Subject: Adventures in Creative Futility: Organ Lessons 21 and 22 Date: Sat, 07 Mar 1998 12:16:29 -0800 To: {The Adventures in Creative Futility Network} Ladies and Gentlemen, Maestras and Maestros: Because I was a little busy last weekend (just after the major surgery on my car that enabled it to pass Smog (with HC 1 ppm and CO too low to measure [allowable is 220 ppm HC and 2% CO]), I had to do a brake job on it, which took up all of last weekend, except for my lesson and attending church (last weekend was a small Religious Science congregation whose pastors I've known for some years). So you're getting Lessons 21 and 22 in one swell foop. (Or maybe a great foop, or a choir foop, but I'm kind of oberwerk-ing that pun). Lesson 21: 2/28/98 Last weekend, I had to work around a maintenance crew: they were working on some lights installed right next to the shutters of the Swell division, with one of them at the top of an extension ladder. I briefly considered drawing all the swell reeds and hitting a chord with the box wide open, but thought better of it. So long as the maintenance crew was working (about half the lesson), I played with both boxes fully closed, on somewhat softer stops than usual. Since nothing from my next piano test was ready to do anything with, we spent the entire lesson with Peeters. We started with *Now, My Tongue . . .* (page 8), and found that my one weak area is from measures 8 through 15, where I *think* I have it memorized better than I actually do, and the hands tend to get mixed up a bit, as a result. We also worked on *God, My Father, Loving Me* (page 9), slowly making progress with it as well. Then, we went on to the right-hand-and-pedal exercise (page 50, exercise 1), and (having forgotten to bring a one-hand-and-pedal exercise I'd been given) I tried sight-reading the pedal line of the exercise after it (quarter notes in the pedal, played left-toe, right-toe, left-heel, right-toe throughout) with results that indicated that I have a ways to go before I could do much with it!. We finished with pedal exercises 6 and 7 (page 19) Lesson 22: 3/7/98 Today, I remembered the score for the exercise I'd forgotten last weekend (the one whose first few pedal notes quoted the Dies Irae, then went off on a tangent), and so we started with it. After about half an hour, I was successfully putting the manual and pedal parts of it together. Then we went on to the major work for my piano mid-term. Last week, I mentioned to Maestro York that the major repertoire piece for the piano mid-term was *Scarborough Fair*. He was immediately interested in my trying it on the organ, and thought it had some nice possibilities. So we spent the second half of my lesson working on it (with blocked chords, rather than the arpeggios [forming a simple ostinato] that Dr. Gould is encouraging [but not requiring] for the mid-term). Clarinet in the right hand, flutes in the left and pedal. Actually, not half bad, so far (I even managed to fake a pedal part for it, and put both hands and both feet together right at the end of the lesson.) Regarding *Scarborough Fair,* I seem to have plenty of parsley, sage and rosemary; I just hope I can, within the week and a half left before the performance midterm, scrape together enough of the other seasoning. ;-) One other thing: last weekend, after I returned from my lesson, my first issue of The American Organist was waiting for me. And tomorrow evening, I'll most likely be attending an AGO-sponsored progressive recital at two downtown Long Beach Lutheran churches, and St. Luke's. The featured performer at St Luke's is a woman who's been practicing right after my lesson, for the past few weeks. She knows how I sound; I haven't the slightest idea how she sounds. I'm looking forward to finding out (and to hearing the organ at the first of the three venues, a rather nice tracker, I'm told.) By the way, Sean O'Neal (who was kicked off PIPORG-L last year for badmouthing Abbott and Sieker) is featured at the second venue. -- James H. H. Lampert http://www.hb.quik.com/jamesl