Last Friday, I attempted to post a broadcast message asking you to wish me luck on my first organ lesson, which was this past Saturday morning, at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, in Long Beach, CA. It evidently failed to reach the list server.
The lesson went rather well; my teacher has, so far, been as patient with me as my figure skating coach is, and I managed to avoid making a fool of myself.
I would say that the fact that I'm taking organ lessons with only one semester of piano classes under my belt not only made it difficult to find a teacher (at least, one who doesn't specialize in teaching bored housewives and retirees to play half-pedalboard spinet-model toys), it has made it clear that I have more guts than brains. I consider myself fortunate to have found a teacher who evidently shares my affliction ;-)
If there's any interest, I'll be happy to share my experiences; if not, I'll be just as happy to shut up about them. J. Lampert
Yesterday afternoon was my second organ lesson. Once again, I managed to avoid making a fool of myself, and Maestro York says I seem to have better finger independence than usual for someone as inexperienced as myself.
I'm still not playing anything with a recognizable tune, but Maestro York liked my suggestion that we look through the stuff I've already learned in my piano class, and see if we can't work out organ arrangements. I would definitely say that, compared with beginning piano texts, beginning organ texts are definitely in the dark ages (unless we count methods aimed at "bored housewives," bored retirees, and the occasional bored kid, with no interest in playing anything with real pipes.)
I would definitely say that Maestro York seems to be a cross between myself and Penny Pereboom, my figure skating coach: He seems to share my affliction of having more guts than brains, and he seems to share much of Penny's patience (she could have taught Job a thing or two about that, and I've never met a more patient human being! Which comes in handy, considering her specialty, teaching beginning skaters who are either small, awkward children, or large, awkward adults.) I didn't realize just how familiar Maestro York was with teaching the underqualified until he mentioned that he'd once taught someone with no piano background at all! He started that individual using a beginning piano text, on the organ, making all the necessary allowances.
This morning, I had my third organ lesson. This time, I managed to avoid embarassing myself not only in front of Maestro York and God, but also in front of a couple of people who had come in to vacuum the carpets. So far, so good (although I still haven't yet determined whether my music dealer can get me a copy of Flor Peeters' Little Organ Book; if they're unable, well, Maestro York has suggested a couple of places I might try, and I've found it on some dealer's web site, and I have his copy for as long as I need it).
This morning, since we were to begin working on some pieces with actual, honest-to-God tunes, I brought along my first-semester piano textbook (the Alfred Adult All-in-One, Level 1), and a couple of other books I'd picked up along the way, and while the bulk of the lesson consisted of technical exercises (including one involving alternating harmonic sixths, a second apart, played legato in both hands, that still makes my hands ache from the stretch! [if you have the Peeters book, it's page 2, grand staff 3]), I started with Cockles and Mussels from my piano text, on manuals only, and finished with the same piece, doubling chord roots on pedal (L R L R L, in case you're interested; I suspect that a heel-and-toe pedaling might work better!). So far, both in my pedal exercises (Peeters, p.18, so far) and adding pedals to pieces from my piano text, my old reliable Hanover plain-toe oxfords seem pedalboard-friendly enough; we shall see whether I remain on the "street shoes" side of the great "street shoes vs. purpose-built organ shoes" debate (I recall reading, though, of a French concert organist who, when an interviewer asked him what shoes he played in, answered, "My own, of course!" :-) ;-) :-) Of course, if John "IDOEDITING" Carrington can play in what sound like basketball shoes, and I can successfully heel-and-toe a harmonic third in the Hanovers, [which I've done on a Roland AT-90, with the pedalboard mode set to "polyphonic"], they can't be too pedalboard-unfriendly. At least as long as I don't have grit, mud or animal droppings on them!)
