"Fall off the bench (or hide under it)" moments in church

[jbird604]

We've talked about this sort of thing before, probably even have a thread or two somewhere, but it seems like something that keeps popping up in my life. Those moments when something happens that nearly knocks you off the organ bench right in the middle of a service, or else makes you wish you could just crawl under the bench and hide!

This morning I had another one, though not even my wife mentioned it afterward, so perhaps it wasn't so much a shock to others as to me. It was during communion, and I was playing a fairly well rehearsed improvisation on the Gospel song "I Am Thine, O Lord." I had drawn a soft registration -- a single 8' stop on great and a softer one on the swell, coupled to a soft 16' in the pedal. I played a straightforward stanza, switching back and forth between manuals by phrases. Then on the second stanza, I went up a half step and started re-harmonizing some of the chords and cadences. Quite sweet and calming, keeping the service reflective and ethereal, as I like to do for communion.

Then, at the end of that second stanza, I headed for the swell, thinking to improvise a fitting ending as the elders and deacons surrounded the table and prepared to do the little ritual they always do, which ends when the trays are placed on the table and we all take the cup at once.

But.... as I lifted my hands off the great and aimed for the swell, a fingertip evidently caught piston #10 (which is my "fanfare" piston, used to introduce the processional each Sunday), and I heard the "clunk" of moving drawknobs just as my fingers landed on the swell keys. It was too late to undo it, and fortunately the swell shoes were both fully closed and it didn't blow everybody away, so I just played the final phrases on a big reedy chorus behind closed shades. Probably didn't scare anybody except me!

I should've known something would happen today, as it seemed even from the start this morning that my fingers weren't following my brain's directions. I muffed several notes on the first hymn, and let a fingertip catch a swell key (to which a Spanish Trumpet was coupled via MIDI) as one of the prayers concluded. Some days I should just tell them the organ isn't working and we'll have to sing without it!

[voet]

I used to play an E.M. Skinner that had a very light touch on the manuals. I was always nicking a key which made me sound like a klutz. After I left that position, the church had the organ rebuilt, which included a new console.

[samibe]

I did that once. I started playing the intro for the closing hymn and it was way too quiet but it was also just complicated enough that I couldn't do anything about the volume while playing. So I decided to finish the intro, take half a second to hit a position with a louder registration, and add some volume with the expression shoes. So I get to the end of the intro and hit the piston. Then go to add some expression and realize that I haven't looked at the first measure to get my hands in position and the pause between the intro and song is starting to get too long. I'm thinking 'I need to start playing now' just as my foot bumps the 10 piston (which was my tutti piston) and I play a horrible chord (because I still hadn't processed the music I was looking at) at full volume and startled everyone in the room including myself. The chorister looked at me like 'are you okay?' I decided to own it and took my time (a couple seconds) resetting everything, nodded to the chorister, and started into the hymn. After that, I've always set toe studs right next to the expression pedals to a very quiet registration.

The funny part was that I did that on a 'daylight savings' Sunday and the church leader that closed the meeting made the joke that I was just doing my best to keep everyone awake.

[Jay999]

Or have the hymn book fall off the music rack and hit the keys!

[samibe]

My teacher had that one happen. The music desk flipped down mid-song and all of his music slid down the manuals then his lap and ended up on the pedals.

[andijah]

I once dropped one of the really large hymn books during a quiet moment and it hit the floor with a loud bang. The pastor thought I had fallen off the bench.

During my last recital, when I played the final bars of a prelude and was already thinking about the following fugue, my assistant started removing the music and it took a few seconds of "discussion" to have it put back, He had totally forgotten about the fugue :-> But I just held the last chord for a looong time and I don't think many people noticed that something was wrong.

[jbird604]

One of my oft-told stories is about the time in the first few weeks of my current job when I was still a little nervous, I just had a complete brain holiday during the Doxology, of all things. Simply could NOT find the keys and began playing all kinds of horrific wrong notes. And somehow I lacked the presence of mind to simply lift my hands off the keys! When I finally looked up, some of the choir members were staring at me in horror as if I'd had a stroke right on the bench. Of course everyone kindly acted afterward as if nothing had happened, told me I'd done a beautiful job that morning, as always ;-)

[afuller5]

Hi all,

This is in a slightly different than the posts so far. It is the funniest and strangest thing I've ever had happen while playing in a service.

