Many of my organ students ask me how they can play their organ pieces without mistakes. They ask for an advice about being able to achieve the level of fluency when they could sit down on the organ bench and play flawlessly for a long time any organ composition they want, slow or fast, easy, medium, or difficult. They know it is possible because they have heard top level organists play organ music with such an impeccable technique that it could be taken directly from a CD recording. However, they also know that very few people ever advance this far in organ playing. Performing on this level takes more than mastering a piece of music. It also requires a special attitude and mindset. In this article I would like to give some insight into the techniques which might help you eliminate mistakes in organ playing.
Somebody told me some years ago about the difference between the good performance and a superb performance. When you are listening to a good organist playing some nice organ music, everything seems to sound well. There might be some tiny insignificant errors but in general, you like this performance. However, if you happen to listen to a real world class performer, there is something more in such a playing. It is hard to express this feeling in words but you feel that absolute clarity and sense of precision and perfection in such a performance. If you ever had an opportunity to listen to such playing, you probably know what I mean. I am not talking about many wonderful CD recordings which we all love to listen to, because most of the time they are edited, mastered, and sometimes they may not necessarily reflect the real skill of the organist. I am talking about the live organ concerts, these unforgettable events when you simply marvel at the artistry of the performer. At any rate, the real difference between a good performance and a superb performance is attention to detail. A truly world class organist will know exactly why he or she made some particular decision about some episode in the organ piece. These people never leave anything to chance. At any given moment in a piece they know the exact reasoning about the fingering and pedaling choices, about the rhythmic and melodic accuracy, about the phrasing and articulation, about the registration, or about the formal and harmonic structure of the piece. They simply give such a meticulous attention to any detail that many of us take for granted. So if you seriously want to be able to play without mistakes, I recommend you give some thought about the above mentioned aspects of organ playing. Moreover, once you are sure about your choices in your practice, you should attempt to achieve those things through practice. In other words, it is not enough to know why you are playing this particular spot with this fingering and pedaling, articulation, ornamentation, or registration. You should reconcile all these things through dedicated and relentless practice. Always ask yourself questions like “Does it sound the way I want it?” or “Why am I playing this spot in this particular manner?” Answering to these questions and in turn practicing with attention to detail will enable to progress to such level of organ playing when the task of playing without mistakes will seem insignificant. Instead, you will want to express the composer’s intentions to the best of your ability. And you will have the means to do that. Remember, that professionalism is not necessarily a financial status of a person. You can also think of it as an attitude. You can play like a real professional with absolute precision and clarity a simple 2-part invention or a majestic 5 voice fugue. The complexity level does not matter. What matters is the attention to detail. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music
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Every organist admires people who can play flawlessly without any mistakes. Such a performance seems like taken directly from a CD recording. While listening to live concerts of top level organists we are wondering how they are able to play without mistakes not one piece but the entire recital. Most people can play with accuracy a slow piece but when it comes to playing in fast tempo, they might hit at least a few wrong notes. This is the opposite with world class artists. There is seemingly no limit of their finger and pedal technique. Achieving that level can take years of dedicated practice but there are certain elements which can help you to progress faster along the road to perfection.
In this article, I would like to give you some advice on how to eliminate mistakes in organ playing. This article is not about the situation when you make mistakes because you do not know the piece well enough and leave some difficult passages not fully mastered. Instead, I am writing about a situation when you think that you have already mastered the piece but during the actual performance accidentally hit the wrong notes here and there. Slow Practice One of the most important techniques which can help you to play without mistakes is a slow practice. If you struggle with accurately playing in a fast tempo, it is crucial to understand that slow practice is a key to success. Even though the piece is fast, you will only be able to reach this tempo through a slow practice. On the contrary, if you usually practice at a concert tempo, the time may come when you will not be able to be in control. In fact, constantly practicing in a fast tempo is actually quite dangerous. You may reach the point of making mistakes habitually and consistently at the same spot. So practice slowly in order to have a full control of your piece. When you are ready, you will reach the fast tempo naturally. If you know the piece really well, mistakes usually occur when you are not aware of every detail, every note or every passage. The music just flies by and you may accidentally hit the wrong notes. This can be cured with slow practice because through it you will get accustomed to notice every important note and every single detail. Work in Fragments If you want to be able to eliminate mistakes in your organ playing, another recommendation would be to subdivide the piece into smaller episodes and work in fragments. If you practice in shorter fragments (4 measures or so at a time), then every mistake you make will be easy to fix. For example, if you make a mistake, stop at that point, go back a few measures and play the same fragment correctly at least free times in a row. Note that if you play correctly twice but make a mistake on the third try, you will have to start counting from the beginning. However, if for some reason you loose patience and continue playing the piece until the end even after making the mistake, chances are that next time you will do the same mistake in the same spot. Remember that if you are constantly practicing eliminating mistakes and forming good practicing habits, then you are progressing the right way. On the other hand, if you don’t fix your mistakes and play with them every time, actually, you are practicing your mistakes, which just move you farther away from your goal. So have patience, practice slowly, work in fragments, correct your mistakes and you will see some real advancement in your organ playing. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. Many of my organ students ask me for an advice in reaching the fast tempo in their organ pieces. They often struggle to achieve this level of fluency either because their technique is not developed enough or because they do not know how to practice the piece in order to reach fast tempo. Today I will share with you one particular method of practice which will help you reach the fast tempo in practicing organ compositions.
