How I taught myself the organ

Disclaimer: I am no virtuoso on organ, however, I have worked as a church organist/accompanist since 2013. Over the past 11 years, I have gradually developed my skills, and like to think of myself as a very functional church organist. While I can’t play anything very complex, I can successfully lead the congregation in hymns.

To God Be the Glory, from this month

Working as a church accompanist is one of the few performance jobs that is a steady gig (meaning: consistent income), and not nearly as competitive as winning a steady orchestral job. There is a high demand for church accompanists- basically every church has a service on Sunday morning, so they all simultaneously need their own musicians.

Additionally, there are quite a few pianists that either don’t want to or don’t have an interest in playing the organ. For a certain style of church service, the sound of the organ is an integral part of their worship experience. Simply having the willingness to play both has been a major asset in applying for positions.

I haven’t taken any lessons on organ- along the way, it has been clear to me where my skills needed to be developed. I learned mostly by trial and error, occasionally consulting books, websites, and YouTube videos.

Getting the job

Perhaps the most crucial step in learning to play the organ was obtaining a position. I applied for my first job with no organ experience- only my college piano skills and a willingness to learn. But I certainly would not have done all the labor to learn the organ without the weekly deadline of a performance every Sunday morning. It sounds kind of crazy, but I got the job before I could play the instrument.

My first time playing the organ was at the interview at the church. I practiced a few hymns on my little Yamaha keyboard at home, but I had no way to practice the pedals, so did not use them. I simply played the hymns on the manuals. Which, by the way, was frightening. At the time, I was a freshly minted Master of Music, but in flute performance, not a keyboard instrument!

Surprisingly, I got the job, with an agreement to learn the pedals. I guess my basic musicianship was strong enough to come through my limited technical skills.

Basic keyboard skills

I would say the first two years or so were very stressful. I had to plan to practice every day for at least an hour on hymns- I practiced at home on my keyboard, and at the church on the organ. I would be stressed before the service; often grumpy and disappointed with my performance afterwards.

At first, practicing was mostly working on my hands. In college, I had an interest in piano and (unlike many music majors) didn’t resent piano class, but I also didn’t have the time or motivation to consistently develop my playing. Occasionally, I would slog through an accompaniment to a flute solo I was learning, as a break from my flute practice. But when I say slog, I mean it was EXTREMELY slow. I was a relatively late beginner on piano– I started practicing (but no lessons) during my senior year of high school.

So when I got my first organ job, even my piano skills were minimal, and a lot of time had to be invested in getting accustomed to reading the homophonic writing of hymns. As a flutist, it was tough to read four notes at the same time! Also, I wasn’t very quick at reading bass clef. I had to learn to simplify the music when necessary, sometimes eliminating one of the inner voices to make it easier to read and to play.

I also had to learn the hymn tunes. I went to church growing up, but the songs we sang were more contemporary. Learning a new set of hymns every week on an unfamiliar instrument felt like a lot of music!

Beginning pedals

Learning the pedals on organ was (and is) a long journey. I’m rather proud of the scrappy way I used my understanding of music theory to incorporate the pedals on the job.

Place left foot on tonic (1). Since the most common and important chord is the tonic, it was an obvious place to start. At home, I practiced pressing my left foot down on the tonic chord by placing a remote control under my keyboard. The remote didn’t do anything, but it was a physical object approximately the same width as an organ pedal.
Place right foot on dominant (5). The second most common/important chord is the dominant chord, so that was the next logical pedal note. I kept my left foot on tonic, and right foot on the dominant. Now I could hit authentic cadences and half cadences, which are frequent occurrences in hymns! And yes, I put another remote control under my keyboard.
Add subdominant (4) in right foot. Now I added some lateral movement to the right foot. At first, it was hard to remember if my foot was on 4 or 5, so that took some getting used to.
Add supertonic (2) in left foot. The next logical step was to add a similar movement in the left foot. With these four notes (1, 2, 4, 5), I could harmonize most of the common chords. I probably played some very disjunct bass lines, but by changing inversions when necessary, I could maintain a pretty consistent pedal voice.

At this point, I ran out of remote controls. I had a music system, a tv, and a DVD player in my apartment at the time. I think I added a different object with a similar shape under there, so my keyboard (inherited from my college roommate- thanks Alex!!) now had a collection of four “pedals.” Having those objects was important for my feet to learn what it felt like to move between pedals. It wasn’t ideal because they didn’t make any sound and rolled around while I practiced, but it sufficed when I couldn’t go to the church.
Adding other pedals: I added the rest of the pedals in the same fashion, though 1, 2, 4, and 5 harmonized a lot of the chords. I didn’t worry about playing moving lines- instead I would sustain a note, or play the first note only and let my left hand take the rest of the bass line.

For a number of years, I always placed my left foot on tonic and right foot on dominant, and oriented my feet that way. My feet stayed within an octave, only traveling up to two pedals in either direction.

At this point, I had to practice pedals on the organ at church. I spent my home practice time getting as comfortable as possible with the manuals, because when I added my feet, things would predictably fall apart.
Ear training: When I started playing more pedals, I noticed how undeveloped my listening was for low frequencies. I could hear that I was playing a pedal note, but couldn’t always distinguish the pitch, which was problematic when my feet starting moving around!

To address this issue, I started singing the bass line with solfege when practicing at home. This was SO challenging for me at first. My brain felt like it was going to explode from processing so much information. However, over time, my ear became attuned to listening for the bass line, and I also got a LOT better at sight singing and solfege! I would say ear training and sight singing had been a weakness of mine in college, because I hadn’t studied or practiced those skills previously.

That practice gave me a lot of confidence in using my voice to reproduce pitch and express musical ideas, which is a skill I’m still developing today.

Other organ skills

In the past several years, I’ve become much more comfortable on the organ. I don’t have to practice like a madman or stress out before a service, because I’m fluent enough on the instrument, and familiar with most of the hymns.

That relaxation has given me the freedom to develop other organ skills- exploring the capabilities of the instrument, and improving my technique.

-Stops: I generally use presets that I have set on the organ. I haven’t learned much about registration (choosing stops), but I try to use a sound that is appropriate for the hymn or verse.

-Pedaling: Within the past two years, I’ve started crossing my feet, and using both the heel and toe for smoother pedaling. I have wondered if my years of ballet training (I started at 4, continued sporadically through young adulthood, and now take regular classes) helped me in having a heightened awareness of my body in space, especially my legs and feet.

Final thoughts

It’s wild for me to realize that I’ve been playing the organ for over ten years now. I still feel like a relative beginner, because I can’t move very quickly on the instrument.

Working as a church organist/accompanist has been an enormously important part of my development as a performer. There’s nothing like getting up in front of an audience, rain or shine, every week and having to perform… on an instrument that you’re uncomfortable on. It’s even better than a random audience, because in my experience, people in the church have always been extremely supportive- never critical. So it’s a frequent, low-risk performance, which was the perfect antidote to the performances of music school (relatively infrequent, high-pressure performances).

These years of playing for church services have really helped me work with my performance anxiety in a safe environment. I also learned how to be ready to perform without warming up right before, since you can’t do that in the context of a service. All in all, it has been a formative experience to get in front of people, week after week. I sometimes feel good about my performance and sometimes feel bad, but it’s always okay, and I’m always learning something.