By Ausra Motuzaite-Pinkeviciene (get free updates of new posts here)
A few days ago Vidas has caught a virus. It has usual symptoms - feever, running and sometimes bleeding nose, coughing, overall body weakness which he's fighting with loads of hot beverages. But last Saturday he had to play a recital of Christmas organ music "In dulci jubilo" in our church. Everyone knows that one cannot play or practice with high temperature, so I recommended he would cancel his recital. He didn't want to. He felt that's what professionals do. They show up and play no matter what. So I gave him a pill to reduce temperature and we drove to the church (although Vidas said it would be easier for him to play if I stayed at home this time, obviously because I was worried so much for him). Before he caught a virus, Vidas was planning to talk between the pieces which would make the recital more interactive. But then the temperature would most definitely rise. So now he limited everything to the essentials only. I warmed up the organ for him with his pieces - checked the registrations, while Vidas only listened. So, if you are ever in a position when you HAVE to play the organ while sick, never bother adding some extras into your playing, simply do the bare minimum, simplify registrations (although Vidas still had the strength to do some magic there with Buxtehude's "Wie schon leuchtet"). Although I still would think twice about playing organ while sick, because you're risking some serious complications, if you absolutely MUST show up and play, maybe choose slower tempi, don't engage too much, don't try to prove anything, don't try to act like a hero. Just get in, do your thing, and get out. Oh, and by the way, it was a terrific recital. I haven't seen Vidas interpret the pieces in this way for quite some time (especially the French music - Daquin's Noel Grand Jeu et Duo, Franck's 7 pieces in G major and G minor from l'Organiste, and Guilmant's Noel on the old Polish Christmas Carol).
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By Vidas Pinkevicius (get free updates of new posts here)
I had to. A few days ago I came in to the church to practice at 8:30 in the morning, started playing my piece and at about 9:15 a couple of ladies climbed up the organ balcony. They were all clad in black and I understood there would be a funeral soon. In fact, they told me the service would start at 1 pm. It turns out that the doctor of our former President Valdas Adamkus had died. What's more is that they kindly asked me to play the organ until that. Oh, and they said, the former President with his wife would come at noon. That's 3.5 hours of non stop music... No big deal? Maybe. Maybe not. At first I sight-read a lot of Bach's music. Then got tired and started to improvise in the style of Bach. Then got tired even more and started to improvise in my own style, all the while conscious about Mr. President and the all important guests who were gathering. Of course, not for a second I could play something loud and something too fast. The music had to fit the occasion but I thought to make it more serene. Oh, and by the way, it all had to make sense musically, too. I'm telling you this in order not to brag. I know what I can do and what I can't yet do. I'm telling you this in hope that you will be prepared, if somebody asked you to do this in the morning one day. To play the organ for 3.5 hours non stop, either you should be an excellent sight-reader or learn to improvise. Because there are not too many people who can keep that much of mastered repertoire under one's fingers and feet. By Vidas Pinkevicius (get free updates of new posts here)
Eddie writes that he wonders whether the indication to play the left hand staccato chords an octave higher in the last page of Widor's Toccata (therefore, above the right hand) might have been an error on behalf of the publisher. He also asks when this Toccata is played an octave lower to avoid screaming mixtures and a lack of adequate foundation stops would the pedals also need adjustment? Eddie points out that one must be careful not to let the staccato sound as a firing machine gun; one could rather consider the staccato-prescription as 'with leggiero touch' (like Boëlmann prescribes in his Toccata from Suite Gothique). In my opinion, the hand crossings appear to be required due to the sounds necessary in high register. If you have trouble crossing the hands, you can flip them - at that place play the middle stave with the right hand and the upper stave - with the left hand (just as Eddie suggests). If you choose to play the entire toccata one octave lower, the pedal part should remain where it's written. Make sure you don't use 16' stops in the manuals then. I also agree about the similarity of the "leggiero" touch of the sixteenths with the Boellmann's toccata. Keep up your practice in a super slow tempo. The faster you want your end result to be, the slower you should practice for a while. By Ausra Motuzaite-Pinkeviciene (get free updates of new posts here)
What is better on the organ - playing the piece over and over without stopping or working in small fragments? Every person is different, of course and for some simply just playing the composition many times means constant progress. But for others such progress is often unpredictable because mistakes you make somewhere in the middle of the piece don't get corrected right away. There is no immediate feedback loop: error-correction-error-correction. Much more secure way is to work in small fragments. You repeat them many times in a slow tempo. When you make a mistake, the fragment is manageable enough for you to go back immediately and fix it. Success comes in small fragments. By Vidas Pinkevicius
These moments are always very embarrassing to watch. I witnessed twice recitals of organists with splendid international reputations (performances were during two separate international organ conferences, so it was really big deal). The playing were very poor. The more they played the worse it became. Mistakes every line or so, tempo became slower and slower etc. These things can happen to any of us - maybe they were ill, maybe their families were in a state of emergency, who knows, or maybe they were just unprepared. The question is what to do when you are in such a situation yourself? Obviously, keep playing, don't stop no matter what, don't try to correct your mistakes, keep up the flow of the music and keep your eyes fixed on the current measure. Remember all this is largely mental issue. So if you can control your mind and keep it from panicking (while knowing that you haven't done your homework) - you'll win. It's very difficult, though, to fool yourself, to make yourself forget that you're unprepared. But there's no other way, only focusing your mind, like a piece of steal. The opposite can be also true - the organist can be extremely well prepared but the performance can bomb. [Thanks to Karl] Different people learn differently. How do you think, which practice method would allow you to achieve world class quality in playing a single piece in a most enjoyable way?
