Email Theo		Organist Menu Introduction: Organists Organist Job Description Two Sundays Vox Humana Introduction: Organists I was an organist for many and sundry denominations over the course of a long (and chequered) career. Now organists, I've found, seem to run the gamut from A to Z in terms of character types. At one extreme there are the pious ones - those who in all sincerity believe that their playing is undertaken toward the greater Glory of God. My first three instructors on that instrument - Dot Pfeiffer, Frank Scherer, and Clyde English - each fell into that category of modesty and piety. But then there is the other extreme - those who have no moral scruples and to whom nothing is sacred. I knew a fellow once who disdainfully referred to the Dean of British Organists as "E. Sour Pigs". He told me that once, while altar boys were releasing incense into the cathedral during Mass, he played variations on "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". See what I mean? Not only to do such a thing but to brag about it as well - not a shred of decency! Now I myself fell somewhere between these extremes as an organist. Those who know me may guess where that might be. But for those harboring doubts, I have attached a document, the origins of which I explain forthwith: As most of you know, I was the organist at a certain church (I am being purposefully vague to protect the innocent - and the guilty!) in Massachusetts for many years. One day I got a call out of the blue from the Chair of the Music Committee at the Church. She asked me to write up a job description for Organist and send it to her. I agreed. But after I put down the phone I began to ask myself, Why would the Music Committee need a job description from me? After all, I know what my job entails and they know that I know that. And then the True Reason hit me like a bolt from the blue: Of course! They need the job description to show to a new person. And this is because they are planning to fire me! Now I know that this seems like paranoia to many of you. But, as the saying goes, "Just because you're paranoid don't mean they ain't out to get ya!" So I said to myself, "You want a job description? O.K., I'll write you a job description to end all job descriptions!" I have appended it below. PS: My paranoia was just that and nothing else: they were perfectly happy with my work and I was soon to receive an "Excellent" job rating. I never found out why they wanted the write-up. PPS: I was told that the document caused much merriment in the Music Committee and beyond. PPPS: Just to clarify something: to the best of my recollection, my remarks with regard to the Choir Director were undertaken in a spirit of Mischief rather than Malice (the latter does not form the basis for my sort of humor.) And this feeling is bolstered by the fact that this person and his wife remain our close and devoted friends to this day. I have also included a couple of other documents. One is my decidedly unromantic description of the organ as an instrument. The other is an account of an encounter after a service in a church where I was playing. Back to Organist Menu Organist Job Description 1. The Organist plays a Prelude, Offertory, and Postlude at each service during the regular church year. The Prelude is a relatively extended work of solemn import, normally lasting from 3 to 10 minutes. The extra-musical purpose of the Organ Prelude is to, metaphorically speaking, lay down an emotive carpet which "ushers" the parishioner into a quasi-religious ambiance via harmonic-tonal suggestion. The Offertory, by contrast, is undertaken out of relatively crass motives. A short work of about 1 1/2 minute's duration, it is in essence a subjective onto mapping from musical tones to the wallet of the parishioner. A Tristan-like ecstatic tension is set up which can only find release in the offering tray. The Postlude is a very short upbeat work denoting victorious finality, of such dazzling briefness that even those whose sole wish is to flee at all costs the sanctuary's confines will feel a bit cheated by its brevity, if not wit. It should have the effect of an uplift so profound that no listener need put their feet on the floor upon leaving. 2. The Organist accompanies all Choir rehearsals on Thursday evenings (8:00-9:30 PM), Sunday mornings (9:15-9:45 AM), and accompanies the Choir during its non-a cappellational renditions on Sunday morns. It might be assumed, then, that superb accompanying skills are the sine qua non for this position. How misguided and misleading such an assumption would be! Sure they're important , but so are clothes: the lack of either can cause undue embarrassment! What, then, is the crucial factor governing a successful Organist/Choir dovetailing? Simple - the relationship of said Organist to the Choir Director! Bluntly put, this must transcend absolutely the usual-banal meaning of the expression "professional working relationship". In plain fact, the Organist must be nothing less than the Yin to the Director's Yang (but at all costs NEVER the Yang to his Yin!) (S)he must be Walter Mitty to his Attila the Hun, Steve Martin to his Maximilian Schell - well, you get the picture: contrasts - complements! 