At my church we use piano and organ together. The organ and piano are together behind a modesty railing on the right in the front of the sanctuary. (The organ is electronic.) About halfway through a service, I played the introduction for a hymn and looked over at our pianist, and, to my surprise, she was pulling up her skirt! Her skirt was slightly too big in the waist. She had been turned slightly watching me play a piece as a solo; then she faced the piano and "smoothed" her skirt right onto the floor! She did not get her skirt completely back on until after we finished playing the hymn! Because of the modesty railing, no one but me was aware of what had happened. I don't know if that was good or bad. Since I could not laugh, I had to hold my laugh until the end of the service! However, I could not resist writing her a note that said, "Next time you decide to do a strip tease, let me know and I'll play 'Night Train' for you." Also, since it was only about a month before Christmas, I gave her a pair of suspenders for a present. Our pianist was not easily embarrassed, so that was a good thing.

Later,
Allen

[jbird604]

Too bad about the modesty rail. Without it you might have had a good old-fashioned "revival" in the church!

[Joyfulnoisemaker]

Although this topic and thread is old, I'm SO grateful it's still open. Most worship services have been virtual for our church this year, but I've been blessed to be able to play for all of them and sang for most too. There are no edits, no do-overs, it's all live. Usually only I would notice certain things that I do wrong or omit...well, anyone reading this probably would, but anyway, listening to the services when I get home, I just cringe when I know a part is coming up where I have made a boo-boo. Or the time that out of nowhere, at a totally quiet time I probably had to adjust my glasses or scratch my face and hit a chime in the process. I just stared up to the ceiling to direct any attention away from myself. That was classy. Starting an intro for the wrong song, yep, done that too. But the ultimate moment for me came during my grandmother's funeral. She took me to all my piano lessons (and paid for them all) and was always so encouraging of my musical development, and when she passed, all I could think of was that playing for her funeral would be the last thing I could do for her to say Thank you. The funeral home had an electronic piano and not an organ. Between songs I was shuffling books on the music rack when down came tumbling a hymnal and clunked right on the keyboard. I was obviously mortified in the moment, but afterward we all had a good laugh out of it. Mamaw was the kind that loved to laugh at things like that....the kind that would try to get you tickled in church. So in retrospect, it was probably quite suiting...even if the crowd probably didn't think so. We've often joked since then that she probably gave that book a little nudge from heaven and got a good chuckle in.

Oh, and John, one of the songs was "I Am Thine, O Lord"...one of her very favorites. After reading that one of your moments involved this hymn, I knew I had to share this story.

-Charlie

[cham-ed]

We had just overhauled our Skinner's console. Modern MIDI electronics etc. It included a playback memory. So earlier in the week, I wanted to test that out. And I did and it played back perfectly. So Sunday our main organist was an older lady and really not into all the new fangled stuff.. Well somehow during the pastoral prayer she must have bumped something and it began to play. And it wasn't appropriate for prayer time. She threw up her hands and looked like she had heard Gabriel's trumpet. I ran over and just turned the instrument off. We had the technician out that week and never again did we have the instrument run off on its' own.

[jbird604]

Reminds me of an organ I serviced in a church that had a kick-switch on the expression pedal that started up the rhythm section. The organist kept her right foot on the pedal all the time and now and then would trigger the drums and cymbals at the most inappropriate time.

[Larrytow]

You should have instructed the organist to turn the rhythm section volume all the way down. That is possible on most organs, but not all maybe. Then it would not matter if it was accidentally activated. I do that on my chopped Yamaha that I sometimes use for weddings.

