Fortunately, diodes are cheap (less than a dollar) but have to be soldered one by one.

For me, SCANROW is just plain simpler. No diodes to solder, just 32 wires to connect. That narrows the list slightly, but we still have quite a few circuit board kits to consider. Since we do have 32 wires though, it probably will be best to mount the circuit board close to the pedals, even inside the switch end of the pedalboard. This will keep the wire rats nest to a minimum.

Now we need to decide if we want the circuit board to be capable of handling toe studs (mushroom presets) and swell expression pedals. Most of us do, so we will have to look at the capabilities of the MIDI circuit board kits carefully. Basically swell expression pedals are connected to variable resisters (potentiometers) and that variable resistance is converted to a MIDI signal number of 1-128. In other words, swell expression input is analog, not digital on-off like the pedal note switches. So we look at how many analog inputs the circuit board has. Lastly, we look for whether the circuit board can handle toe stud inputs. Toe stud piston inputs are very similar to pedal not switches, except they must be programmed slightly different -- when we press a toe stud, we expect it to latch, not momentarily turn on, then off, as it would if it were a keyboard note. It is my understanding (I may be wrong) that the switch itself is usually not different, only the way the circuit board handles the signal, so we have to inquire or check into how many such notes it can handle.

Lastly, and perhaps least important, is the type of switches in the pedalboard. Most reasonably modern analog organs use a system of reed switches activated by magnets on the tips of the pedals. This is a nice system because the reed switches are enclosed in glass like a light bulb and are less vulnerable to arcing oxidation and 'bouncing' that can happen when a circuit is closed. There are other ways to make or break a circuit. Some, like the home made pedalboard linked to above, use photo cells to optically open and close the circuit. This is probably the most elegant and trouble free, but it might cost a little more to use. It's completely up to you however, all we need for the input to the MIDI circuit board is some kind of switch. Most circuit boards have a 'debounce' circuit to minimize the number of MIDI on-off signals sent with a single not depression, but again optical might be the gold standard in clean switching.

Assuming you want to MIDIfy a standard AGO pedalboard using SCANROW wiring, I've done the hard work for you and posted a summary spread sheet of various vendors and their relevant products as of December 2013. You may still have further questions after studying it, but it is at least a good start to your project.

By the way, if you don't have Excel, I recommend Libre Office (Calc) or perhaps Gnumeric. Both are open source and free spread sheet viewing tools. You will need to unzip the file first using your operating system or a tool like 7-zip. Compare and contrast!
www.anim8.com/organ/blog/MIDI_Pedalboard.zip

Movie Magic

In my next blogpost I plan to get back to writing about midification of an electronic organ, but first I just have to share a holiday movie with you.

By way of background, yes, it's that time of year in the U.S., the Thanksgiving-Hanukkah-Kwanzaa-Christmas season. For those of you outside the U.S., all you need to know is that Thanksgiving still has some solid remnants of good, honest, family togetherness left to it. The Christmas holidays have been hijacked by corporations (and some churches) wringing the last drop of humanity out of any well-meaning soul that falls into their marketing territory. But Thanksgiving is arguably still mainly about being with family and gratefully sharing a nice meal together. I was fortunate to be able to simply visit with my family rather than worry about shopping and gifts and all the scheduling anxieties that come with the X-mas season. But the day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday for reasons best left to the imagination, and that day is probably better spent at home if you dislike competing with crowds of greedy consumers as much as I do.

So instead, we watched a jewel of a movie called "A Christmas Without Snow", and although it is set in San Francisco, a city not far from where I write this, it was the first time I watched this film. The main story is about a demanding choirmaster preparing a small amateur choir to sing Handel's Messiah but there are multiple personal stories interwoven around this unifying theme. Whoever wrote the script knew a thing or two about the craft of making music, because the dialogue is spot on. It's one of those classic movies with lines that any music lover can and will appreciate. The writer also knew something about organs, there are a few priceless scenes comparing a pipe organ with an electronic imitation to quite humorous effect.

There's a free download (public domain) at:

https://archive.org/details/AChristmasWithoutSnow

I found both DivX and Mp4 versions playable. If you don't have a player, VLC player will play almost anything:

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

but you can probably use whatever player you have, perhaps even Windows Media Player!

If you like music and films that appeal to both mind and heart, I hope you have a chance to watch this movie before the holidays are over.

Disney's Pipe Organ

Sorry. No photo today. I wanted to post a photo of the Disney Concert Hall Pipe Organ but you will have to settle for enjoying the officially approved Disney Hall virtual tours instead.

Here is a YouTube clip from Carol Williams' DVD:

http://www.laphil.com/wdch10/wdch/organ.html

From there, find links to a plethora of virtual short tour videos, more than you ever wanted to know about Disney Concert Hall and organ, including a time lapse video of the hall's construction.

http://www.laphil.com/wdch10/wdch/architecture.html

Enjoy!