3. The Organist plays any other incidental musics for the Sunday service as the minister, etc. might desire and require: Hymns, "Spirits (and/or Elixirs) of Life", Doxologies, Responses, Amens, Codices, Spirituals, Nunc Dimittises, Matins, Vespers, Inbetweeners, Swell to Seeyas, Nice to Greetyas, See ya Lateas. The Organist should be prepared to play any such musics at the drop of the proverbial organ shoe, his-or-her sole motto being, "If I get it after the service, it¹s too late!" 4. The Organist should be adept at playing suitable musics for any sort of extra solemn service such as Weddings, Funerals, or Ordinations ("Marry 'em/Bury 'em/Query 'em".) It is at the discretion of the Organist as to whether (s)he desires to play such a service, but professional courtesy requires that (s)he be granted Right of First Refusal. In other words, the Organist holds all the trump cards in this one! 5. The Organist should have a minimal knowledge of the physical workings of the instrument which (s)he plays on a weekly basis. At the very least, said Organist should be able to tell, by whatever means, whether any part of the instrument is broken, out of tune, or even just Out of Sorts on a particular day. The notoriously temperamental nature of such instruments makes a sympathetic Organist a virtual necessity. The Player should be able to reassure his/her instrument, to comfort It when necessary, and to give it brief-if-erotic massages if needed after a long and grueling service. Back to Organist Menu Two Sundays I was organist at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Woburn, MA from 1974 to 1978. I'd like to talk about two 'adventures' I had there. 1. We had been up late one Saturday night toward the end of October, having an intense political debate with another couple (it was the year I was in the Labor Party.) We were living in Brighton at the time – a long drive from Woburn. Nevertheless, I arrived at the church at 7:00 A.M. as usual. The first service was at 8:00 A.M., so this gave me plenty of time to play through my music once more, to familiarize myself with the hymns, and so on. The organ had been made in Sweden, the home country of most of the parishioners (there were lots of Eric Ericksons and the like in the congregation.) Like an elephant, the organ had a big body and a small brain. The 'body' was the console: it dwarfed anyone who sat behind it. It sat out there solitary and alone like a huge roll top desk, an island on the left side of the sanctuary. As it faced the congregation, I found it to be an excellent place to hide – especially during sermons. (I think I read several of the lesser novels of Thomas Mann during such times when the minister was emoting about speaking in tongues [yes, he and his wife did that at Pentecost] and the 'handle' for his CB radio [it was 'PTL'.]) This giant 'body' of the organ was deceptive as to its 'brains.' True – there were plenty of stop tabs with all sorts of fanciful names such as 'diapason' and 'bourdon' – names known only to the province of organ builders and organists. But many of those were borrowed from others: the 4' dulciana could be using the same set of pipes (an octave higher, of course) as the 8' violina; and so forth. So that in reality, this organ only had seven ranks (sets of pipes): those were half-visible in a little case bolted to the wall up to the left of the organist. It was a pitiful size – about as small as any church instrument could be. What made such borrowing possible was the fact that this was an electro-pneumatic instrument. From Wikipedia: "The basic operation of the electro-pneumatic system is as follows: when the organist selects a stop and depresses a key, an electric circuit is completed, causing a low-voltage current to flow from the depressed key, through the stop-tab switch, and on through the cable to the electro-pneumatic relay. The relay interprets the command from the console and sends an electric current to the appropriate solenoid. The solenoid is energized, causing the pipe valve connected to it to open, which emits compressed air into the pipe, allowing the pipe to speak." (This does sound like a Rube Goldberg device, doesn't it! In fact, the whole process, from depressed key to open pipe, is instantaneous.) This sort of instrument is to be contrasted to the tracker, or direct mechanical action organ: "In a tracker organ there is no pneumatic or electrical assistance to the keyboard action; instead each key is connected directly by a thin flexible wooden strip called a tracker to activate the air valve under the corresponding pipe. The result is an instrument that responds more directly and sensitively to the skill of the organist." [By the way, I think that the business about 'more sensitivity' is nonsense: a key is depressed, a pipe speaks. That's what we organists care about.] Due to the direct mechanical action, a tracker organ cannot borrow from other ranks of pipes. Thus, every stop is genuine, a new rank. In general, you can tell a tracker organ by the clickity-clack sound of its trackers; and by the fact that the keyboards