Help Yourself IV

Here is an arrangement of mine. Click, print, and use freely. And good luck with it! :)

Elijah Overture

How did you get this job?

I have heard some hair-raising playing in my life, the kind of playing that brings an audience to its feet, the kind of playing that inspires me to press on toward excellence. Beautiful phrasing, caring attention to all matters of music and console technique.

Then I get to meet the organist.

Then I wonder if it is the same person who played so well a few minutes ago.

I have been dissed, ignored, glared at, yelled at, and insulted by organists following their recitals. And all I usually say is my name and GoodToSeeYouThankYouForBeingWithUs. If you see something there that punches people’s buttons, please email me privately and tell me what to adjust.

Then there are those organists who play well but don’t pay attention to the rest of the package. They dress sloppily, ramble, throw music around, and end up saying out loud what they already wrote in the program notes. They have a limp handshake and no social graces. And I am not impressed by the "shucks-folks-I'm-just-happy-to-be-here" persona. If you’re going to be famous (or already are), then act the part and be the complete artist in the performance. You can shuck folks later at the reception.

Then there are those who shouldn’t open their mouths at all. I once attended a recital by a fast-rising star. About five minutes before the recital was to have begun, he ambled out, looked up into the ceiling and said, “Well, I seem to have walked out a little early. It looks like the lights haven’t gone down yet. Well, while I’m here, I might as well thank [fumbles in pocket, retrieves piece of paper] the, uh, X Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, as well as, uh, Dr. X here at the University of, uh, X.”

I have seen more than one major artist behave like an ass outside the recital, play like a pig in the recital, and receive unbridled bravos and riotous applause at the end. How does this happen, Dear Reader?

As I said last week, the complete organist needs to be able to do much more than just play well. An organist’s behavior outside the recital is becoming more of a deal breaker than before. There are scores more organists roaming the advertising streets than ever before, and choices are becoming more plentiful. You may no longer have to say, “She plays well, but you have to deal with XYZ if you get her.”

I have lost count of the number of times I have been told by a presenter how much easier I am to work with than Person X was last week. And I know it’s true. There is no excuse for some of the behavior I have seen in this business. Clean it up, folks.

Olympic form?

The more organ recitals I attend, the more sensitive I become to a perceived apathy from performers. Picture, say, any Bach trio Sonata or the Duruflé Toccata. Wild rides. Fingers and feet flying everywhere. And yet an organist finds the time in the heat of battle to hang his/her feet on the bar across the bottom of the bench. Several thoughts fly through my head at that point: 1) Do those feet really have nowhere else to go? Do they not have some notes over which they might hover, instead? 2) Is this organist bored? With a trio Sonata????!! 3) Is this organist prepared? 4) You know, in some cultures, it would be considered rude to show the soles of your feet in public...

Regardless the questions that go through my head or the answers to them, when that happens I have become distracted from the music, and that's not good. No Olympian is allowed to stop and rest during the race. Singers are not allowed to break character during an aria to drink water or rest their backs. Why, then, should it be permissible for an organist to allow hands or feet to "check out" of the proceedings and go to a neutral corner during a very non-neutral musical activity? To this writer, that sends a subtle message of apathy or maybe even "OMG" to the listener.

I am one of the fussiest organists I know. After you have something sounding good, go one more step and make sure it LOOKS good, too. Sit up tall. Sit more or less still. Punch pistons in character. Keep hands out of lap. Keep feet off the bench bar. Don't lunge for notes and pistons and the box -- be there; plan ahead.

Fun activity: compare the most popular performing organists. Which ones physically stay in the game during a piece, and which ones check out here and there? It might be instructive to notice that at the next recital you attend or even play. Constantly assess why the popular organists are so popular.

Overly fussy? Not at today's tuition rates! Offer students the sort of attention to detail they might not get everywhere. A great organist needs to be able to do much more than just play pretty.

Help Yourself III: "These are a few of my favorite hymns..."