Practice in Fragments If you have difficulty playing in a fast tempo any particular organ piece, here is a special technique you could use. Try to work in shorter fragments like one beat first, then practice this piece in half of measure, then the entire measure and so on until you can play an entire line without stopping. Let me explain how it works. You see, if this composition has to be performed in a fast tempo, then playing the entire work might be too difficult for you at the moment. However, you may notice that you can play all voices together very quickly just for one beat easily. Play just one beat, then stop and hold the chord. Look at the next beat. When you are ready, play another beat and stop. Look at the next beat, prepare and so on. So you will practice stopping every beat. If you have never tried this before, this kind of practice might seem strange to you. You maybe wondering what is the point of stopping at every beat. What happens is that although you stop every beat, you can play the notes of that beat very quickly. And so practice a few times playing the piece this way until you feel comfortable enough. Then make your fragment two beats and stop every two beats. Then one measure, two measures, four measures, one line, two lines, one page, two pages and so on. While practicing this way, you will begin to notice that your ability to play the piece in a fast tempo improves gradually over time. When you stop and hold your chord, do not rush to play the next fragment. Instead, make sure you look ahead and understand in your mind what the next fragment is. Only then play it. In other words, play only when you are ready. Reaching the level when you can play organ music fast is not so easy. As you can see, the system is simple enough for most organists to understand but not too many people reach that kind of proficiency. However, you must persevere and practice with never-give-up mentality. Although there are many techniques in achieving this mentality, one thing in particular is helpful to me – having a clear goal in mind. In other words, you have to have a vision or a goal what it is you are trying to accomplish. If you say that your goal or dream, for example, is to be able to play that wonderful prelude and fugue by Bach or Toccata by Widor at a concert tempo, then you will have the necessary motivation to persevere. No matter how boring, how tiring it will be to practice, you will stick to the plan and successfully accomplish your goal. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. Every organist wants to be able to play technically challenging pieces with precision, accuracy, and most importantly in a fast tempo. Organists who have this skill deserve much respect from their fellow organists and from their listeners. If you are curious to know how to achieve the fast tempo in organ music, read on to find out.
Practice Slowly The most important thing to remember here is this: you should practice slowly. No matter how boring it may sound, you simply have to have patience and practice at a tempo in which you can avoid making mistakes. If you make a mistake, very often (but not always) it means that the tempo is too fast. Achieving a fast tempo and fluency is similar to lifting weights. If you try to lift a weight for which you are not ready, you will hurt yourself but if you say to yourself “OK, even though I am lifting only that much, this is my current level. I will stick to the plan, and see it through.” This is so true because it is generally believed that you should raise the resistance level by only 10 percent every week for safe exercise. In other words, if you can currently lift 50 pounds, you should add 5 pounds after one week of exercising with this weight. Then add another 10 percent after another week and so on. The same thing is valid for organ playing. Even though you might think that you are progressing too slowly and you are not able to achieve the fast tempo yet, you are making progress, if only you are practicing correctly and slowly. You can even use the metronome for choosing the tempo. Just like with lifting weights or any kind of physical exercise, increase the speed of your metronome by 10 percent every week. When you are ready, the faster tempo will seem natural. Just have patience and you will succeed. In fact, very often people give up playing a certain organ piece only days before a real breakthrough. Build up Your Technique If you feel that achieving the fast tempo is too challenging, it might mean that you need to work on improving your organ technique. Try practicing daily exercises like scales (natural, harmonic, and melodic versions in both major and minor keys), and chromatic scales in parallel and contrary motion in octaves, thirds, tenths, and sixths over four octaves. Also play regular and long arpeggios and chords on a tonic, dominant, and diminished seventh chord. When these exercises become easy, later add scales and chromatic scales in double thirds, and sixths. All of these exercises can be practiced either on the organ or on the piano. Take a pair of major and minor key with the same number of accidentals and practice all of the above scales, chords, and arpeggios for a week. Then every week practice different keys according to the circle of fifths. If you have very limited practice time, work on your technique at least for 30 minutes a day. After a few weeks you will start to see some real changes in your organ playing. A wonderful collection for improving your manual technique is Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist which include all of the above scales, and arpeggios in part 2 and 3 plus many more exercises for finger dexterity, evenness, and strength. I recommend playing the exercises from Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist before your regular organ practice because it also serves as a fantastic warm-up. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. One of the main difficulties an organist can encounter is a weak left hand technique. An underdeveloped left hand can lead you into a number of problems when playing organ music. Very often organists have trouble playing more than one voice in the left hand. Additionally, when they encounter fast passages in an organ piece, their playing might lack precision and clarity. Consequently, majority of organ repertoire is inaccessible to them due to the underdeveloped left hand. If this sounds familiar to you, read on to find out how the left hand technique can be improved.