1. To practice the entire piece 10 times without stopping very slowly. 2. To practice 4 measure fragments 10 times very slowly. 3. To practice 1 page episodes 10 times very slowly. 4. To practice the entire piece 10 times but stopping at constantly longer fragments in a real tempo, starting with 1 beat. 5. To practice in all 15 combinations of 1, 2, 3, and 4 voices very slowly 10 times. 6. To practice in 7 combinations of right hand part, left hand part, and pedals 10 times. 7. Something else? Post your preference (preferences) in comments. Some of the people ask me this question because it's frustrating for them to notice that they have developed this habit of trying really hard on some days but just going through the motions in other practice sessions.
I think this situation has to do with the lack of vision or a goal. They feel the inner need to practice but it's difficult for them to get excited enough about some pieces and so they practice but don't see a lot of progress in return. Obviously, the choice of the music can be wrong for their current technical abilities, or practicing habits have been incorrect. At any rate they really don't see themselves going anywhere in organ playing as time goes. That's why their efforts are inconsistent, too. In some cases, this kind of practice can lead to quitting organ playing altogether. Because what's the point of playing the organ, if you don't have a vision or a dream of what you want to accomplish in the future? So at some point the efforts of pushing ourselves during practice and playing with determination and focus disappear and an organist might give up playing this instrument in the long run. If you struggle with inconsistent efforts, my advice would be to get really focused about what you want to achieve in playing the organ. Set exciting yet realistic goals. A goal is not a goal if it doesn't have a definite date on it. So write down your goals on a separate sheet of paper and set a date of when you want to meet your goal. Then you have to think about the plan of how to achieve it. And don't forget the importance of writing down the daily steps, too. My final advice would be to surround yourself with positive people you can trust who can support your efforts. It can be a fellow organist or a few friends who might appreciate what you are doing or a mentor/coach. Sometimes your family members can't provide such support and leadership. This way if you can talk regularly about the progress of your practice, you will not feel alone on this mission and you will be more likely to stay on track with your plan of action and daily steps which will prevent inconsistent efforts to appear in your practice. Maintaining accuracy in organ playing is very important for organists. If you play a public organ recital or a simple church service, you have to be able to play without mistakes. Achieving this level is not easy because you have to know how to practice systematically and in the most efficient way. In addition, your performance has to be very focused and your mind has to stay in the current measure. Below you will find my most important tips on how to achieve accuracy in organ playing.
When you practice your organ piece, try to choose a slow practice tempo. The simple rule is this: play at the tempo in which you can avoid making mistakes. This usually means practicing at a half speed or 50% slower than the concert tempo. The next thing you have to do is to subdivide your piece into manageable fragments of about four measures and practice them repeatedly over and over again. Also remember not to play the entire four-part texture right from the beginning because in most cases it will be too difficult for you. What you can do instead is to play separate parts of that fragment. When this becomes easy, master it with two-voice and three-voice combinations and only then attempt to play the entire four-part texture. Always remember to aim for at least three correct repetitions in a row of each particular step. In order to achieve and maintain accuracy in your public performance your mind also has to be focused. What this means is that you have to think about your current measure you are playing. Don't think about episodes or fragments that you have already played - they are gone already. Don't think about the future episodes - they have not yet come. Just stay in the current measure or in the current moment. This will help you to stay focused and pay attention to details on a deeper level. Also this will help you to reduce the stress and the level of anxiety. You will not fear your audience and you will not fear any difficult episodes or fragments that are coming up if you perform in such focused manner. Apply my tips in your practice and public performance and this will help you to maintain accuracy whenever you play an organ recital, a church service or just for your friends or family. Do you have a dream of becoming a competent organist who can play difficult compositions with ease and fluency? If so, you have to know how to use existing organ pieces which will help you to incrementally improve your organ playing skills. Below you will find my personal recommendations on how to achieve that.