On the music theory front, this past Monday evening, just after I posted the broadcast on my second lesson, I had my second theory class; I seem to be keeping up, so far, and it's already started to get challenging. I would definitely advise individuals who have no music background at all to either take theory concurrently with their first piano class, or after it, but definitely not before! At any rate, I wasn't able (thanks to a problem with the bookstore) to get the text until a few days ago, and now that I've read it, things I could play but not understand (like the I ii iii IV V chord progression in Cockles and Mussels) suddenly make perfect sense!
This week, we returned to starting out with technical exercises, on attack (Peeters, Little Organ Book, Page 1) and legato (Peeters, 2), this time beginning work on the tricky staccato/legato exercise (Page 2, staff 4) (once the shooting pains in my forearms from the previous exercise on sixths had subsided!). Although I was far from achieving perfection in either of these two exercises (or painlessness on the sixths!) we went on to the thumb-crossing exercises on the next page (absurdly simple, and utterly painless, for a change!)
I had begun, on my own, to work on the Bach chorale, Schaff's mit mir, Gott, nach deinem Willen, from an arrangement in Macris' Easy Classics: Bach for the Piano (Karamar, 1997), and had already noticed 3 things about it:
1) Either hand is easy enough by itself; the b__ch is putting them together!
2) Bar 3 was missing half a beat in the right hand (which Maestro York supplied easily enough; the F should be a dotted quarter, not a quarter!)
3) For something that never has more than one note at a time in either hand, it sure is taking me forever to get a handle on it!
As it turned out, the first piece Maestro York has assigned to me, Now, My Tongue, the Myst'ry Telling (Peeters, 8) has many of the same difficulties: While the shortest note value is a staccato half, as opposed to the sixteenths in the Bach, and the left hand is a minefield of sharps, as opposed to only one in the Bach, they're both one note at a time in either hand, that are, thanks to constantly changing relationships between the two hands, far more difficult than they look. And when I mentioned that similarity to Maestro York, he immediately insisted we spend some time on the first four bars of the Bach. Me and my big mouth!
We finished on pedal exercises (Peeters, 19), and I'm beginning to see how keeping my heels together helps me find intervals.
Next weekend will be my last lesson before my vacation. I'm sure I'll have something to tell the whole PIPORG-L list about my experiences, even if I'm not invited to actually try the scrumptious Flentrop at All Saints' Episcopal of Palo Alto (I don't expect to be, and especially at this early stage of my musical training, I would not be so presumptious as to ask to try it. But if I am invited, I won't turn them down!)
This past Saturday, I had my fifth organ lesson, the last one before I go on vacation.
Maestro York and I seem to be easing into a three-pronged approach:
technical exercises (both manual and pedal), hymn and chorale tunes, and
organ arrangements of pieces already in my repertoire (such as it is).
On the technical front, the sixths (Peeters, Little Organ Book, Page 2, Line 3) are slowly getting easier; my muscles are evidently starting to get the idea. Other exercises (such as Peeters, Page 1, Line 4, each hand holding a sustained note with one finger while playing staccato notes with the other four, and Page 2, line 4, each hand playing a single repeating staccato note with one finger, while the other four play legato scales) are also improving, and I've started working on thumb and finger crossings (Peeters, Page 3).
On the hymn tune front, I'm making definite progress on the Peeters Now, My Tongue, the Myst'ry Telling (Peeters, Page 8), and can sort of get through the first 7 1/2 measures without mistakes. Polyphonic pieces are tougher than they look!
On the "existing piano repertoire" front, we've finally gotten around to figuring out a comfortable pedaling for the chord roots in Cockles and Mussels (Alfred's Adult All-In-One Piano course, Level 1, Page 105) (L R R R R, alternating toe-heel-toe-heel in the right foot), and we've started experimenting with registration, as well (but nothing that quite fits what I had in mind. We're also experimenting with how to make the initial leap from G to C (either putting the left hand physically above the right, so I can thumb it, or using a thumb-crossing or a finger substitution to get the G with the right hand). We're playing around with things I don't "officially" know how to do yet, but it seems to make sense, and I'm having fun with it.
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