Sublime Symphony

I moved away from Los Angeles before the Walt Disney Concert Hall was built. Two years ago I toured the exterior of this iconic building, but was not allowed inside the auditorium proper. This weekend I finally had the opportunity to attend a concert there. It was one of this season's 10th anniversary opening concerts. Disney Concert Hall is everything they say and more. If you ever have the opportunity to attend a concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall, don't think twice. Just do it, you will not regret it. The acoustics are exquisite. This concert happened to be the LA Philharmonic, not the breathtaking "French Fries" pipe organ unfortunately, but the organ was on full display. Huge curved wood pedal pipes up to 32 feet long were arrayed in a near random explosive array. Obviously a controversial design, but equally obviously the best design for LA, this is not your grandmother's concert hall or organ. Our seatmates were 10 year symphony season subscribers. Their first words when we arrived were "If you ever get a chance, you must come to hear the organ". They had no idea how much I would have loved to hear the Gehry/Rosales/Glatter-Götz organ had a concert been available. Toyota's organ gift made me proud to own one of their cars. It is unfortunate that we missed Hector Olivera's organ recital by just over a week (coming up Sunday October 13, 2013). As with the San Francisco Davies Symphony Hall Ruffati, there are only four major organ recitals per year. In addition to Hector Olivera, only Ullrich Böhme, Ann Elise Smoot, and Paul Jacobs will be giving recitals at Disney Hall. http://www.laphil.com/tickets/series-detail/organ-recital. However, I did hear from a staff member that the organ will be used in Phantom of the Opera around Halloween time.

I can't comment on the sound of the organ obviously, but I can tell you that from our balcony seats we could hear the instruments in brilliant clarity seldom heard elsewhere. The program was a combination of percussion concerto (world premiere of Lieberson's Shing Kham featuring a marimba, drums and other percussion), Salieri's composition student Franz Schubert's "Tragic" Symphony No. 4, and Tchaikovsky's crowd pleasing Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23, featuring virtuoso pianist Yefim Bronfman who receive a standing ovation and graciously played an encore ignoring the inevitable exhaustion induced by the 'unplayable' Tchaikovsky concerto.

We don't hear the word 'sublime' bandied about too much these days. Perhaps it is because it is so hard to imagine what the word means in our hectic, horrific, often fear driven lives. But perhaps one could do worse than put on some comfortable clothes, dim the lights, or just close your eyes as I did while listening to the second movement of Schubert's 4th: http://youtu.be/nM6FlD7ctXQ

Sublime.

Grey Cells

Since you last read a new post here things have not been idle on the west coast. Davies Symphony Hall has had multiple organ concerts, among them Paul Jacobs and Isabelle Demers.

Fascinating to me are the prodigious feats of memory that concert organists exhibit. One of the first things to be whisked away when one of these prodigies takes over the console is the music desk. Yes, it is difficult for all musicians to memorize entire concerts, but it is incredible to imagine the unseen difficulties involved when performing by memory while visiting an organ say at most three times a year. Like a football team playing on unfamiliar turf, possibly a bit jet lagged, the musician must not only play his repertoire to perfection, he must also remember where all the little buttons are on the organ console he is at here and now. In an age when politicians and rock stars can barely remember the name of the current city, organists must remember scores of memory piston presets and stop locations, not to mention which keyboard to play on at any particular time. And this is no small matter, because many organ pieces have huge contrasts between quiet and massive sounds. Playing the wrong one at the wrong time might just spoil the effect a little. But never mind, away with that music desk. No need for paper when you have grey cells to memorize everything. Astounding.

I have weighed the pros and cons of giving note by note comments on the performances during the most recent organ concerts, but decided against it. I will save you the time and trouble by summarizing: I have particularly enjoyed what seems to be a new trend towards playing transcriptions of orchestral pieces. Isabelle's transcription of Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet" comes to mind as a beautiful example. Paul Jacob's Elgar Organ Sonata No. 1 in G major, Opus 28, while not really a transcription, is not played often enough, so Elgar is not really thought of as a composer for organ. This piece was written for organ and gave me chills. It is perhaps one of the best arguments for becoming an Elgar fan that I have heard recently. And yes, Paul Jacobs also played Elgar's familiar graduation march tune Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in its entirety. As well as Demessieux's Transcendental Études. A piece I could have lived without hearing, but it was impressive to hear them played.

But one concert I missed was this weekend's Christopher Houlihan concert. Just found out about it after the fact, and that even though I'm subscribed to Christopher's YouTube channel! In case you missed it, I've included a link to some video of him in rehearsal. Again, a transcription, perhaps his Ravel? Or is this Widor? Hopefully it will give you an idea of what the SF Symphony organ sounds like. Enjoy!

10,000 Hours

Surprising as it may seem, simply owning a fine AGO organ console does not a good organist make, all claims by the manufacturers aside. No matter how many beautiful stop keys, switches, and pistons, little musical sound will spontaneously erupt without some human intervention (MIDI recordings aside). To be fair, this is not a fact that organ manufacturers usually hide, but neither do they go out of their way to advertise it.

I do admit that I feel like a better organist seated at a better organ. And I enjoy practicing longer when there are inspiring stop sounds to select. Different registrations can make the same piece of music sound ghastly or sublime. My recent favorite is the Burea Church extended AGO sample set which I use with the free Grand Orgue software. But just having this organ setup sitting in my living room does nothing to improve my playing, especially if I am traveling and away from said living room as I was recently. My last organ lesson clearly demonstrated that.