are almost always facing the pipes. My own take on this dichotomy is as follows: an electro-pneumatic organ is to a tracker organ as power steering is to unassisted steering. That is, the former allows you to drive in effortless comfort – if you like that sort of thing. On the other hand, if you want more of a feel-of-the-road, then you won't like power steering. The drawback with tracker mechanisms is precisely its direct-mechanical action: the more stops you have on (and keyboards coupled), the harder it is to press down the keys. (Sometimes, as while parking, one yearns for power steering!) The drawback with electro-pneumatic mechanisms is the opposite of the above: the effortless ease that it takes one to play, no matter how many stops are engaged. So, on a very large instrument (scores of ranks), one can become heedless of the tremendous sound forces one has unleashed, with the result that (depending on the acoustics) the product may resemble a giant acoustical slush box. Anyway, I was presiding over a pitifully small homogenized instrument; but not one so small that I couldn't use it to do what I wanted it to do – with a bit of ingenuity. (The church would eventually add a krumhorn – an exotic reed stop - to the organ while I was there.) So I became clever, resourceful, seeking out and trying every possible combination of stops. I had finished my practicing. The time according to my watch (which I reset and wound each morning) was 7:49. This really left me no time to leave the organ and perhaps mosey outside to enjoy a bit of the early spring weather. (When I was living and studying in Morgantown, WV, I would see my nattily dressed organ teacher Clyde English on Sunday mornings standing by the side door of the Methodist Church where he played, nonchalantly enjoying a pipe smoke before the service began.) I had timed the Prelude music: it was exactly seven minutes long. So I would have to start my playing at 7:54: this allowed me to run over the time and finish at 8:01, thus allowing a minute's grace (but no more!) for latecomers. So I began. I was playing a piece by Alexandre Guilmant, a 19th century French organ composer who wrote hundreds of wonderful little occasional pieces with such fanciful titles as 'Will 'o the Wisp'. I had worked hard to strain the resources of this pipsqueak of an instrument, employing different stops for solos and using the swell shades for subtle balance. I was playing for my Ideal Listener. This was, I posited, a parishioner who not only knew who Guilmant was, but who knew this particular piece intimately. (Of course, no one in the congregation – with the possible exception of the choir leader Peggy Butt – had ever even heard of Alexandre Guilmant, nevertheless knew any pieces by him.) This Listener would thus be able to appreciate all the many nuances of my preparation and playing. It was like cooking a gourmet meal for a connoisseur of fine food. But there was more. There are times when I might make an error while playing: a wrong pedal note here, a slightly botched entrance of a voice there. After all, I am only human! But what of my Ideal Listener then? Amazingly, by some wonderful coincidence, they would lose their concentration for just that exact moment! Thus, conveniently, they would only hear what I wanted them to hear: they would be utterly attentive or carelessly indifferent as the occasion demanded. And so I played exquisitely (when I did) and they listened (or not) until the end. At that point I knew there would be an Invocation by the Minister, to be followed immediately by the opening Hymn. So I had the hymnal open beside me on the bench, ready to place up on the music rack. But there was no Invocation. Indeed, when I looked over toward the pulpit, I did not see Reverend Pearson at all. What could have delayed him? Was he ill? Had he collapsed in the sacristy? I had no idea. I realized that it was incumbent on me here to provide musical filler through on-the-spot improvisation. Why? Because unscheduled silence in a place like a church [that is, where every event is completely scripted – with a detailed printed program to boot] is a sure sign that something is wrong. It is like dead air on a radio show: something – anything - must be enlisted to break the silence. (Indeed, the organist at my home church in NJ would even provide music for the congregation to sit down after they had sung a hymn!) Now improvisation is an art pretty much confined these days to organists and jazz musicians. (In the Classical era, this was not the case. Mozart, for example, left a space at the end of the movements of his piano concerti for the pianist to improvise a cadenza. But that practice ended with Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto [he knew he could write one better than anyone else could improvise.]) Any organist worth their salt not only can improvise on the spot, but relishes the chance to do so. There is, in fact, a grand tradition of improvisation on the organ, especially in France. There is a story about the great 19th century Belgian/French composer/organist CÉsar Franck, who in the exams at the Paris Conservatory was given a choice