I suppose we all have memorized more hymn stanzas than we think. Every now and then, a short phrase will pop into my head, and I'll take a few seconds to place it as a hymn I have known since childhood. The memories are more dear than the hymn, which is probably true for most people, whether they admit it or not. Just look at how often the same hymns and solos appear at wedding after wedding and funeral after funeral.

Texts aside, some melodies are utterly sublime to me. Below are a few PDFs of my favorite tunes reharmonized. I always hesitate to "mess" with some of these tunes, lest I take some of their original perfection away, but mess with them I have. Click, print, and use freely:

DOWN AMPNEY with descant

HENDON with descant

SINE NOMINE descant only

SLANE

And we’re back: random musings

Classes begin in a week. And as usual, I’m in a flurry of thoughts of what to do with the curriculum this time around, how to impart some knowledge I just KNOW will be found useful, how to defend this thing called Art, how to defend a church music curriculum in a state-supported university, and how to fit teaching and recitals and another musical together into one schedule.

As I get older, I marvel (read: despair) that I am now twice the age of a graduating college senior. I marvel (despair) that my classmates now have children in college. I marvel (despair) that I am teaching the offspring of frat brothers I accused of being ill-advised to procreate. :)

Fashion sense continues to go out the window, especially on the performance stage. And I look back and remember my mentors saying that very same thing when I was growing up.

A student once suggested that the payment of tuition buys and guarantees a degree, just like getting it off the shelf. Do I stand agape at that level of ignorance, or do I bother looking for coherent words to set the record straight?

Education at all levels has come under increasing fire. Institutions are charged with teaching material, assessing how well it has been learned, and making adjustments in the plan of attack to improve dispensing the material next time around. And all that has to be shown in numbers rather than in whole being. But learning institutions need to find a way to share the responsibility of teaching. I still see college students who can’t spell and who can’t lay out their thoughts in writing coherently. Writing and critical thinking cannot start in college – those have to start at home, as do paying attention, paying respect, and learning responsibility. And the Real World is quite a teacher, too. But how does an institution make these points without getting sued or shut down? Until they figure that out, I suppose it has to be left to the little guys writing their personal blogs. Meanwhile, merely good students will continue to be labeled “exceptional.”

Perhaps the goal of Assessment is for an institution to make constant improvement. But has that system considered what happens on the day an institution achieves 100% in all areas? The mind boggles at the implosion that would occur in the numbers game. As my 15-year-old nephew puts it, “EVERYONE in the top one percent!”

Help Yourself II

A joyous Christmas to you and yours. Click, print, and use these harmonizations freely, with my compliments:

ANTIOCH with descant

GLORIA with descant

REGENT SQUARE

Slaves to tradition

I enjoyed a perfectly splendid, if severely abridged, performance of Messiah last night. As “Thou shalt break them” was coming to an end, I leaned over to my two companions and said, “I ain’t standing up.” I see just as much point in standing through the entire Messiah as for only one of its movements.

People seem to ‘know’ that you’re ‘supposed’ to stand for the Hallelujah chorus. But how do they know that? And why do they still do it? Have they done their homework to find out the historical precedent for it? And have they done a bit more research to discover that that whole story is probably not authentic? Other Christmas traditions abound: attending Messiah in the first place, year after year. Shopping. Tree. Traveling. Cards. Family fights. Whose house this year? What will the black sheep do THIS year? We’re all slaves to certain Christmas traditions. In recent years, I have relaxed the pressure on myself to get it just right, all the way down to not playing for a church on Christmas Eve but rather starting my own tradition of church hopping in a new city each year. O what fun it is to ride!