Obviously you can improve your left hand technique by playing special exercises on the piano or the organ. A great resource for the left hand technique is Piano Music for One Hand: A Collection of Studies, Exercises and Pieces It is important to understand that both hands should be developed at a similar level. My favorite collection of daily exercises which develops both hands equally is Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist. This collection contains 60 exercises in three parts. The entire set takes about one hour to play in a concert tempo. In the beginning, it may be enough for you to play just the first part – the basic 20 exercises which last about 20 minutes. Take one new exercise every week and master it. Practice it daily several times. With the following week practice 2 exercises without stopping, later 3, 4, and so on until after about 20 weeks you will know all 20 exercises. After that it will be sufficient to play the entire set of 20 exercises just once. After they become easy, start adding more advanced exercises from the Part 2. I think you get the idea. When you reach the end of Part 2, your left hand technique will already be at the decent level. If you go even further and play the Part 3 (60 exercises total), you will achieve exactly what the title of this collection promises – the level of the virtuoso. I have to admit that these exercises are a bit mechanical and it takes some willpower even to play through the Part 1, but the results are really great. It is a great way to develop your technique by only playing one hour a day. I can testify personally that whenever I have not enough time to practice my organ music, if only I continue to play through the set of Hanon exercises daily, my manual technique is in good shape. I have to add that most of the time I practice them on my organ and not on the piano. Because organ mechanics might be lighter than the piano (at least on a small instrument), it is possible to add a coupler for more resistance. A great thing about practicing Hanon exercises on the organ is that you can turn the power off and play on the silent keyboard. That way you won’t annoy your family but the results will be the same. A word of caution – always pay attention to how you are feeling. Some fatigue is OK but if you start to feel tension in your hands, you should stop at once and take some time to relax your hands and shake off the tension. This is really important if you want to reap the best results and not to hurt yourself. Take a slow tempo at first (60, 50, even 40 beats per minute). Later you naturally start to play a little faster and faster until you reach 120 beats per minute. If you continue practicing the exercises from Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist regularly, I can guarantee that you will see the definite changes in your left hand technique already after a few weeks. Real pianists spend playing etudes and other piano music several hours a day just to maintaining their keyboard technique. With the Hanon exercises you will only need about one hour a day because of the diversity of the exercises. Every imaginable classic piano technique and figure is included in the set, including tremolos, octaves, and scales in double thirds and sixths. You may be thinking that theses exercises are good only for pianists. However, just think how much the legato Romantic organ technique was influenced by the piano technique in the French symphonic organ school (Widor and Vierne, for instance) and you will have no doubt about the benefits of the Hanon exercises for the organists. The good thing about this collection is that at the end of the second part there is a set of exercises devoted to scales and arpeggios. So people who are fond of scales and arpeggios will find benefit from this collection as well. By the way, I play scales and arpeggios on two manuals because compass of the organ manuals is a little too short for some exercises. I recommend playing the exercises from Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist before your regular organ practice because it also serves as a fantastic warm-up. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. This is the second part of the article How to Achieve Accuracy in Manual Changes When Playing Organ. Make sure you read the first part because will find more useful suggestions.