[jbird604]

That would've worked, Larry. Not sure whether we removed the switch or just turned down the drums, it was several years ago and I've forgotten. A very recent encounter with a kick switch involved an old Wurlitzer (model 4500, I think) serving as a small church's organ. It had a kick switch on the expression pedal that did the "pitch bend" function, to mimic the Hawaiian Guitar, I guess. The organist was unaware of the switch or its function, but had complained for years that the organ sometimes just "changed keys" or "went out of tune" in the middle of a hymn. In that case, we DID clip the wires on the kick switch!

[Larrytow]

What a time to bring this subject up ! I had a major catastrophe just this last Sunday. I'm still embarrassed about it, and I'm not sure I want to tell about it, because it was my own fault ( sorta anyhow ). I was playing for the church that I love playing for, and they like me too, so that makes it even worse in my mind. I'm amongst people that will understand though, so I guess I could tell you all.

To set the scene, I have to mention that on the Saturday before I was doing fall leaf cleanup in my yard, which consists of grinding up the leaves / mulching them ( lots of trees here too ) with the garden tractor. This is a very dusty, grimy, job, but it beats raking into piles and burning them. I was trying to beat the forecast rain, so I got done late, took a shower and went to bed. Then I got up early Sunday, took another shower, got ready, and went to church. Feeling good, and looking forward to playing for a good size congregation that really Sings.

The hymns for the day were all End Times hymns ( that part of the church year - not because of Covid ), and all had good old German Lutheran tunes that I have been playing regularly my entire career. The prelude and opening hymn went just fine, so I'm looking forward to the next one which is the Hymn of The Day, and a favorite, right before the sermon. During the reading of the Gospel my right eye started watering, so I kinda took my finger and massaged it a bit. Well, that was the wrong thing to do !!! That made it water even more, and it started to hurt - and hurt a LOT. The service must go on of course, and I figured I would make it though the next hymn and then deal with my eye during the sermon.

I ended up starting the hymn introduction with one eye closed and hurting even worse. I klutzed it up so badly that if they had not known what tune it was supposed to be, they would have never guessed what it was. The hymn was " Wake Awake for Night Is Flying " ( WACHET AUF ), which is sorta slow and not at all difficult. I played stanza 1 badly with one eye only open, and thought "well I do have this one mostly memorized", so I'll do stanza 2 and 3 without really looking at the music. Needless to say, that too did not work very well. It is quite hard to concentrate when one is hurting. The congregation tried valiantly to keep with me, because sometimes I do use unusual harmonizations for some hymns, but I was even wrecking the melody.

I surely was not thinking things though fast enough in my pain. What I should have done is just played the first few chords of stanza one, and then let them sing it A-Capella . This congregation sings so well that they could have done it very well, particularly with that hymn. Ya know what they say about hindsight !

At the end of destroying that hymn, I got off the bench thinking I would just clean out whatever was causing my eye to hurt so bad. Went looking all around the church ( still don't know where everything is stashed there ) for a first aid kit that perhaps had some Visine or something in it. No luck, so I flushed my eyes out in the kitchen sink, and that made it some better, but it was still hurting terribly.

I got back to the organ in time to play background music for communion, and the final hymn. That one had mistakes in it too, but I did not completely clobber it up. At the end of the service I just waved at the pastor as he was doing announcements and left the bench. No postlude was going to happen in my condition.

After the service I explained what had all happened, and everyone was very understanding and sympathetic. The 30 mile drive home was not much fun, but I made it. The rest of the day was all shot because of my eye hurting, and mostly on account of feeling terrible for wrecking a service.

On Monday I finally had enough of the eye hurting, and went to an ophthalmologist who fixed it by pulling out a TINY piece of a leaf from under the upper eyelid. He says there is minor scaring, but it will heal up just fine. It's been good all week so far, and it has stopped hurting. Tomorrow is my one Sunday a month that I'm not playing anywhere, so that is nice.

The main moral of this story is : Wearing safety googles when mulching leaves is a Good Idea ! The other one is : If the congregation Can sing A-Capella, there are times to let them do it.

[jbird604]

Oh dear! A foreign object in the eye is sure painful. And yes, letting them sing a capella is a great option when things are going south at the organ. I only wish I'd had the presence of mind to do that on those occasions when I went completely off the rails, but none of us are very good at thinking straight in the middle of a crisis!