Tempting as it is to spend my free time tweaking virtual organ configurations or converting analog organs to MIDI, the only thing I would have to show for that time would be a mechanical tool, an instrument capable of producing music, but only by someone who knew how to play it. Time spent practicing gives me something that cannot be taken away, something less susceptible to obsolescence and decay. The gift of music.

Malcom Gladwell in his best selling book "Outliers" describes some of the ingredients which produce truly exceptionally competent people. Be they musicians, airline pilots, or physicians, he asserts that an investment of at least 10,000 hours is necessary to truly excel at anything. And thinking about it, this number seems about right. That's about 3 hours a day for 9 years. A doctor does not graduate from university and start practicing immediately. A tennis star does not pick up a racket and win at Wimbledon the first year. The Beatles didn't start a band and instantly rise to stardom by performing to stadiums full of adoring fans. No, they spent years playing in small clubs in Berlin honing their skills before they were 'discovered'. I'm not sure they would have called their club playing 'practicing'. If you had asked, they probably would have told you 'trying to survive'.

But I thought it would be interesting to estimate how many hours I've spent practicing the organ, omitting past musical interests like piano, band, and choir participation. I started playing the organ about as soon as my feet could reach the pedals. I didn't care so much for the piano. Maybe it was just the loud piano we had a home, but I did not like sound of hammers banging on strings. It was a Baldwin Acrosonic. It probably should have been called a 'forte' rather than piano. Assuming that organ lessons started around age 13 and stopped when I graduated from high school at age 18, that's about 6 years. Assuming I practiced about 45 minutes every school day each of those years, by a very rough estimate I have put in about 832 hours of organ practice. That does not seem like very much, but it might even be a slightly high estimate. Of course it omits any time spent playing in church on the weekend, but that could probably be considered a negligible rounding error due to the fact that the majority of time in church services was spent with other people talking or simple hymn playing, not performing serious organ music. I was a bit surprised at how little cumulative time I had invested.

But the good news here is that there is hope! Maybe all that is needed is more practice time, as Bach said something to the effect that organ playing is easy if you work as hard at it as he did! If I can play as well as I can now with that little practice, just think what could happen if I spent 3 hours a day for 9 years? In fact, using Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 number, I only have an estimated 9168 hours to go, less whatever practice time I already put in over the last year and a half since purchasing this organ. That's just a bit over 8 years more to go!

I am reminded of something Nadia Boulanger once wistfully wrote regarding her failure to learn Russian: "Would it have really killed me to learn one word a day?"

Time for me to get serious about practicing! Maybe you too!

Transcription Prescription

I was listening www.organlive.com today and heard Thomas Murray's performance of Dvorak's Carnival Overture on the Yale Woolsey Hall Organ (Newberry Memorial Organ) which was just terrific enough for me to go to Amazon.com and buy the single MP3 for 99 cents. While you may or may not be a Dvorak fan, this hauntingly beautiful piece has a special place in my memories from high school days when I listened to an orchestral version over and over. Thomas Murray's registration on the Yale Skinner organ is really quite amazing. It has rather positively changed my opinion of the role of the organ in a convincing orchestral symphonic transcription for organ and has helped me understand the enthusiasm for such instruments which existed near the turn of the last century (1900's). Spec sheet for this organ here.

Speaking of transcriptions for organ, having recently watched the duly troubling DVD Troubled Water, complete with a prominent role for a pipe organist, I am convinced that there is a wide-open opportunity for contemporary pipe organ music that is neither stodgy nor dissonant. Music that, dare it be said, is serious yet modern without being stuffy. Perhaps even based on popular music.

Even if you aren't a friend of Dorothy or the Wizard of Oz, you'll probably like this version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow The subtle buildup towards the end is magical. Just goes to prove that one does not need a theater organ to play accessible music or a lot of pipes to make wonderful sounds (organ has just 8 ranks, 550 pipes only).

A recent pipe organ list mentioned Paul Ayre's Toccata on All You Need is Love (aka Toccata on Amor Satis Est) for organ. I couldn't find any YouTube performances of Ayre's Toccata online but I did find several interesting organ renditions of All You Need is Love. Here are a couple:
All You Need is Love (skip ahead to 01:00 on the time line where the music starts).
or an interesting home version:
All You Need is Love (probably a closer transcription to the original).

My interest picqued, I had to have Ayer's Toccata on All You Need Is Love and have now sight read it through twice. Or should I say stumblingly attempted to sight read it! Great fun and someday I will no doubt make it sound good enough to play in public! Not a transcription really, it can be said to be more or less loosely based on the original Beatles tune. Paul Ayer's Toccata feels a bit more difficult to play than In Dir Ist Freud (my previous major challenge, which by the way, I am relearning nearly from scratch now that I have a teacher to inform me that it is not cool to mix Bach and legato!) Registration looks like it will be key and it definitely needs a good pedal support. Get your own copy http://paulayres.co.uk/catalogue/243:

If you happen to be in Tennessee for the American Guild of Organists' National Convention Friday July 6, 2012, check out Jane Parker-Smith's two performances of Paul's Toccata (the Fab Four meet the symphonic French organ tradition). I heard her play at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco last year and she is terrific, although I got the distinct impression either she or the Ruffati (probably the latter) were having a bad day. Her performance of Paul's Toccata will be at the Brentwood United Methodist Church, Tennessee (presumably in Brentwood).

