How do you play a normal size pipe organ?

Answer 1

* thorough knowledge and understanding of Music Theory. * able to sight read at will - this is usually a standard requirement during an interview and audition ... the interviewer will place a completely unfamiliar hymn in front of you and you are expected to play it as if you had been playing it for 20 years.

* ability to coordinate hands and feet playing simultaneously. * be able to hold a constant tempo for hymns - congregations will slow you down to a crawl, and knowing how to combat that is essential.

* be willing to take much criticism: you play too loud, you play too soft, you play too fast, you play too slow, the hymn keys are too high, the hymn keys are too low, etc. * be an excellent accompanist - takes years of training to accomplish this. * know how to modulate ... some hymns must be transposed (at sight) to accommodate a particular soloist, sometimes with absolutely no advance notice.

Be willing and able to take organ lessons. There are some schools of thought that say that at least six years of piano lessons were to be completed before continuing on to organ lessons. One should study classical organ with a tutor/teacher for at least one year before taking on a church position on this instrument. Some professional organists make it look easy, but they've been playing for 30+ years, too. It's a rewarding career though ... I personally have been in this profession for nearly 50 years and still enjoy it as much now as I did when I started many years ago.

Answer 2

The same way you would play any size of pipe organ ... with two hands and two feet. The number of manuals (keyboards) is determined by the different divisions in the pipe work. A typical two manual pipe organ has two divisions: Swell and Great. A three manual configuration might be: Swell, Great and Choir.

Answer 3

The pre-requisite to playing organ is mastering the piano. Once through that process, one then needs the expertise of a teacher or tutor when starting to learn about the organ. Not only are there multiple keyboard (manuals) for the hands, now the additional element of having a keyboard (pedalboard) for the feet to play is added.

There are a couple of "method" books available to help learn to play the organ ... one by John Stainer and another written by Harold Gleason. The latter publication is rather pricey, but nonetheless excellent.

The other things that needs to be done is to practice, practice, practice, and practice more. When you think you are done practicing, practice more. You cannot learn to play the organ by reading a book ... you must be situated at the console and manually do ALL the practice routines.

Answer 4

Ideally, try to learn the piano for a few years first. That will get you used to playing and using both hands. Then when you progress to the organ, all you have to learn then are the bass pedals, which just take practice.

Answer 5

It is mostly about learning to adjust your touch (organ touch is completely different from piano touch). It is easier to learn by doing it than to try and explain it - you'll catch on quickly. And make up your mind you are going to learn to pedals, too - it is a basic part of playing the organ.

Answer 6

If one is wanting to start learning to play an organ, it is very much like learning to play a piano. One can take lessons, or one can access sites such as WikiHow which offers step by step instructions for a beginner.

Answer 7

The organ can have multiple manuals (keyboards) comprised of 61 notes each (standard for most organs built in the US) and a pedal board consisting of 32 notes for the feet. This requires a fair amount of coordination as organ scores typically have 3 staves, one each for each hand and the bottom staff for the feet. The top staff is Treble Clef, and the bottom and pedal staff are in Bass Clef signatures. Having taken piano lessons will help greatly in learning to play the organ.

Next are rows of stops (sounds or tones) with many different names in multiple languages, the most common of which are English, German, French and Italian. For instance what we know as an Oboe is names Hautbois in French (pronounced aww-bwah). The Principal stop is the backbone of the organ which produces a very round sound that may fill the room adequately. Flutes are those which sound like a Flute in the orchestra. Reeds are stops like the Trumpet or Trompette (Fr), Hautbois (Oboe), Bassoon, Clarinet, English Horn (which is neither English nor is it a horn on an organ), and Vox Humana. Next are String stops, like a Salicional and Viole.

There are also "compound" stops .. or hybrids that consist of multiple families of tone, like the Gemshorn which sounds like a combination of a flute and string when played, depending of course on how its voiced in a particular installation.

Although there are many orchestral stops/tones within the organ it is not considered to be an imitation of the orchestra as we know it. It is in a family all of its own ... also known as the King of Instruments. Some organs can have 5 manuals - each manual is assigned a group of stops to control, and can be coupled to other manuals for a fuller sound.

Some of the organ pipes are in chambers where at one end is a series of panels either vertical or horizontal that open or close, all at the control of the organist. The sound is the same loudness inside the chamber (box) and since we are on the outside of the box, we can tell a difference in sound volume when the shades are closed or open or anywhere in between. In layman terms visualize a venetian blind in front of a window. The sunlight is always the same outside, but when we gradually open the blinds we allow more light inside or less when we close them.

The buttons (pistons) below the manuals allow the organist to pre-set up various combinations of stops to turn on when the button is pressed. This is essential to the organist during a performance as with both hands and feet working there is not enough time to manually reach over and add more stops for the manuals or feet. A half second is all that is required to push a button to make the stop changes.

If you desire to learn the organ, be certain to hire a tutor or teacher if you expect to play like a professional. I spent 14 contiguous years of my life in weekly, year round, private lessons on both piano and organ. It is difficult, at best, of not impossible, to hear or feel the mistakes you are making while learning the notes of a new organ piece. A tutor/teacher has already perfected and/or performed the piece you are learning to play and knows the music backwards and forwards, so they can properly advise you on how to correct a mistake on the spot. Mistakes must be corrected immediately, otherwise we learn the piece with that mistake in place and it will be much harder later on to unlearn the error and re-learn anew.

Answer 8

like a piano really