Practice opposite changes. Because it is likely that you will encounter an organ where the Great is either the first or the second manual, it is also important to practice switching manuals the opposite way. This can be useful also because you will not always know which manual will serve you best in each specific situation. So you have to be prepared to jump upwards or downwards. I personally can testify how tricky it may be, especially if the organ is unfamiliar and you are mentally unprepared to make such adjustments. I remember playing Bach’s D Minor Toccata and Fugue in one concert where the great was the second manual and the positive was the first. I thought I was mentally prepared for it but did not practice the actual manual changes the opposite way. In this concert, I had to jump downwards for echo effects in toccata. The first manual change was like a cold shower to me – I almost missed the manual. Luckily, at the last moment I remembered that this organ had positive in the lower manual and everything went well. Knowing that, I was on my guard for echo effects in the fugue. However, the feeling of having to jump the wrong way was quite strange. Lesson learned – always practice manual changes both ways, unless there is no other way to do that (like in thumbing down technique). If only one manual is available, imitate manual changes. My organ students often ask me if it is really necessary to have a two manual organ at your disposal to practice manual changes. My answer is the definite NO. You can practice majority of organ repertoire on a one manual instrument, even on the piano. When the time comes to make a manual change, just imitate the movement you would do with you hands if you had several manuals. In other words, make a mental note of the change, physically move your hand upward or downward but continue playing on the same manual. This type of practice greatly saves time because it involves a powerful strategy – visualization. Using this technique, we visualize the manual switch and make appropriate movements with the hand but use only one keyboard. Imitate the movements on the table. I explained how manual changes can be practiced on one keyboard but you may be surprised to find out that it could be done on the table as well. Just do all the movements of the hand and pretend you are playing the real organ and jump upwards or downwards for manual changes. This technique is a real time saver. You can practice on the table even during TV commercials. Imagine how much of your precious time that will save. Usually there are at least three commercials during a show or a movie each lasting at least 5 minutes. Practicing your manual changes this way will give you at least 15 minutes (most likely even more). This amount of time is surely more than enough to master at least one difficult manual change in the piece. If you follow my suggestions, your accuracy will improve over time. Try to plan this in advance, practice slowly and repeatedly. When you hit the wrong note when changing manuals, always go back, correct the mistake and practice not until you play it correctly but until you can’t make the same mistake again. In other words, make your manual changes automatic. Take advantage of the piano or the table and the difficult jumps will become easy to you. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. Much of organ music is written for more than one manual. Quite often manual changes are required within composition which might be challenging to perform accurately. Organist may hit the wrong note accidentally, especially at the beginning stages of organ playing. This is especially dangerous when jumping over two or more manuals. Just like any other skill in organ art, careful planning and practice are needed to achieve accuracy in manual changes. Today I would like to give you some tips which will help you to avoid hitting the wrong notes when changing manuals.
Mark manual changes in the score. Although it might be tempting to have a clean score, it is always best to write in manual changes in your music, however obvious they might be. Mark not only the graphical representation but also write in which manual you will use. For example, if the right hand has to jump from the first manual to the second, write in the exact manual separation by drawing a line. In addition, at the exact place when manual change has to occur, write “II” in your score. This is indeed necessary to avoid confusion when performing the piece in public, at least until you will have more experience in organ playing. Stay close to keyboards when changing manuals. Once you know the place where the switch has to be made, make sure that you only lift your hand or hands as little as possible from the keyboards. The distance between the manuals is about 5 cm (sometimes more) so your hand has to make a rather noticeable movement in order to reach a different manual. This is even more obvious when jumping from the first manual to the third manual or vice versa. For example, the distance between the manuals on my organ is 6.7 cm (when a note on the lower manual is depressed). It is even greater when I have to reach the second manual diagonally – around 10 cm. I remember having a great trouble when practicing the last page of the notorious Motto Ostinato from Sunday Music by Petr Eben (the most important 20th century Czech composer). This particular episode has frequent jumps over three manuals which make an astounding echo effect on the organ. I managed to learn it with accuracy only when staying close to the keyboard. Practice slowly. If there is one single most important point about accuracy in manual changes, it is slow practice. Practicing slowly can make a big difference in a challenging spot. Try to overcome the temptation playing technically difficult pieces in a concert tempo frequently. By applying slow motion in your practice you will be able to control your movements much better. You see, at the beginning stages of organ playing, your hand movements are still not precise and fast or medium tempo does not help here at all. In fact, you should take such practicing tempo that will not allow any or almost any mistakes and you will feel comfortable. It is precisely slow practice which helped me master the abovementioned page of Motto Ostinato. Practice repeatedly. If you managed to play the difficult spot with manual change correctly, do not be satisfied with only one correct attempt. Instead, practice this episode repeatedly 10 or more times until it becomes automatic. Try to achieve the level when you can play correctly with precision and accuracy at least three times in a row. This means that if you play correctly twice and make a mistake on a third attempt, you have to start over and begin counting from one. I know from my personal experience just how frustrating this can be sometimes. Do not get discouraged by your mistakes. They simply mean that you need to take a slower tempo. If you insist upon making manual changes automatic, when the time comes, you will be ready to perform the piece with confidence. This article continues in Part 2. If you found the first part useful, I suggest you read the second part also because you will find even more helpful tips there. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. Organ technique can be developed through regular, smart, and persistent practice. One of the best ways to advance in organ playing is through piano practice. People who start playing the organ after some years of piano studies are definitely in better position than those who start directly from the organ. In this article, I will give you five reasons why practicing on the piano can make wonders to your organ playing.