Past is Prologue

I've been reading the fascinating Memoirs of a San Francisco Organ Builder by Louis Schoenstein. The book provides a very personal, albeit often non-chronological, look into the life of a very long lived bay area organ builder whose father, brother, and sons were also organ builders in a company which continues to bear their name (although not their ownership to the best of my knowledge). Although not a work of high literature, the book is still interesting from more than just an organ point of view. It is not often one is able to read a book published in 1977 which relates first hand recollections of the 1899 Naval celebrations on their return from the Philippines following the Spanish American war. Or recollections of the 1906 fires which ravaged San Francisco following the great earthquake (another due again sometime one must assume). Or of the author's boyhood memories of the tomb of a Unitarian preacher who helped convince civil war era 1860's San Francisco to side with the north. But just as importantly, it gives a no nonsense view of the pipe organ builder's trade.

Schoenstein's memoirs are divided into sections. The first part describes scores of organs which succumbed to the flames in 1906 and is something of a downer. The next deals with the mechanical workings of an orchestrion (a special interest of his father), and the section I am reading now is fascinating mainly in that it describes the many organs of the period that survived at least into the 1960's and possibly into the current day. My next project will be to actually see those organs that survived. More on this later hopefully.

Returning to the Beginning

Thanks to a tip from a fellow pipe organ list member, I learned just in time about a concert yesterday given by a very special organist. I must admit, I was not prepared for the pleasure of listening to Dorothy Young Riess, MD.

Her theme: Music of Joy. In a brief speaking part she mentioned that this was partly joy in just being able to stand up at her age! But you could tell it was more than that, probably joy at being able to return to the pleasure of music she experienced years before. If you have been reading here long, you know what I think about harsh, painful, bombastic, alienating organ music. There was none of that here. This program by Dr. Reiss was almost a complete opposite, although there were a few chords here and there from Langlais (Fete) and Messiaen (Transport de Joie) that might disturb an extremely sensitive church lady.

While composing this blog post, I initially thought to make comparisons: A young organist who gave up music to study medicine then returned much later to pick up where she left off. But the similarities ended there. She obviously came to earth brimming with far more gifts than most. Genes perhaps (both parents were musicians) but also perseverance. Maybe some of it is the swimming.

She went on to study composition with Nadia Boulanger and organ with Marcel Dupre. However, following "a series of life changing events" including the death of her father when she was 20, she changed course and eventually practiced internal medicine until her retirement in 2000, at which time she began playing the organ again at age 72.

At this concert it sounded as though she had played all her life. Now proudly 80 years old, there was nothing to give away her age in either her bearing or her vibrant performance. Pieces chosen included her own arrangement of the Shostakovich "Suite for Variety Orchestra" (complete with an ending 32' low C pedal note, which worked by the way) and Waltz 2, a delightful almost theater-organ-like piece famous from the film "Eyes Wide Shut". She ended her concert with the same Olivier Messiaen piece with which in 1952, 59 years ago to the day, she had won the AGO National Competition in San Francisco in this very same Berkeley building, although presumably a different organ given that this one was built in 2006.

As if to summarize her life, in her touching short comments she quoted the poem "...and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." [T.S. Eliot, "Four Quartets"]

Pipes

I've been enjoying my jOrgan virtual pipe organ setup. The jOrgan Puppy Linux computer hasn't been turned off since I last wrote about it, and it still works fine. I find myself using the Baroque and American Classic organ dispositions quite a lot. Because of the limited CPU power on that computer however, it can't handle software reverb internally, so I run the computer's soundcard audio out through an external stereo reverb unit, and from there to the Allen's internal amplifier which feeds the 9 speakers. The subwoofer actually sounds stronger with the jOrgan than with the Allen's internal 32 foot stops. Practice has been a bit sketchy the last couple weeks due to travel, business, and family celebrations. In fact, I wrote the first draft of this blog on the road. Unfortunately, my organ does not travel as well as my internet tablet. Hopefully a solution for that small problem will be found some day. Inflatable midi console and pedalboard anyone? Oh, and maybe I have been just a bit intimidated by the realization that I will never play as well as EPB, VF, MCE, OL, CC, or PJ. But I remind myself, it is not the destination, it is the journey.

Meanwhile, for more inspiration, I attended another concert at symphony hall by a very well known organist and pedagogue with the initials PJ. He was very relaxed and expertly performed what seemed like a too brief concert. His casual anecdotes, shared philosophy, and introductions to performance pieces compensated for what felt like an almost too technically perfect performance of a somewhat challenging program. And as for attire, he dared not deviate from the mandatory black suit except when he tossed his jacket off in order to play Reger's "wickedly difficult" Inferno wearing his shirt sleeves. Although the organ console was initially turned at a slight angle, he thoughtfully arranged to have it turned to an equal and opposite angle for the second half of the concert. This decision received applause when he mentioned deviating from the usual straight on back view. He commented that Liszt was one of the first to do this with the piano.

The most interesting pieces of the evening, aside from the toe-tapping The Gigue Fugue attributed questionably to Bach (BWV 577 - who says Bach couldn't write rock and roll?) were works composed by composers with whom the organist had personal connections. The opening piece, Fantasia for Organ by Weaver, one of his teachers, was breathtaking. Equal parts electronica, theater organ, and classic organ articulately and played with supreme confidence. A real crowd pleaser.

