Jamie Smith

[Guest]

Hi, I've just got myself a Technics Organ SX-EA3 having lived in a nursing home for the past 6 years, I have now moved into the community with 24/7 care however, when I was at the home, one of the older residents would always play the Organ belonging to the home, she once told me it was so easy and relaxing to play, I've never played this type of instrument before and wondered if anybody on this forum could point me in the direction of any safe Internet site where I could learn how to play the Organ from the very basics.

[andyg]

Hi Jamie and welcome to the forum.

There are no internet sites offering this type of tuition. The home organ is, to all intents and purposes, sadly almost a dead instrument these days. Though quite a lot of people still play, there is no real support for it. In terms of music for home organ - ebay and charity shops are where you'll find that. There are very few teachers who still teach home organ - I suspect rather more actually can do it, but they either choose not to or find that there are almost no students willing to pay for lessons. (Organs are often free, lessons aren't.)

So where does that leave you? Certainly not on your own, so don't worry! What you need to to is buy - ebay is again the cheapest route - some course books. The course you need is "Complete Organ Player", written by Kenneth Baker. Get Books 1 and 2 to start with. They're designed for the non-player to teach themselves so you should find it an easy enough ride to start off with.

I'm assuming you have the owner's manual for the organ to tell you how that works? If so, great, if not, we can help with instructions.

You'll have some questions along the way as you learn and you'll find a friendly bunch of people here willing to help. If you tell us where you are we may even be able to find a nearby teacher. It would would be worth having even just a couple of lessons to get you started or to make sure you're getting things right at some point. We can do so much on line, but one to one is always better!

[seamaster]

Welcome Jamie.

[geoffbrown]

There is all kinds of people on the internet offering tuition on how to play keyboard instruments
Kenneth Baker and James Bastien both have self teaching books available , but probably due to copyright laws you don't get to learn songs you want to play.

I have found Letternoteplayer.com a useful site for all kinds of music ranging from AWSOP to Canon in D, this site is focused on keyboard but its easy to add a pedal base line

I try to seek out music that is suited to or features the organ.

[andyg]

The rider to Geoff's comment is that there are a lot of good ones out there, but even more bad ones! But I've never, ever come across one dealing with home organ.

Yes, Geoff has a good point in that the content in the books is a bit dated but there are lots of songbooks out there for keyboard that will do nicely for extra material, once you've learnt the basics. And you really ought to learn the basics from what's in the books, as the courses are structured to teach you what you need to do. Playing just what you want to play doesn't do this, of course, and so can be hit and miss - I've had to take dozens of people back to basics when they've done this.

And with all due respect to Geoff, the teacher in me says please avoid things like letternoteplayer. I just had a look. From what I see, you will not learn how to play, just how to play tunes by following strings of letters. It's actually easier to do it properly.

[geoffbrown]

I started out learning to play from Letternoteplayer but quickly realized that I was heading down the wrong path, so I bought the James Bastien books, I also have some K.B. books

Yes your right Andy it is easier to follow written music, but I have converted some of the letternote sheets into written music, its a good exercise.

I still think there's a place for sites such as Letternoteplayer, as like they say, they get you playing and most importantly, enjoying playing