How Organists Are Unlike Strictly "Classical" Musicians

[Steve Freides]

This, from another thread here (https://www.organforum.com/forums/sh...626#post477626), got me thinking:

It sounds like you have a good sense for what will work. I actually add passing tones (the technical term) when going from one bass note to another. It helps the congregation know where the harmony is going, and helps them keep up with the music. Great idea!

It made me realize that, as I near the end of my third year as a church organist, what freedom we have as compared to a lot of classical music performance. There is, of course, a lot of historical precedent for not playing exactly what's on the page, but liturgical organists seems a special niche in our time in this regard.

-S-

[voet]

....It made me realize that, as I near the end of my third year as a church organist, what freedom we have as compared to a lot of classical music performance. There is, of course, a lot of historical precedent for not playing exactly what's on the page, but liturgical organists seems a special niche in our time in this regard.
-S-

Astute observation, Steve. There is a long tradition of improvisation in this field, going back hundreds of years. If you read the two volume work that Marcel Dupré wrote on the subject, you realize how disciplined an art it is. The only people doing it today are church musicians and jazz musicians.

[Steve Freides]

Doubly interesting to me because I grew up a jazz and classical guitar player.

A story from church yesterday that ties into this for me - we normally sing our choir anthem during the offertory. We also have a kids choir that sinsg irregularly and, when they do, sometimes it's immediately before or after the "time with children" where the minister has them all sit in the front, and other times it's near the end as the benediction.

Yesterday was one of those days when our already small choir didn't reach critical mass, but we thought we had a plan because the children were going to sing a two-part song that would have worked nicely as an anthem. Well, the alto part was to be handled by two boys, one who has a strong voice, but said boy alto go sick between Friday's rehearsal and Sunday morning, so we had no choir and no anthem. Our choir director sent me a text message as I was literally one foot out the door on the way to church, so I came back in, and got my piano-vocal score of Godspell. I accompanied myself, on a classical guitar, singing "On The Willows" and it was very warmly received, I'm happy to say. (In college, I switched my major from classical guitar to voice and graduated as a singer.)

But the fact that I was playing guitar from a piano-vocal score, and editing as I went - it's scored for several voices and I only had my own, and there was an instrumental break near the end that I changed so it would be only half as long - made me realize that I was, to paraphrase Bernstein from his "Mass", making it up as I went along. There were times when I played the piano accompaniment quite literally, e.g., during the instrumental introduction, but as soon as I started singing, I knew I wanted to play something a little less complicated, so I did. And so it went.

It was one of those days when, at least in some ways, everything you've learned and all your experience as a musician comes into play as you choose and then perform a piece of music.

I guess I've change the subject but I hope anyone reading along sees the connection. I'm glad to play a few different instruments and I've brought a number of them into church. It seems an extension of the idea of improvising at the organ to re-orchestrate a piece that might have originally been scored differently.

-S-

[jbird604]

Amazing story, Steve! That's just the kind of thing that people really love, music that sets a worship service apart from a mere performance. May you always be blessed with the ability to "make it up as you go along!"

Though I'm a much less trained and talented player than you, I sometimes do some stuff that amazes even me, as I am tasked with "improvising" throughout communion each Sunday. Sometimes communion only takes two or three minutes when the crowd is small and it's being done by pass the plate. Or it can take 10 minutes with a large crowd when we're doing walk-up. Often I have nothing prepared other than a hymn tune that I've decided to use as the basis.

Been doing this for many years now, so I have some standard tricks up my sleeve -- playing the melody alone on a variety of stops, soloing the melody with different accompaniments, doing it with "jazz" chords, breaking into the melody line with an impromptu descant or something, changing keys or making it minor for a verse, you know the drill. And sometimes it just "works" beautifully and I think wow, I wish I had a recording of what I just did! Of course many other times it's just ok. Fills the time fittingly but doesn't knock my socks off. It's nice when something really good just "happens!"

[Steve Freides]

@jbird604, you are very kind - thank you.

Yes, I agree that playing for communion can be an adventure. I've made playing classical guitar a tradition for communion, and everyone likes it - strikes the right mood. But I've also done what you describe on the organ. I find James Taylor's version of "Oh, Susanna" a good model for this sort of thing - a tune everyone knows, done slowly and with soft jazz chords. I like "Amazing Grace" for this - I could put something into the computer and, if I do, I'll post it here for free for anyone interested.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LtySf_4eAc - after a quick intro, the jazzy chord stuff happens. It's not particularly slow, but the idea is one I use a lot.

-S-

[jbird604]

James Taylor is one of the best! Very nice treatment of that old tune, and just the kind of thing one can do with a simple tune. Thanks for sharing.

[myorgan]

Steve,

You have made some great observations I've never thought of before: Concert organists are required to play exactly what's on the page, while church musicians can improvise limitedly for part of the service--maybe more in other areas of the service. Then there are the organists who improvise full-time (i.e. theatre & jazz organists).