Another noteworthy piece was a West Coast premiere of Reverie by Wayne Oquin, a pianist colleague of his. In introducing this piece, the organist lamented the fact that many composers fear the organ. There is a tendency to find the piano a safe alternative. To compensate, PJ gave the composer free access to an organ. Apparently this was the composers first work for organ, but there was nothing to indicate this in the resulting piece, and one can only hope that this is an indication of more to come from Oquin. As the organist put it, "beauty is not icing on the cake, it is part of the cake" and "popular culture fills our stomachs with facts, but starves us of wonder". This piece was a welcome antidote. As the name implies, it was a dreamy expression of taking the time to contemplate beauty and the arts. Filled with a calliopic intro, birdlike flute solos over left hand chords, there were shades Messiaen. As the organist later commented, you could have heard a pin drop.

Readers of this blog may already have guessed my impression of Durufle. The dirge like, agonizing and child-scaring Durufle Suite for Organ, Opus 5 proved that PJ can play difficult pieces. But even Durufle apparently had little good to say about the Toccata. Enough said.

After extended applause, PJ returned to the console, indicating with an index finger that he would play one encore, and commenting "We haven't had enough Bach" and played Bach's Fugue in A-minor, if my distinctly non-Mozartian musical memory and subsequent comparisons with YouTube organ fugue recordings is reliable. I am not yet enough of a Bach connoisseur to play "name that tune" with Bach, so it is entirely possible that this was the G-minor fugue or some other equally unknown to me fugue, but the A-minor theme seems the closest to my ears. Whatever it was, bottom line, I liked it. If you were there and remember which it was, feel free to comment and enlighten me.

Notes Inégales

I recently took the opportunity to hear a well known french organist (with the initials O.L.) at Davies Symphony Hall. I leave out his name simply because I want to write freely and not concern myself with any possible impact on google searches for the artist.

One of my hesitancies about going to this particular concert was that several of the pieces on the program seemed too familiar, such as Schumann's "Study in A-flat major, Opus 56, No. 4". It seems as though everyone is playing that piece these days, and for good reason I might add. An incredibly lyrical piece and one of my favorites. But if I've heard it, probably everyone else has too. But maybe novelty is not the main reason to go to a concert. So I went anyway. Just hearing what is possible on the 5 manual Ruffati always seems to give me pleasure.

One of the most unique things about this concert, to my ears at least, was the way Bach's BWV 540 "Toccata and Fugue in F Major" was played. It sounded at first like the organist was having great difficulty with sticky keys. But they seemed to stick in a regular fashion, rhythmically tied to the beat, and therefore likely intentional. I had not heard this piece played that way before, but the organist seemed quite serious about his otherwise effortless playing. Then it dawned on me, perhaps these were the notes inégales (French for unequal notes) of the French baroque organ tradition. If so, it was worth the trip just to hear them played authentically. Not that Bach is French mind you. But it's hard to get more historically authentic than hearing someone who has studied with Gaston Litaize, a blind organist-composer who studied with Marcel Dupré and Louis Vierne and championed the notes inégales. Not that I plan to or could play this way, but this piece was simply one more reminder that notes on paper aren't intended for strictly mechanical interpretation. Viva la liberté!

Or more accurately, notes formerly on paper, because the entire concert was played by memory. The concert included pieces by Widor, Dupre, Alain, Langlais, Duruflé, and Litaize's playful "Scherzo". I'll never know the title of the familiar sounding encore, the person I asked afterward in the foyer did not know either, and seemed irritated that I should be so bold as to inquire.

One of the highlights of the evening was the organist's final improvisation on submitted themes. The only words spoken during the entire evening preceded his improvisation, and were something to the effect that "someone should be bringing them shortly", and soon after a distinguished gentleman walked on stage and handed him some paper presumably containing the three themes for the evening's improvisation. After glancing at them, and after what seemed like an extraordinary length of time and thoughtful setting up of new stop combinations, the organist played the three themes first in their simple elegance, and then with an introduction complete with spine chilling crashing chords. Now if my ears do not deceive, someone must have had a sense of humor. Three seemingly incongruous themes were submitted. "San Francisco", "Now Thank We All Our God" (or "Nun Danket alle Gott"), and "A Mighty Fortress". I must confess, for a good all over feeling I much prefer the simpler version of "San Francisco" played on the Castro Theatre organ prior to showtime. There, the music is a rousing, enthusiastic piece which makes everyone in the audience feel proud to live near the namesake city and builds anticipation of the movie to come. However, in Davies Hall that evening, the tune for "San Francisco" was accompanied by a martial rhythm, a near sinister snare-like pedal and chilling reeds sufficient to scare a small child. But the performance was mesmerizing anyway. I forgot that it was improvised until at one point I heard all three themes played simultaneously. The complexity of what was going on in the organist's mind boggles mine just to imagine. Then I had the kind of thought that makes me glad I attended. Wasn't Bach a great improviser too? And Beethoven? Perhaps the highest pinnacle, the greatest achievement, made possible by years of study and practice, is not to reproduce another composer's works flawlessly, but to be able to improvise like this. Viva la virtuosity!

