alan29 wrote:I Think the primary function must be to accompany the assembly. Its excellent when there is a fine instrument and someone able to make it take flight ..... but that isn't what's generally needed in a liturgical setting. That's when you need an instrument and a musician who can encourage the people to sing, rather than get in the way.
In many ways it is actually easier to keep a congregation together with a piano and/or guitar ..... rhythms are so much clearer. Accompanying on an organ has to be taught as a separate skill - sliding around the manuals won't do. Its odd how different people react to different instruments. My personal nadir was when a mandolin player joined our music group. I swear it pushed my keyboard playing down an octave just to compensate.
All that amounts to though is the statement that 'an organist who doesn't know how to do it won't be able to' - which is not a reflection on the organ.
Some fairly basic stuff goes a long way: - determine a tempo and a volume taking into account the size of the congregation (and the proportion of them likely to sing), the feel of the piece and the acoustic of the building - set the tempo clearly in the playover and leave a consistent and rhythmic gap between the end of that and the start of the singing. - articulate the melody and the bass to suit the words (including phrases carried over line ends) and play the inner parts fairly legato.
Get that right and the sustained tone of an organ is much more helpful to singers than the transient piano/guitar.
Hare wrote:.........things with staggered manuals and stick pedals....?
Oh give me auto-rhythm with bass functions and a broad wobbling tremulant and I'll produce an accompaniment to In bread we bring you Lord that a congregation won't be able to resist singing along to. It won't be up to contrabourdon's rather good tips for articulation and rhythm in accompaniment but it will be fun. (Did I mention the additional chromaticisms?)
Any opinions expressed are my own, not those of the Archdiocese of Birmingham Liturgy Commission, Church Music Committee. Website
Peter Jones wrote:Oh give me auto-rhythm with bass functions and a broad wobbling tremulant and I'll produce an accompaniment to In bread we bring you Lord that a congregation won't be able to resist singing along to....(Did I mention the additional chromaticisms?)
I had some fun with this when blackmailed into leading it at a funeral recently. Trumpets con sord – told to play as though they'd just had a couple of large gins – echoing the assembly. It was schmalz on a bed of schmalz with a schmalz dressing!
contrabordun wrote:All that amounts to though is the statement that 'an organist who doesn't know how to do it won't be able to' - which is not a reflection on the organ.
Some fairly basic stuff goes a long way: - determine a tempo and a volume taking into account the size of the congregation (and the proportion of them likely to sing), the feel of the piece and the acoustic of the building - set the tempo clearly in the playover and leave a consistent and rhythmic gap between the end of that and the start of the singing. - articulate the melody and the bass to suit the words (including phrases carried over line ends) and play the inner parts fairly legato.
Get that right and the sustained tone of an organ is much more helpful to singers than the transient piano/guitar.
Absolutely agree. And, a point someone made on a different thread some years ago is that this involves "thinking on your feet" if, for example, things get a bit out-of-kilter and you need to emphasise the beat with some semi-staccato in treble or bass, or solo out the tune - as I had to on Sunday when several people thought the 2nd half of "St George's Windsor" (Come, ye thankful people, come) started on an A like the first half, instead of an E! This is harder to achieve with a group of instrumentalists-as they would all need to be thinking as one. And that is intending NO DISRESPECT OR BELITTLEMENT to them. It is a fact.
Hare wrote: Absolutely agree. And, a point someone made on a different thread some years ago is that this involves "thinking on your feet" if, for example, things get a bit out-of-kilter and you need to emphasise the beat with some semi-staccato in treble or bass, or solo out the tune - as I had to on Sunday when several people thought the 2nd half of "St George's Windsor" (Come, ye thankful people, come) started on an A like the first half, instead of an E! This is harder to achieve with a group of instrumentalists-as they would all need to be thinking as one. And that is intending NO DISRESPECT OR BELITTLEMENT to them. It is a fact.
Unless of course the group includes a belligerent pianist (like me) who is happy to play the tune in octaves when things go wrong.
No it's not, but it's very characteristic of a design philosophy that many here will have met in other places.
I don't know the organ or building, so cannot judge its fitness or otherwise.
I can think of 2 others (by Ken tickell) with a similar spec-do they "work"?
And how about St Joseph's, Rugeley, which is in a Ruckpositif location, 5 stops (Tickell again) in what looks (I've never been there) a largish church?
