On the Pipe Organ

      After ten years of piano lessons and over ten additional years of playing sporadically for myself and for church, I've recently begun practicing on my church's pipe organ.  So far, it's been an interesting experience and requires more concentration and research than I'd anticipated—and I still have a lot to learn.

Photo courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org--
I hope to get a photo of the organ I practice on soon, but this'll do for now.

      As a kid, I played around on the organ my Dad still owns—a relatively portable harmonium (reed organ) that has only one manual (keyboard), two pedals for pumping air through any open stops (sets of pipes), and no pedalboard (keyboard for the feet).  However, comparing a pump organ such as that to a true pipe organ is like comparing a pauper to a king.  Pipe organs boast two to five manuals, a pedalboard, shoes (foot pedals to get dynamics), a relatively wider variety of stops for each set of manuals and the pedalboard, and generally includes several pistons (buttons for preset stop combinations).  In addition, I need not pump the bellows myself (nor hire choirboys to do so, as needed in Bach's day); now an electric blower may be turned on to do the job.

      Already I'm throwing a lot of terminology at my poor readers, and I haven't even named the manuals or common stops!  But this gives the uninitiated a small feel for the complexity of the instrument.
     To proceed with my experiences with pipe organs--during high school, I had dabbled on my church organ in Topeka a couple times.  Yet, without proper instruction, I didn't really know how to use it, and learning it was a low priority, what with ballet and homework.  When I decided to start learning the organ more recently, our organist recommended I start by practicing hymns.  
      "Sure, I can do that," I thought.  I decided to spend time practicing after giving my weekly piano lesson; I'd be at the church anyway.  The first time I stayed late and turned the key to activate the blower, I found the organist's hymnbook has no pedal line and no notes about what stops to use.  The names of the stops also meant little to me.  What was I to do?  I played around a little, getting used to the sound of each stop (and feeling like a kid expecting a parent to come scold her for being too loud, especially when I played the Principal stops).  Then I went home to research. 

      I found a list of guidelines for stops to use for various types of hymns and music for other parts of a service.  I also looked up as many stop names as I could remember, wishing I'd thought to write them down.  I did so before the service on Sunday to allow me to look up the rest of the stops later, and found out from our organist that when a pedal line isn't written, we're to omit the bass line of the music in the left hand and instead play it with the feet.  Doing so, I found that next Tuesday, requires an unexpected amount of mental and physical coordination, even for a pianist and former dancer. When a pedal line is included (as on much of my organ books and the free sheet music I obtained from the internet), the musician has to read three lines of music; one for each hand and one for the feet.  I haven't decided yet which is more challenging.
      Each practice session has gradually improved my ability to play and also revealed new unanswered questions, requiring further research at home.  I generally love living in the Information Age, with information a click away.  Unfortunately, web searches for pipe organ tutorials weren't as fruitful as I'd hoped.  Sites I found either covered basics I already know, generalities that don't help, or specifics for a much more complicated organ than I have access to.  The most useful, best-organized site I've come across so far has been piercepipeorgans.com--which I truly wish I'd come across first.  I instead found most of the information that this site so helpfully contains scattered piecemeal in a dozen other sites amid less useful info.

My current unanswered questions are as follows:

• How can I compensate for stops (and manuals) that my organ doesn't have, but which a piece of music calls for?  (Is it possible or advisable to substitute certain stops, and if so, which ones?  Or would doing so compromise the quality and authenticity of historical music too much?  Could multiple manuals be compensated for using the pistons?)
• When a piece of organ music directs the musician to change between manuals, how do I know which staff/hand(s) the words refer to--is it always above or below the staff it applies to?  What does it mean when a piece of music repeats a direction to change to the same manual it's already on?

      Lately, frigid temperatures in the sanctuary have kept me from remaining to practice after piano lessons; I would feel guilty heating that large space just for one person for a couple hours.  Perhaps bringing a space heater might be in order... but that's a thought for 2015.

On Being a Novelist (Someday)

      I don't like strangers and friends knowing I'm writing a book.  (Ironic, right, since I'm posting this on the internet?  But please don't ask me for a summary.)  I don't mind my immediate family knowing my progress; they're my support group.  Yet, I feel uncomfortable when it comes up in conversation with others.  It's almost like a bragging point for those close to me (or at least a conversation topic for moments of silence), but I'm not comfortable sharing the tentative plot lines behind my projects; it sounds a little juvenile in summary, and not everyone cares for the particular genre I write in.  I likewise wince when others ask me what I've been up to today and I can only answer "writing."  "Writing what?" they inevitably ask, and there we go...
      My reticence is not true modesty but more like embarrassment.  It took me some time to think through the cause since I do rather like the general direction of my story (though I perpetually feel it needs improvement).  Fear of criticism is always part of revealing one's work, but in this case, it occurs to me that talking about the unfinished book feels rather like counting one's chickens before they hatch--like empty boasting, especially since I've yet to publish a book and I've been at my main project for over ten years--and stuck with an incomplete story of around 28 chapters for at least two.  Will I ever finish it?  I hope so.  When I do, then I'll be much happier to promote my work (or so I trust).  Do other writers feel this way?  Let me work in anonymity though I publish in (one can hope) renown.