Virtual Pipe Organ

The future of digital organs is PC based. I mean PC in the inclusive sense of Windows, Linux, or Mac personal computers which have nearly become commodity items these days. Follow the money, custom software and hardware cannot keep pace with consumer electronics economy of scale. For some time, there has been a commercial virtual pipe organ (VPO) software application called Hauptwerk, and it is pretty much the state of the art as far as VPO's go. But it also has a state of the art price tag, even though there is a free limited version you can use. If you are building a $100,000 church organ, that is the software to use probably. It can even actuate electromagnetic stop tabs. Check it out, I'm sure you will be impressed.

On the other hand, for a few years, there has been a free alternative with which I am just starting to become familiar. It's called jOrgan and it works on PC, Linux, or Mac (under Java Runtime Environment or JRE). The coolest part is jOrgan is open source, and thus nearly obsolescence proof, and jOrgan only stands to get more capable with time. This is a pretty amazing piece of software, and for some time I have been wanting to install it and take it for a test drive. This week I did.

The Windows XP install is a breeze. Download the executable, install, and start playing the virtual keyboard. I do not plan to configure it further because my Windows computer is not close enough to my organ MIDI controller console to use it easily. Instead, I decided to build a jOrgan Virtual Pipe Organ using entirely free software. I started out with a Pentium 1.7Ghz CPU with 768mb RAM (maxed out memory for this aging Hewlett Packard) into which I had installed an M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 audio card (which allows hardware MIDI control via a serial port and has excellent quality stereo output). Then I wiped the drive with some software called Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN), which is intended to make a hard drive safe to sell on ebay without worrying that someone will obtain your financial data. In my case, the purpose was to make sure it was a completely clean install. Then following the incredibly detailed step-by-step instructions written out for me on the jOrgan Forum, I was able to install Puppy Linux 5.1.1, a very lightweight and free operating system. Then the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), and finally jOrgan. It took some time alright, which is why I waited until the weekend to tackle it without rushing, but it really wasn't hard. It is quite surprising to me how far this little Puppy distribution of Linux has come with regard to ease of use.

Wow! What fun! With jOrgan, given enough time and effort and access to the right equipment, you can create your own virtual pipe organ to emulate an actual pipe organ. Fortunately, others have made several already, so you don't have to, but it's nice to know we can. The sound is very realistic, even allows adjustment of tracker sounds and wind noise, as well as chiff. Even on my very modestly powered computer, there was no appreciable lag. In fact there was probably significantly less than there is on a real pipe organ, but it's been a long time since I've played a real pipe organ so I can't really judge that. All I know is when I hooked it up to my portable keyboard for testing it did not play tricks with my brain like some high latency MIDI apps have done before.

I'm playing the sounds dry, but it is possible to add convolution reverb. That will be my next project, but for now, I'm just enjoying the sounds of pipes. Or virtual pipes if you insist.

Makes me want to hurry up and convert those old analog Rodgers organs to MIDI so they sound this good. If you want to know more, check out the jOrgan website and forum.

Pseudo Pipes in a Cathedral and Perfect Practice

I recently attended a concert by a well known organist at Grace Cathedral. Because their pipe organ is undergoing some kind of rejuvenation, a Rodgers electronic organ has been installed in the rear of the cathedral, the console tucked out of sight with huge speakers cleverly camouflaged as...well...er...speakers with cathedral concrete colored speaker cloth. It was interesting to compare the sound of the digital organ with that of my memory of the pipe organ in the same cathedral. I have come to the conclusion that I may not be such a big fan of cathedral acoustics for organ music after all. The primordial mush soup of sound that I had previously attributed to the Aeolian Skinner seemed to also permeate the Rodgers even more so. Perhaps it was my ears that day, but it just didn't seem clear. Moving further away actually made things better, probably a psychological effect as the sound was more consistent with my expectations towards the the center of the cathedral compared to up close to the sound source where it seemed as though it should have been more clear. I even wondered if they were using digital reverb in addition to the amazing natural reverberations of the cathedral.

I've started reading a book by called Practicing by Glenn Kurtz. It has nothing and everything to do with my return to playing the organ. Technically, it is a book about classical guitar. But so far I am fascinated by the author's poetic way of romanticizing the whole process of preparing to practice and the actual practice session as a zen like experience. It reminds me of an only partly forgetten essay I once read entitled "How to Write a Poem". The essay described setting the lighting and candles, even the music perhaps. By the end of the essay I could practically hear the crackling of the fireplace fire and feel the cozy blankets in which the author snuggled while writing poetry. Nothing was said about rhythm and meter, but you just knew that something really remarkable would have to come from such a state of mind induced by an environment so conducive to pleasure and poetry. But I digress.

As I look back on this last year, I've often wondered how to properly practice for maximum effectiveness. What is the most time efficient and enjoyable method to learn a new piece for example? I've gathered tid bits here and there, mainly online. So far here is my how to list. I'd love to hear more ideas:

Practicing at a home organ is best for me for many reasons. I like the comfortable temperature, convenience, lack of undue external pressure or distraction of being at home. But I would settle for a convenient nearby pipe organ if necessary.