And “Happy Holidays,” “Season’s Greetings,” or “Merry Christmas?” What’s it going to be? ‘Holiday’ is a modern adaptation of ‘holy day,’ a perfectly accurate and elegant description of the day at hand. And ‘happy’ occurs in scripture more often than ‘merry.’ Whatever. As for ‘Christmas,’ I suppose people defend it because it includes the word ‘Christ.’ And it’s easy to see the words ‘Christ Mass’ hiding in the contraction. But on the other hand, ‘Mass’ doesn’t appeal to Protestants, and I don’t understand why so many Protestants are so defensive of a liturgy they gave up long ago. Whatever. ‘Season’s Greetings’ might actually cover things the best. There is, after all, a new ‘season’ of winter upon us, and let’s not forget that the pagans (from whom Christians derive most of their celebrations – do your homework!) celebrated the changing of seasons, particularly those two changes centered around the solstices. And our Christmas ‘season’ lasts quite a while, whether you take the liturgical route lasting Dec. 25-Jan. 5 or the commercial route lasting from roughly Labor Day until New Year’s Day. I vote for “Season’s Greetings” for its more accurate description of the season. But who’s counting? I say ‘Merry Christmas’ anyway! Rolls off the tongue just fine.

All kidding aside, I extend my best Season’s Greetings to you for a Merry Christmas, a long Happy Holiday, and a Happy New Year.

Help Yourself

Click, print, and use these arrangements freely, with my Christmas compliments:

Messiah Overture for organ solo

Reger Mariä Wiegenlied for organ solo

OK, I lied

In my last post, I said that I would let my students offer their own report after attending the second annual East Texas Pipe Organ Festival. But some things keep coming to mind that need to be said, and said by me:

For the record, this was a festival honoring the splendid work of Roy Perry as manifested in the Aeolian-Skinner organs in East Texas: First Baptist Church, Longview, First Presbyterian Church and St. Luke's United Methodist Church, Kilgore, and First Baptist Church, Nacogdoches. Last year's festival was the first, and I'm told it was utterly splendid. I was determined not to miss this second one. I took FIVE students and a faculty colleague along with me. None of us was disappointed, not in the least.

My students comported themselves flawlessly, making many new friends and offering hope for the next generation. They were the life of all the parties, the subjects of many photo opportunities, and the features in several interviews for newspapers. And they were a constant source of belly laughs for me.

My students' ears have been changed forever. They have now experienced what a sufficient amount of 8-foot tone will do for an organ. They have now heard what reed stops that actually sound different from one another can do. They have now heard what thick boxes can do. They now are full of fresh ideas and a new appreciation for their art and American organbuilding history. For me to literally watch ears be changed forever right in front of me was an experience I won't forget and one that I wish to repeat as often as possible.

My students were the only students there, other than the occasional Kilgore College students who would show up for concert attendance credit. One question that kept coming up during the Festival was, "Why don't more teachers bring their students to these things? There were none here last year!" One could go on and on answering THAT one, but I wouldn't make any friends. Let's just agree on two things:

1) There are more than a handful of healthy organ studios within five hours' drive of these organs. My crowd drove sixteen hours.

2) The Appalachian State University organ studio has thrown down the gauntlet and is saying it's time for American organ teachers to get on this wagon, whether they like the subject matter or not. These organs have stood the test of time in this country. It is time to explore why and to establish the future champions for these landmark, iconic instruments. Batter up!

Texas, Part 5 and Thanksgiving

I have been necessarily brief in this little diary this week. My students are preparing a more comprehensive report from their own perspectives, to be sent to The American Organist magazine. It's going to be good! I am so very proud of them and their attention to American organ building history.

After Kilgore/Longview, it was back to Boone for the students and off to Houston for me, to play a recital at St. Philip Presbyterian. That went awfully well, considering I had not practiced for a week, thanks to Kilgore. Great conferences are usually bad for practicing.

And now, I'm comfortably seated in an easy chair at my sister's in Dothan, Ala., in front of a fire, surrounded by cats and family. That's the good news. The bad news is I'm watching the Cowboys get soundly trounced by the Redskins.

And my thoughts go out to the victims and their families of the pileup on Interstate 10 near Beaumont, Tex., today. It's awfully creepy to know that I passed that very way in my car just a few short days ago.