Pulling Out All the Stops

If you've read Matt's blog today then you know that he recently celebrated a 10-year anniversary (10 years as a returned missionary). Well, yesterday I celebrated a much less significant anniversary, but of the same length. Until last night, I hadn't touched an organ in 10 years.

I've been asked to play the organ for our church services when there is a fifth Sunday in the month. Luckily, there are only 4 or 5 months in a year that have a fifth Sunday so I don't have to do it that often. I completely blame myself for this assignment, I was the one who actually notified the powers that be that I do play the piano and also took an organ class in college. (Of course, I didn't mention that my grade in that class completely screwed up my GPA that semester.)

So I can't complain, but I can tell you that I really need some work when it comes to playing the organ. July was the first time I needed to play and I took the easy way out and played the piano. But for the next time (the end of September) I would really like to try to play the organ.

So last night, I headed to the church to practice on the organ (for the first time since I finished my organ class 10 years ago) and well, it was pretty much a disaster. There are two things that pose problems for me when it comes to playing the organ.

1) the pedals
2) the stops

1) Just using the sustaining pedal on the piano stretches my coordination abilities to the extreme limit. The fact that you are supposed to be playing notes with your feet is positively frightening. And I'm even cheating by only playing the base chord every 3 or 4 measures. But that is all I can do and I didn't even do it very well last night.

2) The stops on the organ are a complete maze and there doesn't seem to be a manual in our building. So I spent lots of time pressing random stops trying to find a sound that was somewhat pleasant, but it wasn't easy and I'm not sure that I succeeded. Why, oh why isn't there just a series of buttons that you can use to make the song sound right. You know - if the song is bright and cheerful, there should be one button that will press all the stops that will make a bright and cheerful sound. The same button should exist for meditative songs, powerful songs, etc. Is that too much to ask?

Oh well. At least I have over a month to practice the songs I'm supposed to play. I just hope it's enough time to ensure that I don't make an idiot out of myself.