If I have to be somewhere afterwards at a certain time, I set an alarm at the beginning of the session so I don't have to continually worry about it or check my watch. About 45-60 minutes works for me, I wish it could be longer many days.

I put on my organ shoes. I've changed from preferring quick slip on jazz shoes to preferring lace up OrganMasters (Capezio's are similar but without the suede soles). I liked the convenience of slip ons, but they began to stretch out a little, or the elastic weakened, and I felt less secure with them, especially with the extra heel height I had added. And I'd like to try some shoes with an even higher heel. But that's a whole nuther topic and not really necessary at this point.

Practice usually feels most comfortable for me when no one else is around because there is less pressure to perform or muddle through instead of stopping short and fixing minor glitches. A casual non-musical listener may not notice when I goof up, but I do, so now is the time to stop and work on it. And I feel more confident to tackle more difficult pieces if no one is listening but me. But I don't avoid practicing just because someone is there. Chances are they are not listening anyway, and with any luck they will enjoy the sound of music under construction.

1) I start out with some exercises - pedaling, finger limbering, perhaps something from a technique book?

2) I then revise a familiar piece, perhaps refresh a memorized piece to build my confidence. I stop, back up, and get a running start at any rough sections and repeat until played as perfectly as I can or at least without major mistakes. I don't go obsess about it, I just try to lay down some good neural pathways and always end a piece on a good note so next session I won't have the same problems.

3) Then I may work on a newer piece. I always try to work from a scanned PDF so my original is not damaged and I can mark fingering and pedaling without guilt:
a) Mark the pedaling
b) Mark the phrasing & workable fingering (I try to do this BEFORE I learn the piece incorrectly - I'm not too good at remembering the phrasing bit)
c) Practice a few measures of the pedals
d) Practice a few measures of the left hand
e) Practice a few measures of the right hand
f) Practice a few measures of Pedal and Left hand
g) Practice a few measures of Pedal and Right hand
h) Practice a few measures of Left and Right hand
i) Practice a few measures of Pedal, Left, and Right hand

Repeat watching for proper phasing (clearly repeated notes vs. legato lines)

Repeat for next few measures, then combine until the practice session has expired or nearly so (probably at least 45-60 minutes is a good stretch - if I have more time I do this I might repeat twice daily with a break, music organ majors & professionals reportedly must put in 4+ hours per day - I can't or at least choose not to do that now). It is amazing how fast the practice session time goes, and how long it takes to learn some new pieces well. At least that is my perception.

If I am trying to memorize something, I prefer to do it before exercising or going to sleep. I believe it helps long term memory storage.

If there is time - I do some simple improvising for pleasure or sight reading some new pieces for inspiration.

That's my ideal session. Doesn't happen every day, and I'm sure it is not the perfect practice method, but it's the best I can come up with on short notice. I always try to keep in mind the goal - musical pleasure before perfection.

Ideas welcome.

Second thoughts on Listening to Organ Music

Some might say that the solution to the relative unpopularity of the organ in the US includes 1) more advertising and 2) just keep listening longer (from GABISOMA, the Grin and Bear It School of Organ Music Appreciation). Even if you don't like it at first, you'll learn to appreciate it later. The first idea is to lure unsuspecting people in, the latter, to allow one's own tastes to broaden. Which is all well and good in what it affirms. I have often wished I had heard about a concert before it happened rather than after. But to paraphrase a college professor, these solutions are wrong in what they deny, which is that there is anything out of line in the organ world.

A recent thread on a pipe organ list even questioned whether it was unacceptable to walk out on an unenjoyed organ concert. For the record, I think this is more than perfectly acceptable, it is desirable and a healthy way to promote more enjoyable concerts in the future provided it does not interfere with the pleasure of those remaining. But I have never done it for fear I might miss something really great coming up afterwards. That said, subsequent list posts completely missed the point regarding one key reason to leave a concert. Most of the comments obsessed on the technical skills and perfection of the performance, rather than the emotional content of the music (or lack thereof). Were Bach's improvisations all note perfect of something written 200 years previous to his performance? Was he thinking about phrasing and articulation to the exclusion of emotional content? Did he mature and develop his style to fit the current trends and needs of his church or endlessly try to perfect his Vivaldi and Telemann performance?

Incidentally, this reminds me of the time I happened to mention that I refuse to learn any piece of music I don't like. Period. Full stop. End of story. What would be the point of learning to play something you dislike or are even lukewarm about? It would only create distaste for the instrument and the music. This apparently remarkably independent thought came across as quite a novel concept indeed, and one organist reader even volunteered that he had never once been asked what music he would like to learn! The rationale supposedly is that learning to play music you don't care for will accustom you to it to such a degree that, as with a poor quality pop tune played incessantly on the radio, you will eventually develop some kind of fondness for it. But is it this self-denial, this kind of alienation of one's one thoughts, emotions, and desires, that has helped to create a repertoire seemingly of marginal interest or attractiveness to the general public? It is simply inexcusable in this modern age of digital recordings not to allow the student to listen to and learn music that appeals to him or her.

I refuse to wear a hair shirt or enjoy self-crucifixion to enjoy music! I'm not talking about dumbing music down or playing show tunes on the organ (no offense to my theater organist friends, if any should incorrectly suspect that I was specifically referring to that genre). No, I'm talking about focusing less on the liturgy and religious trappings of the classic concert organ and more on the sensual beauty, peace, voluptuous rapture that can come from great art.