Let's start with understanding the level of difficulty of an organ piece. You see, even though you like certain pieces by classical organ composers, the difficulty level of these compositions might be very different. So if you practice several compositions which are different in technical demands, then your organ playing skills will develop much slower. Instead, you should find the system of using organ compositions in increasing level of difficulty. This will help you progress in organ playing in the step by step manner. What I recommend you would do is to find organ pieces which are easy in technical demands. For example, the keys should be simple enough, the rhythms should be no more than eighth notes, and the texture should have no more than three voices. If you find that kind of composition, then you should master it and perfect it so that you can be ready for public performance with this piece. But you should not stop here. Find similar compositions and learn them as well. When you feel that learning these pieces are getting easier and easier by the day, you can start looking for compositions which are more advanced. For example, they could have four voices, smaller note values like triplets or sixteenths and so on. Perhaps the keys used in these pieces might have larger number of accidentals. Remember it is best to do it in a step by step manner. Increase technical demands of your piece just a little which means the requirements should not become more difficult in all these areas at once but only change one technical limitation at a time. For example, choose a piece which has the same number of keys but smaller note values. Or it could be the piece with the same note values but with a different number of voices and so on. Apply my tips in your practice and try to find these pieces. Mastering them will help you incrementally increase your organ playing skills. Do you know what is the difference between a good performance and an exceptionally outstanding performance? Furthermore, do you know how to achieve the level of an exceptionally outstanding performance? In this article, I will give you 8 tips on how to strengthen the quality of your organ playing so you can advance to the next level.
1) Fingering. When you open your new organ score and want to start practicing a new composition, don't play it right away from the beginning until the end. I mean, you could play it through once just to get familiar with it but then the real practice begins. Write in your fingering in every difficult spot of the piece. How to find out if the passage is difficult and needs fingering? You could play it once and see if you made a mistake. If you did, stop playing, go back, figure out and write in the most efficient fingering for it. 2) Pedaling. I suggest you write in pedaling on every note in the pedal line. This is very important because unlike manual playing, pedal playing usually is a completely new skill that organists must learn. 3) Notes. When you have fingering and pedaling in place, you can now start practicing it. Observe that every single note is correct. Sometimes you can hit the wrong note accidentally but in most cases, it is better to go back and play this spot with correct notes at least 3 times in a row. 4) Rhythms. In every measure, make sure that your rhythmical values are also correct. This is usually not so difficult in places with straightforward rhythms. But when you see any complications, such as syncopations, dotted notes, duplets, triplets, irregular rhythms, meter changes and so on, you have to be very careful about playing with correct rhythms. It is best that you subdivide the beats of each measure and count out loud while playing. 5) Articulation. Do not play every note legato. For people who come to the organ from piano playing, this is especially difficult to understand at first. You see, you have to look at the historical period that this piece was created in. If you are playing a piece by a composer from Renaissance, Baroque or Classical period, play with gently detached articulation (articulate legato) unless it is indicated otherwise by the composer. If the piece is from the Romantic or modern period, usually composers indicate articulation very precisely. So pay close attention to each slur, dot or dash under or above the notes and try to execute them in the exact way. 6) Phrasing. If you want your organ performance to become natural, try to incorporate phrasing in your playing. This helps to achieve a feeling that you breathe together with music. In fact, you should breathe slowly, deeply and consciously while playing. Look for cadences in your music which reveal perfect places for phrasing. 7) Tempo. While performing, choose a concert tempo very carefully. Evaluate the mechanics and the size of the organ. In addition, assess the room in which you play and the reverberation of the space. While practicing, usually take a much slower tempo which will allow you to avoid mistakes in your playing. 8) Practice. When you practice your piece, be very systematic about how you learn new music. It is best to practice in short fragments of about 4 measures each and later combine them together. Also for polyphonic music try to master each voice separately, then combinations of 2 voices, 3 voices and only then - the entire 4 part texture. Strengthen the quality of your organ playing by concentrating on the above details and making the details concentrated. This approach will help you to achieve the level of exceptionally outstanding performance. By the way, do you want to learn my special powerful techniques which help me to master any piece of organ music up to 10 times faster? If so, download my FREE Organ Practice Guide. Or if you really want to learn to play any organ composition at sight fluently and without mistakes while working only 15 minutes a day, check out my systematic master course in Organ Sight-Reading. |
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Drs. Vidas Pinkevicius and Ausra Motuzaite-Pinkeviciene Organists of Vilnius University , creators of Secrets of Organ Playing. Our Hauptwerk Setup:
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