The basis of modern legato organ technique is piano technique. Ever since modern organ technique was first formalized by Jacques Lemmens (more on this history you can read in this Orpha Ochse's book)in the middle of the 19th century, the legato touch became a norm even for baroque compositions for a long time. Lemmens’ method was perfected by a few other organists, like Marcel Dupre and Harold Gleason who published their own organ method books. Traditionally, normal touch for much piano music is also legato. I am not suggesting that baroque music must be played legato on the piano too, but I want to demonstrate how all pervasive romantic piano tradition was to organ paying. Piano keyboard is often harder than organ. If you compare various organ keyboards to that of the piano, you will find that to depress a key on the organ (without couplers, of course) often is easier than on the piano. This is especially true on electronic organs, on electric action organs, on pneumatic action organs with barker levers, on electro-pneumatic action organs, and even on small tracker action organs, such as positive organs. This feature of the piano keyboard gives you a lot more resistance. In other words, if you play technically challenging fast exercises, like Hanon virtuoso pianist exercises on the organ for some twenty minutes, your fingers are likely to be less tired than if you play them on the piano. On the piano all inequalities of the touch is much more visible than on the organ. Try to play an excerpt of any organ composition on the piano and you will notice right away how easy is to play one note too loud with your thumb or too soft with your pinky on the piano. In other words, you must work very hard too make all notes sound dynamically equal on the piano. This is so because of the dynamic possibilities that piano action allows. Therefore the stronger and longer fingers often play too loud and shorter fingers too soft. To equalize all notes, by the way, is our goal when practicing organ music on the piano. Piano practice develops finger dexterity. If you play exercises and organ music on the piano regularly, gradually you will notice how much easier it will become for you to play in a fast tempo. Your touch will become light and swift, your virtuoso passages will sound truly virtuosic. Such technically challenging pieces, as Prelude and fugue on BACH and Fantasy and Fugue on “Ad nos, ad salutarem undam” by Liszt or Sonata by Reubke will pose no difficulty to you. Piano practice develops finger independence. If you ever have noticed in your organ playing that technically advanced pieces sounds sloppy, practice them on the piano. All these technical challenges arise because our fingers might not be independent enough. You may notice it very clearly if you play a scale in a very fast tempo on the organ. It will sound legato, of course, which is not necessarily a bad thing. What is worse that this scale may be performed unequally. In other words, if you record this scale and play it back in slow motion, then you may be able to hear that a few notes could be stuck together and others would sound too detached. Therefore, piano practice helps in developing finger independence needed for technically challenging music. If you practice your organ pieces and exercises on the piano regularly, chances that you will achieve a high level in organ playing are quite good. Piano practice will give you finger dexterity and independence that will propel your organ performance on to the next level. When play piano, you can practice playing pedal part of organ compositions on the floor. That will save you much precious time. However, never forget that organ touch is very different from piano touch and practice accordingly. If you would like to know more about the practicing techniques on any keyboard instrument, I highly recommend Keyboard Practice Skills by Elaine Grover. This compact book presents a comprehensive presentation of all the basic practice techniques needed for successful mastering of keyboard skills. Chapters include "Warm-up Exercises," "Creating a Practice Routine," "Learning the Basics," "Developing a Practice Mind," "Using Practice Skills," "Building Momentum," and others. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. In order to learn any organ piece, regular practice is required. However, if you want to make some real progress in organ playing you need to develop good practice habits. Practicing sporadically or without a goal in mind will not get you very far. Every time you sit down on the organ bench, you have to practice correctly. Over time correct practice leads to correct practicing habits. In this article, I will teach you my favorite 10 techniques which will help you to develop good organ practice habits.