of two themes to improvise on. Franck improvised on each one in turn; and then, as a finale, put the two together simultaneously – a stupendous feat. More recently (1972) I attended a recital by the legendary French organist Marie-Claire Alain, who at one point asked for a theme from the audience to improvise upon on the spot. (By the way, the 'theme' was a terrible one; but she coped.) However, I have never seen this done at any other organ recital; and I fear the practice may well die with Marie-Claire. The one part of church services in which organists are almost sure to improvise is during Holy Communion. There the parishioners are sufficiently distracted by the goodies [wine, bread] being dispensed to them as well as by suitable thoughts [hopefully transcending a later golf game], that the organist can hone his/her improvisatory skills at will. This usually involves a vague wandering about in a quasi-Wagnerian harmonic wilderness, thus depicting musically the soul's thirst for a Higher Power; or a long series of excruciating suspensions illustrative of the Savior's suffering. Being a non-believer, I would usually refuse communion. But sometimes a challenge in multitasking was too much to resist: could I feed myself [with my left hand] the Precious Body and Blood, whilst simultaneously continuing to make up semi-coherent music on the spot [with my right hand and feet]? [The jury may still be out on that!] But, let's be blunt here: improvisation is the musical equivalent of bullshitting. Just as in speech, some can do it better than others. Today I improvised quietly on the first hymn tune. I did not have a large palate of far-flung chords at my disposal (as a wonderful organist named Bill Whitehead did.) But I was able to wring variations on that melodic material quite adequately. (And what would my Ideal Listener think of this effort? Sadly, their attention would probably wander quite a bit!) How long would I have to improvise? I had no idea. It might be only a few minutes; but I had had situations where I had to 'fool around' for an extended period of time. (My record? 45 minutes, on the occasion of a wedding when the Best Man had left the rings back at the motel and had to return to get them. However, then I was playing various pieces from my repertoire using the music. So I was not so much bullshitting as filibustering.) Anyway, I indulged in musical improvisation for awhile – until it dawned on me that someone should have come out and let me, if not the congregation, know what was going on. So even as my fingers wandered, I hiked myself up and managed to look over the ramparts to see what was happening with the congregation. Nothing was happening. The sanctuary was empty – and dark. No one was there, for the simple reason that (as it finally dawned on me) everyone else had remembered to turn their clocks back for Daylight Savings. 2. It happened on a Sunday in late April (I suppose you can already see where I am going with this) at the same church. We were now living in Arlington, a community much closer to Woburn. So of course I arrived at the church at 7:08 – that is, a few minutes later than I wanted to. (There must a 'Paradoxical Law of Inverse Distances' somewhere, which states that the closer one lives to one's work, the later one arrives.) But when I got there, the parking lot was full of cars. Was there an early congregational meeting I didn't know about? I walked into the church. And, as I approached the sanctuary, I heard something I'd never heard at that church before: someone else playing the organ. In fact they were playing the first hymn, which the congregation was singing. And then it hit me: we'd forgotten to set our clocks ahead for Daylight Savings. What does one do in such a situation – one who has such a position of great public responsibility? Well, if something like that were to happen in a dream, the trauma of the lapse would no doubt cause one to awaken – maybe sit bolt upright, perhaps even scream out loud. But when it happens in reality, as it did here? Well, I can tell you what actually happened: I smiled and shrugged my shoulders; after all, what could I do? (Indeed, Peggy Butt [who was playing], the choir, and even the minister found my lapse to be quite amusing!) P.S. During the time I was at Redeemer Lutheran, I was subjected, Jesus-like, to two huge temptations to leave. One was from a church that had a brand new magnificent 23-rank Casavant organ (they also offered my wife a paid soloist position.) The other was from a church that had no organ at all (and no paid soloist job.) I think it is obvious which temptation I yielded to. If you said the one with the magnificent 23-rank Casavant organ, you would have been wrong. That was a Baptist church (a relatively conservative denomination) in Winchester. When I saw that the mean age of the congregation appeared to be about 80, I surmised (correctly, as it turned out) that that was a dying church. (The organ was destroyed in a fire a few years later; and the building was converted into condos.) I left Redeemer Lutheran after four years in order to take an 'organ' job at First Parish Unitarian/Universalist Church in Arlington – even though that church did not yet have an organ - or even a real sanctuary (they were rebuilding from a fire.) But I was attracted to two other things about the church: its liberal religion; and its excellent location, on the nexus of Cambridge and Lexington, to give concerts. But after five years we did acquire an organ – a wonderful little 1869 E.