A different set of techniques is required for all the above genres. Thanks for bringing this up!

Michael

[tbeck]

Do you consider that continuo players who play from figured bass are also improvising?

[voet]

Personally, I would consider figured bass a form of improvisation. It is not that different than a jazz musician who uses a fake book. Of course, improvisation goes much further than these two examples, but it might be a good place for someone who wants to learn to begin.

[myorgan]

Do you consider that continuo players who play from figured bass are also improvising?

Figured bass is actually quite more restrictive than people give it credit. For example, if the figured bass just has a 6 or 6/4, the only other options available to the organist other than 1^st inversion or 2^nd inversion is whether it is open or close harmony. I guess then, the rhythm could another improvisational option, but the options are limited.

I suppose it could be considered improvisation. Most don't realize in the Baroque era, the music was sometimes more improvisational than we give them credit. I would guess performance practice has changed a bit since the 1900s when Bach was rediscovered.

Michael

[Steve Freides]

Do you consider that continuo players who play from figured bass are also improvising?

Honestly, no. We had to learn to do this in college - I had to be able to at least make a reasonable go of sight-reading figured bass, and we had plenty of them where we were given a week to practice.

To me, having grown up a guitar player, figured bass is essentially like playing from a lead sheet (which, for those unfamiliar, is where you have the melody and chord symbols only). You have plenty of freedom to realize the indicated musical intentions, but you aren't improvising, you're just doing what the music tells you to do. The difference is that the composer leaves you some freedom to realize/implement his/her instructions.

I guess we could say realizing a figured bass is a step closer to improvisation than just playing the notes of a fully realized part.

-S-

[regeron]

Figured bass is neither strictly improvised nor fully composed. It is a combination of the two, a kind of middle ground - one of those "neither, yet both" circumstances.

A "C" with no figures attached does mean to play a C major chord, but it says nothing of voicing, note-doubling, rhythm, figuration, imitation. These are the elements that are improvised.

Unfortunately, too many people associate figured bass with a one-semester, keyboard-harmony university course in which most of the students are happy to be able to play simple chords for an 8-measure piece whose bass line consists of half notes. That is an exercise and often not much more.

When you hear talented accompanists play from a figured bass, it starts to become music in its own right. It is now past the exercise stage.

Again, one DOES improvise on a figured bass. The bass line is COMPOSED, as are the figures (sometimes), but everything else is the IMPROVISED work of the player.

Authors don't immediately come to mind, but several have written about how to take a single bass line and create a great variety of pieces from it, eg. using the one bass line as a basis for a Saraband, Minuet, or Gigue. That can only happen if improvisation happens above the composed line.

[tbeck]

Regeron, I agree completely.

[myorgan]

A "C" with no figures attached does mean to play a C major chord, but it says nothing of voicing, note-doubling, rhythm, figuration, imitation. These are the elements that are improvised.

Regeron,

I would only quibble with the above statement, in that the voicing (i.e. open vs. close harmony), note-doubling, rhythm, etc. would be dictated by one's understanding of proper part-writing (i.e. avoiding parallel fifths, octaves, and the like). This would also include not changing capriciously between open and close harmonic structure. Basically, I'm saying the items you listed above would be dictated by the music--usually the Cello or Bass part.

That said, my quibble is akin to asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Not really worth quibbling about.

Michael

Why did I even make this post?;-)

[regeron]

Depending on the piece, the realization of a figured bass is not just a series of chords. It can be as simple or complex as you want, as long as it still suits the piece. If you're just chunking along in chords, you're falling short of the potential of a good figured bass. A really good player will have contrapuntal lines to compliment whatever they're accompanying. Arpeggiation, the use of non-chord tones (such as passing notes), playing parallel 3rds and 6ths to the melody, and other compositional techniques will give the accompaniment much more character.

I recall playing a simple realization to accompany a vocalist in a music festival. The piece was in a standard graded book and the realization was nice. Still, knowing that the soloist was confident in their part, I ornamented the printed realization in a way that was not notated. The examiner, a professor from a nearby university, asked me if they could have a copy of what I played, because it was so beautifully appropriate. I replied that I had simply made it up and there was no printed version.

Figured bass also divides itself into styles depending on whether you're accompanying French, Italian or German music. (Or maybe English, too, though I don't know enough about that one to comment accurately.)

On a side note, I once saw a YouTube video of someone on harpsichord accompanying a wind instrument. You could tell the person playing the harpsichord had no specific training in Historic Performance Practice (HPP). They clunked down each chord. Never a hint of arpeggiation. No sense of how to use the instrument. It appeared to be a pianist who assumed that the harpsichord was dead and you had to sound that way yourself to be authentic. It was awful.