By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. For many adult organists having enough time during the day to practice the organ is perhaps one of the greatest challenges. I have written earlier about how to find time for organ playing . These tips might help you to realize that even when there is not much practice time available, playing organ is still possible. However, you will be surprised that actually organ practicing often can be done even without any organ at all. I hope people who have a very limited access to actual organ will find this article especially useful. Please read on to find out my suggestions.
Let me start by remembering recent experience I had while preparing a new, long, and challenging program for a concert of choral music at the Madeleine church in Paris. I was supposed to play organ accompaniments (many of them with an advanced organ part) and some solo organ pieces on the choir organ at that church. I was given the music quite early in advance but circumstances were such that did not have enough time to practice this repertoire. So I felt like it might be a bit of a challenge to perform it with confidence. Our concert was supposed to be on Tuesday afternoon, but I arrived at the hotel on Sunday afternoon. Because this church is very popular among tourist groups, I was not given any time to practice organ until the day of the concert. Imagine that – two and a half days without an organ right before the concert. Oh, and by the way, I played a full solo recital in my church with completely different music on Saturday the night before my trip to Paris. So I had to use my practice time wisely to be able to prepare multiple organ pieces . I am writing all this not because I want you to think that I was cool or something but just because I would like you to appreciate the seriousness of my situation. However, I was quite confident that my system of practicing will not fail me. And sure enough, the concert went well, and was well received. So if you are curious to know what method I used for practicing organ without having access to it for two and a half days - here it is: Because the bed of my hotel room was not high enough, I put a few cushions, pillows and other things that I could find on the edge of the bed. The height of it became similar to that of an organ bench. Then I pulled the table next to my bed so that I could put my music on it. I think you get the picture now: the bed became my organ bench, the table – music rack and keyboards, and the floor… the pedal board. So I sat there pretending that I played the real organ and began practicing. I imagined that the edge of the table was my keyboard and played just as I would on a real instrument. I also moved my feet visualizing the pedal keys accordingly. It was an interesting experience – the music sounded in my head. You see, it is all about visualization. They use it in sports and martial arts all the time. In boxing they call it “shadow boxing”, in karate - “kata”. The athletes don’t always practice their moves and techniques with a partner. Very often they practice on their own. They visualize their opponent or multiple opponents. The same thing applies to basketball as well. I once read about an experiment with 3 groups of people who liked shooting a basket. Before the experiment their abilities were measured. Group A was told not to practice shooting basket and forget about it for a month. Group B had to practice shooting the basket for one hour every day for one month. Finally, Group C was supposed for one hour every day to visualize the movements in great detail without actually physically shooting the basket. Their abilities were measured after one month. As you can imagine, Group A tested the same as before. Group B showed 24 percent of improvement. And here is the most interesting part – Group C showed 23 percent of improvement. That’s only one percent less than that of Group B who were physically shooting the basket for a month. I hope you can now see the power of visualization. This kind of practice not only gives you same results as you would be physically playing the real organ but also develops your mental focus abilities and inner hearing. It is important that we try to hear in our minds the music that we pretend to be playing. We don’t just go through the motions, so to speak. I am sure that practicing on the table and on the floor without mental visualization would give you some improvement, but not nearly as much as if you would practice with your inner hearing. Let’s take another real life example: About a month ago I taught a group of adult students in our organ studio. These were adults, some of them professors at the university with some piano but no organ experience. Usually the way we worked was such that one person would play exercises from our method book , I would comment, correct the mistakes, play myself to show my students how it supposed to sound. While one person was playing, others would be watching him or her and make mental notes of the mistakes, my comments so on. But one day I decided to do an experiment with them which would prove if my system was any good. And so, while one student was playing, others also were playing at the same time but on the table and on the floor. After a while I asked them to switch and another student took the place on the organ bench. Strangely enough, even though the exercise was new to her and she only practiced it on the table, she did not make any mistakes at all on the real organ. I thought maybe that was because she played only the manual part and that she will have more trouble with the pedals . After a while it was her turn to play the pedal line of that exercise on the organ and as you can feel, she did it fine, too. So you see, it works not only for the finger work but also for pedal part as well. This method of organ playing also saves time because we are not fixed to the location of the organ. Organ practice can be done anywhere where there is quiet. All you need is a table, a floor, your music, mental focus, and inner hearing. Of course, you can use this method to memorize music as well. I hope my suggestions will be useful especially to organists who have very limited practice time on the actual organ. By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music. |
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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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