My Sunday mornings changed radically in November.Since April 2006, I had been church pianist at Our Mother of Sorrows - I would go play for the 8:30 AM mass, and then hang out in the rectory until the next service. The music director is my good friend Chris, who I've known since college. In between services, he and the priest and the deacons and I would drink tea and coffee, eat snacks, chat, read the paper, run errands, and then walk back into church for the 11:00 mass -- Round Two of the same stuff (and usually more well-performed the second time around).
This past November, Chris accepted a position at the church of St. Raphael, and I was happy to be able to follow him there. Mass schedule is different; I now play one service on Saturday and one service on Sunday.And since I am the only keyboardist at the new place, I am now learning the organ.
I have been a pianist all my life. Can't even remember what it was like NOT to know how to play piano, so this new musical challenge excites me. I've tried playing the organ a few times in the past, but with great difficulty. ("What's a hautbois?" "What happens if I push the Swell button?" "How do you make it louder?" "Why can't I hear anything?" "Why does it go so slow?" "What's a gedeckt?" "How do you turn it on?" etc.)
I took my first lesson a few months ago... felt like I was sitting there with Johann Sebastian himself as my teacher explained the stops and pedals and other workings. So I've started (trying) to get to church early to practice organ before rehearsing with the choir.
I'm hooked now. To touch a key and hear the instrument sound out of the walls... to hear your sound coming at you from the back of the church... the floor vibrating and the sound consuming the air. The whole church feels like the instrument. The power is addictive.
It's difficult to remember I'm there to practice -- exercises, technique, fingering -- and not just to play around. I admit I do not usually resist the temptation to play every baroque piece I have memorized - with each and every different combination of stops. (The Bach minuets sound GREAT!)
I do practice the obscure-yet-instructive organ samples put forth in my lesson book. They're all by Bach and Pachelbel and lots of people I've never heard of. Some are hard and some are easy... but they are all fun to play because it doesn't feel like *I* am the one making all that sound.
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After the St. Raphael service, I drive over to Southeast to meet Dan and my brother Nathan so we can all go to church together. While I'm in the car, the classical radio station broadcasts a weekly program called "Sunday Baroque" -- playing all the greatest (but sometimes not-so-famous) works of Handel, Bach, and others. I turn it up loud. (This must be why Dan says I'm partially deaf). It's great inspiration for my next organ morning.
I get to Southeast just in time to hear all of the sermon -- and also just in time to miss the boppy songs at the beginning of their service. My timing is excellent. I hope no one gets offended by that, but this is MY blog, and in it I type MY opinions. Some people love that music, but not me. I am a musical snob.
When the morning of church and music is over, we go home for lunch and a day mostly of rest... and washing the dishes.