By way of example of what I consider a reasonably good combination of good taste and accessibility (apparently that's the term for what I'm promoting), I just recently received an organ CD not-coincidentally by the same organist who recorded the Durufle of my previous blog post. In my mind this second CD goes a long ways towards mitigating the effects of certain more alienating types of organ music. It's called "In A Quiet Cathedral" and I highly recommend it, not for the recording quality (it seems to have a slight very low rumble on my system) but for the pure listening pleasure it gives. Pity the concept for the album had to come from a pianist.

Evening Thoughts on Listening to the Complete Organ Works of Duruflé

Have you listened to a music box album recently? Mechanical perfection, charming, delightful, but not exactly emotion stirring. And not what I'm going to write about today.

In the medical field there is a concept of "publication bias". This is the intuitive notion that ideas, hypotheses, and research studies will be more likely to be published if they fit the needs of the organization footing the bill. In the case of pharmaceuticals, for example, a study which doesn't show a particular drug in the most favorable light will be swept under a rug somewhere and never see the light of day, unless some outside agency was involved and has control of the study. The same can be said of other media, including online forums and email lists, to greater or lesser degree. Organ lists are composed of individuals heavily invested in the status quo and detest any variance. Hence this post. On my own private blog, or as close to my own as Google will allow. He who pays the piper usually calls the tune.

Which got me thinking. Why are the tunes played on the organ still largely the same in overall tone and emotional impact today as 50-200 years ago? Then they were financed by the church or the aristocracy. Could this be one reason the average man on the street cannot relate to organ music? The other day a post on a popular pipe organ email list in the midst of yet another pity party over the perceived lack of popularity of the pipe organ pointed out differences from the past. There used to be a cultural or aristocratic elite who could afford to subsidize the fine arts, and the lack of that patronage system today was a prime reason for the decline in interest in careers in music, most specifically organ music. For the record, many U.S. symphony orchestras struggle to make ends meet, and rely on generous corporate grants and private philanthropic funds to keep ticket prices just below the stratosphere. And it seems some would have us believe that symphonies have become less adventurous in their programming so as not to offend the middle class concert goer. That average bloke who would prefer not to be surprised with anything dissonant or new. This blog isn't about symphonies, so I won't debunk all the assumptions in the above statements, but you get the idea. Funding has crippled creativity and dumbed down classical music, or so the story goes. It seems that the lack of an aristocracy or other system to support the gifted organists strongly favors pop or other styles of music because of this 'defect'. But is this really a defect?

On a whim the other day I purchased Todd Wilson's CD of the complete works of Duruflé. According to Henderson's Dictionary of Composers for Organ (an amazingly comprehensive Who's Who of the organ composer world by the way), Duruflé was born in France January 11, 1902. He died in Paris in 1986, but stopped performing after his car accident in 1975. Therefore arguably, Duruflé is a modern composer for the organ. Yet listening through the 69 minutes and 13 seconds of his complete works this evening, I was immediately struck by a recurring emotional theme which could have come from any previous time in history: Mystery and awesome power. The kind of mystery in a horror film. The kind of mystery in the dramatic organ chords of Phantom of the Opera. The kind of mystery in a spooky movie. The dramatic thundering pedal notes of some kind of terrible disaster flick. Or to inspire awe and respect for an aristocratic or religious institution.

I reflected back on the organ concerts I have attended over my life, and with a few notable exceptions, I quickly noticed that this was not really an aberration. The organ seems tailor made to awe and intimidate it seems. To inspire respect and admiration for the ruling class, or the ruling religion, and possibly as a stand in substitute for holiness. Organ historians have documented a period of ever increasing air pressures used even in secular organs. Perhaps this trend is not hurt much by the organist's ego. Perhaps this is even one reason I was attracted to it. What better way to really strut your stuff than to really scare the dickens out of the birds in the rafters? That'll show them who's boss. It's hard to argue when you play the 'king of instruments'. Maybe the audience will be scared enough to be impressed or at least get a shiver up their spine. More or less a cathedral version of the ghetto car boombox which vibrates houses for two blocks around. But is this music?

Which got me thinking again. Unless we are planning on moving back into the feudal system, or a religious theocracy, perhaps the middle class which is now driving popular culture is not all that far off track. They aren't impressed with being impressed, and maybe, just maybe, they can't relate to music designed to inspire reverence and awe for a monarch or even a earthly appointed religious representative of the deity. Maybe the average Jane or Joe considers it just a bit off-putting, to say the least.

Maybe I'm off base here, but I would venture a guess that the music that really touches you does so because it reaches out and accepts you, it strikes a familiar and welcoming jacket around you and makes you feel at home. It says "I've felt that way too, why don't you hum along with me as we think back to that time when...". It doesn't slap you in the face or creep you out.

Maybe, the general public that doesn't currently have a CD of Durufle' running in their auto's CD player day in and day out is no more attracted to organ music than you are to listening to mechanical music box recordings, and for similar reasons. Maybe what we need is a combination of a completely reworked repertoire including completely new compositions and a neo-Leonard Bernstein's Young Person's Guide to the Organ for PBS.