The Organ Forum

I regularly play at a fairly large Catholic Church where we use incense all of the time.  It has never been an issue.  However, today I subbed at a very small Episcopal church where the organ console is right next to the alter.  During the preparation hymn the incense was swinging like crazy, and I starting following the loud clangs of the thurible.  I COULDN'T STOP!  I was not a quick hymn, Here I am, Lord, but when I couldn't get the rings out of my head, we took it about double speed!  HAHA...At least the hymn was over quickly and I had a long time to improvise.

 Anyone else have ever experience this?
 

Well, I haven't had direct experience with something like that, but I know a fair amount about what you're talking about; during marching band, which I have to be a part of, we have multiple sections practicing on the field at once.  With different metronomes.  It's *CHAOS* when they first try that with the new people, because everyone listens to the drumline.  Basically after a while of doing it, everyone gets used to it.  What I'd suggest doing is take a metronome, setting it to a random tempo, and then try to play a piece at a different tempo.  Eventually your brain learns to ignore it and simply go with what you feel.  It takes a little bit though.

 

 

Hope that helps!

 

-Pipedreamer

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'It isn't that difficult. All one has to do is press all the right keys at the right time and the organ plays itself.'
Yeah RIGHT.

I haven't had direct experience with that either, but I do know what it is like when the priest is close to you and he is singing loudly and at a completely different tempo from what you are playing and he hasn't clued in that he is way off. I just tuned him right out, and stuck to my tempo with the congregation following me.

The metronome idea is a good one. We sometimes get all kinds of distractions as organists. Here are some examples I've encountered:

- A lady walks up the chancel steps as I am playing the postlude, and she misses a step and falls down only a few feet away from me. I turned to see if she was okay, which she thankfully was and there were people helping her up. I managed to still play my postlude without having to stop.

- In a church I was organist, I came in to practice and soon came the custodian with the loud vacuum cleaner.

- I met with a couple in the church sancturay to discuss music for their wedding. I didn't know at the time that another congregation were using the large hall below us. I start playing some suggestions for their special day, and then their praise band starts and they are so loud, we could barely hear ourselves talk. Talk about serious risk for hearing loss for those downstairs. Then they stopped and I thought it would be quiet for a bit. But then came the sermon, and he was so loud I could make out everything he was saying.

- Someone decides to strike up a conversation with me while I am playing either the prelude or the postlude.

Oh well!

Actually, maybe I should make a new thread on this..."what kinds of goofy, weird, or surprising things have happened to you while playing?" See y'all in the General section!

hehee ReedGuy, I know what you mean about the priest going at his own tempo...

For some reason, our priest never gets the rythym right for the Memorial Acclamation, or the Sanctus for that matter...he just does his own little thing, and the congregation follows, and the cantor and I tune them all out and try to play the rythym correctly.  

People in the church-cleaning profession seem to have a strange attraction to vacuuming while the organist is trying to practice.  I swear, I'll go into the church when it's completely empty; open the organ, start practicing...and I hear a vacuum start up down in the sanctuary at the same time, very discreetly.  So I'll stop playing, and the vacuum stops as well...

The one other thing that messes with me is the damn church bells.  They ring at 12 PM, usually right in the middle of our offertory piece.  They're loud, and they ring very slowly.

I find it very off putting when the priest decides to sing the next hymn with his microphone on

Little does he realise that the delay between him hearing me play a note -- his mind processing it -- him producing a note from his vocal chords -- the time it takes for the sound system to process and broadcast the sound -- the time it takes for the sound from the speaker to my ear (and the congregation's) -- creates great difficulties whereby the priest is now about a syllable or half a word behind what the organ is playing. Sure all this happens in a split second, but it is really noticeable.

This puts the congregation off because they don't know whether to follow the priest who is behind me in his singing, or to follow me, in which case the priest is left half a word behind the rest of us. Either way it turns into a mess. Then of course the priest might get a bit of the rhythm wrong, so if the congregation follows him and I play the correct rhythm it just becomes a joke.

Sure, we need the clergy to participate in the hymns to set an example for the congregation but please, please, please (if any priests are reading this) sing with the mic OFF.

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Currently own:
ALLEN TC-3S (#42904 - 3rd Feb 1971) with Sequential Capture System

Speakers:
x1 Model 100 Gyro Cabinet
x1 Model 105 Cabinet
x3 Model 108 Cabinet

LOL! Well, it is know that playing music while an audience claps hands is bl**dy hard. The worst I had was when playing an exam a warden came to empty the money blocks for the chandles...

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Expert in non-working solutions

I was playing for a carol service a few years ago. I'd been working with the children's choir on 'Carol of the Drum' [Parumpapumpum etc..] and the timing of this is tricky. The kids had worked hard and I had some of them playing tuned percussion and drum to help accompany the congregation. Alas, the congregation weren't so good at keeping time as we were and came in late, early, anything they wanted in fact! As it was around 300 vs 20, we had to concede defeat and follow them.

Andy

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It's not what you play, it's not how you play. It's the fact that you're playing that counts.