I hope your eye is ok and that you'll be 100% in a few days. I'm sure you'll redeem yourself many times over with that congregation. If they knew the whole story they'd surely be gracious enough to laugh with you about it!

[Larrytow]

Thanks John. My eye is feeling fine now, so no permanent damage was done. Over the years of being a mechanic, welder, fabricator, etc., I have had other instances of junk in an eye. Normally one realizes it right away, and gets it fixed quickly. This time, I had no idea till it acted up at the wrong time. The congregation was very understanding, and got a good laugh out of it. I'm playing there again on Thanksgiving eve, and will make it up to them for sure.

[voet]

jbird604 "Reminds me of an organ I serviced in a church that had a kick-switch on the expression pedal that started up the rhythm section. The organist kept her right foot on the pedal all the time and now and then would trigger the drums and cymbals at the most inappropriate time."

Maybe she was just doing rimshots when the pastor said something she agreed with in his sermon. :-)

[Organfella]

Yes an old thread but an evergreen one! Reading through the posts I came to realize once again that the organ remains the most important piece of furniture in the church (besides the organist of course...;-)) That majestic instrument has maintained its rightful place in the service and every mishap should be considered a blessing and a reminder that the instrument will only do what it is told to do....
Having said that - and on a non-musical note (pun fully intended) consider the minister or pastor who also sometimes makes embarrassing mistakes - and usually at a time when it is most inappropriate. I am reminded of the very serious elderly minister who was far sighted and would read with his reading glasses and remove them when preaching. He had the habit of folding his glasses and place them neatly above the books near the upper forward edge of the pulpit. One day while he was developing a very serious and highly theological topic he was waving his hands in a definitive gesture and accidentally pushed his glasses off the edge, tumbling to the floor some three meters below. He stopped in mid-sentence and while peering over the upper ledge stretching his scrawny neck to its limit he anciously enquired: "Is it broken?" This almost fearful question, being asked at the most reverent moment in the sermon was so obviously out of place that even the sleepy old gal in the back row woke up and added hers to the giggles going all around.
Pastors cannot hide behind a quickly developed alternative melody or chord or whatever on the organ to hide a possible finger error or such...
:->
Nico

[andijah]

Thanks for the story, Nico. Reminds me of an elderly pastor. He started reading the text he wanted to talk about:
"And God said to Moses..." and then he grabbed the microphone with both hands and shouted: "Can you hear me? I'm not used to this thing!"
I don't remember the sermon, but this scene is still in my head.

[samzer]

In the late sixties I was organist at Fourth Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville. Ky. The organ console was typical arrangement with the console directly behind the pulpit separated by a rail. My view was thru a rear view mirror. One Sunday everything was quiet as the minister was praying and I prepared for the next hymn by selecting a full registration on the 28 rank Pilcher and managed to fumble a hymnal and drop it on the keyboard. The Pilcher gave a mighty discordant roar and I'm told that the minister nearly cleared the pulpit. Someone in the choir twittered. Wanted to get under the bench but could only sit there with bright red face.

The church was in decline in the sixties and was later sold to another denomination that did not use the organ. But, part of the Pilcher survived and was moved to a church Bainbridge, Georgia. Don't know it's present status.

[Organfella]

But, part of the Pilcher survived and was moved to a church Bainbridge, Georgia. Don't know it's present status.

I bet the surviving part was the offending keyboard, and perhaps the hymnal as well....;-)

Nico

[samzer]

I also survived to play another day but was, ever after, very careful about loading the music desk.

[AMDguy]

Our church had an old Conn Serenade a year or two ago, and it was having all sorts of problems... One day I played the introduction to the closing hymn on the Great, and then proceeded to (attempt) to play the first verse on the swell. When I moved up to the swell, for some reason, not ONE of the 8' stops I had selected sounded, so I started playing with a whole bunch of 4' and 2' stops (super coupled too). I realized pretty quick, and just stopped playing... No one said anything afterwards, but I pushed pretty hard for us to get rid of that trainwreck of an organ (we are now in the process of obtaining Casavant opus 2445).