The pied piper

So, today at church they asked me if I’d play the organ for the choir’s rendition of “What Child Is This?” at the ward Christmas program in two weeks. I said yes without a second thought.

I don’t play the organ.

By two weeks from now, that statement had better be false. :)

(I do have fifteen-plus years of piano under my belt — er, fingers — so it’s not as completely utter madness as it looks. But coordination is something my feet never quite got the hang of. And a preposition at the end of a sentence is something up with which I will not put.)

Anybody have any tips to send my way? (Tips meaning advice, though I guess I wouldn’t complain if anyone were to throw a few coppers in the cap. ;))

I’m also a pianist-turned-organist, and the biggest difference (of course) is sustaining the notes. Since we rely so much on the pedal to hold our notes out while we find the next chord, it’s a bit of a shock when we sit down at the organ and realize that we have to sustain everything, well, by hand.

The organs in many Church buildings have a great bass coupler, which means the lowest note you play on the great will be coupled so you don’t have to use the pedals. That is very helpful when you don’t have much time to practice with your feet. You may be able to practice for this performance, but you are very likely to become at least a substitute organist for your ward now that everybody will know you can play!

I don’t know how familiar you are with stops and other parts of the organ, but if you have specific questions, feel free to e-mail me or ask a question in the forums at wardchoir.net, and I’ll tell you what I can.

Good luck!

Thanks for the tips, Nathan! I haven’t gotten the chance to practice yet, so I don’t yet know what I don’t know :), but I’m sure I’ll have more questions once I get started.

Or you could just tell them that you don’t play the organ and ask if they’d mind if you played piano instead…

I might just do that. Or do a more thorough search through the ward to see if anyone else plays the organ. :P

It doesn’t really seem fair to the choir to use their performance as an opportunity to experiment. Isn’t it obvious that if they knew you didn’t play, they wouldn’t have asked?

The choir does know, apparently — someone asked if anyone played the organ, someone else said, “I think Ben might,” and another person said, “If he doesn’t, he’ll learn.” And when I accepted the assignment, I made it quite clear that I’ve never played the organ before.

That said, I discovered that my home teachee does play the organ, and she’s going to look over the music and let me know within the next day or two if she feels up to it. Hopefully she does. :)

So how did it turn out?
I had to do this very same thing the year before I got married, and like you, I had never played the organ before. I was requested to play a bunch of Christmas songs for Sacrament meeting, and it didn’t turn out to bad. It was actually a lot easier than I thought!

The ward organist decided he had time to practice for it after all, and so he did it. Part of me sort of regretted it — it would’ve been fun — but the stress relief was more important. :)