& G.G. Hook: this was a tracker organ which was twice as large (it had 15 ranks) as the one in Woburn. I did leave a very loving congregation in Woburn. Before I left, more than one person took me aside and beseeched me to take care, as they had heard that the Unitarians were 'godless humanists' (I solemnly promised to so take care.) And then, a few weeks after I'd left, I received a call from choir director Butt. After hemming and hawing for a bit, she told me that they'd held a prayer service at the church in order to ask God to bring me back. Was I interested in returning? I was very touched by this, and told her so. But I added that I would probably stay where I was. Oh yes - I was never too early, or too late, to a church service again! Back to Organist Menu Vox Humana Before I begin my little true-life narrative, I need to define two terms: The Vox Humana ("Human Voice") is an organ stop invented in the nineteenth century (of course.) Each note consists of not one but two pipes which are tuned just a wee bit different from one another. This causes a slight interference of the two sound waves, which is heard audibly as beats and a tremor. The effect is intended to simulate the Human Voice. What it actually is, is one of the most cloying and obnoxious sounds ever devised by man; its equivalent in literature is Dickens's Little Nell. The Schübler Chorales of Johann Sebastian Bach are six organ chorale-preludes, each one arranged from a vocal solo in one of his cantatas. "Wachet Auf!" ("Wake Up!") is the most famous (by default?) of these pieces. And so on to our tale. I was Organist at the Christian Science Church in Champaign, Illinois for a year. Now Christian Science, like any organized religion, has its pluses and minuses. Minuses: excruciatingly boring services. There are no ministers in the CS church, only lay readers (who move like automatons.) All CS churches thoughout the world read the same two texts (one from the Bible, the other from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health With Keys to the Scriptures) on a given Sunday. No opinions are expressed (except those of Mrs. Eddy, who died in 1910), no anecdotes are told, no witticisms offered. Yes, boring! Pluses: the psycho-sexual imagery in many of Mrs. Eddy's hymns. One, e.g., speaks of being chained to a rock in the middle of a raging sea and Christ coming to her. Good stuff which you won't find in any Unitarian hymnal! Anyway: part of my responsibility in this church, as in any other, was to play a Prelude before the service began. One Sunday I decided to treat the congregation to something special: I would perform a couple of the Schübler Chorales in both their versions - with voice, and then with organ alone. In this way my listeners could hear the two versions juxtaposed - an aural treat. So I brought my singer-wife Dorothy with me that Sunday, and we performed two of the Schüblers twice over. After the service I expected to receive kudos for my enterprising programming. Instead, two women of grim demeanor appeared at my organ console. One of them intoned, "Did you know that there is a bylaw in the Christian Science Church which expressly forbids the use of a vocalist in the Prelude music?" I did not know this, of course (indeed, I knew of no such rule in any other denomination.) I realized that I needed to justify my actions, but how? I thought quickly, and then I replied: "That's all right - I was using her as an artificial Vox Humana stop!" The two ladies were not amused by this clever rationale. And so I had to quickly reassure them that a) I was acutely aware of the gravity of my offense; and b) I would most certainly never perpetrate such a dastardly deed again! PS: As the above is an account of my worst experience as organist after a service, I think it only fair to include the best one as well. Once long ago, in another denomination in another town, I played "Litanies" by Jehan Alain - a hyper-modern work requiring astonishing virtuosity (something I was thankfully able to bring to the performance) (he said in all modesty.) Before the minister began the sermon, he declaimed that he had "heard the voice of God in this piece". Then, after the service, a woman came up to the console and pressed ten dollars into my hand. "You have given me something", she said in the voice of one greatly moved, "And I want to give you something in return!" "Oh, I couldn't take this!" I protested as my hand closed over the money. From then on I tried to program "Litanies" often! PPS: While I was at West Virginia University, I taught the organ privately. One day three nuns came to me and asked to be my pupils. I inquired if any of them had a particular piece in mind to study. One replied, "Yes - I'd like to learn 'Washit Off'". Back to Organist Menu