I finally got to play a pipe organ at my local church :)

[DrawbarDreams]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN0HvWZJe3c Hello guys, I turned 15 in May, so I got to play a pipe organ a few days ago, it was pretty good and a great experience, I should have taken it to full organ and started doing preacher chords on it, I only know like one or two preacher chords, but meh, I prefer the sound of a Hammond with a Leslie rotating speaker, I like pipe organs because they have a magnificent sound and my dream is to play a North American church organ that has over 1 or 2000 pipes with about 2 manuals, I already played a 2 manual organ that was at St. Mary's of Maitland, I have yet to play the Newcastle Museum organ and the Newcastle Cathedral organ as well, When I do get to the museum I am going to play the Star Spangled Banner on the organ, though someone needs to teach me the pedal bassline, I don't know that part yet, and does any Aussie here have a free electric organ they can give me to practice on? I sold my Yamaha to a small church that needed an organ, and I haven't found a nice Hammond tonewheel yet, but come on whats a 15 year old got money for a nice hammond? I wanna find a nice M3 or something at the dump and get some tonewheel generator oil and oil that thing up and play :D :-)

[minibutmany]

Hello, Its great that you had the opportunity to play a real organ, it feels pretty amazing the first time. I am also 15 and have started playing the organ in these past few months, and so far I have played 5 instruments. The largest was a 4 manual organ with few thousand pipes and the smallest was a single manual, 6 stop organ with only 502 pipes. I have to say I really enjoy playing the older, smaller instruments the most, but full organ with 64 stops and all the couplers can be great assuming you don't go deaf. I highly recommend taking lessons and working on pedal technique. If you start hunting for a hammond, go for one that has a full 25 key pedal board, the 13 key are fun for a while but have little practice value. Good luck with your search.

[DrawbarDreams]

Thanks mate, are you in Australia? If so have you played the Newcastle Cathedral organ?

[minibutmany]

I live in a small town in New York, Cornell university is here which is why we have so many great organs.

[DrawbarDreams]

Okay, I prefer the sound of pipes because they just have a nice sound when selected at full organ :D

[Young Organist]

This is one of the greatest discussions on the fourm. Im 13, turning 14 very soon. I just started organ this year, but im a 5 year piano student. The organ is the king of all instruments. My first pipe organ experience, was in Romania, on a organ built in 1755. It was spectacular. It only had a great and a swell, but never the less great. We all need to stay in touch. The organ is unfortunately a dying instrument. I am making a website this fall, in 1 week, only for Young Organists. Ill be keeing yall up to date on it.
Y.O.

[mashaffer]

A great experience for you and I wish you many more. Please enlighten this old foggie though... what is a "preacher chord"? Minor I know, as well as major and dominant seventh etc. but preacher is a new one on me. :D

mike

[M1994]

Okay, I prefer the sound of pipes because they just have a nice sound when selected at full organ :D

While that's true, they make many other terrific sounds even with as little as one stop out. The versatility of a good organ has never stopped impressing me.

[minibutmany]

Yes, one stop can be very powerful. This is why I cringe at churches going the electronic route for space reasons when a five or six stop instrument is still within the budget.

[DrawbarDreams]

Yes, so what did you guys think of my playing?

[Pipeorganbuilder]

Nice to see so many young people wanting to play a pipe organ. Keep up the good work.

[Guest]

Must have been a really fun experience

[DrawbarDreams]

Yeah, I got a kick out of it. but I am going to the Christchurch Cathedral to play another one! I've played both the St. Mary's church organ and the Maitland Uniting Church organ. :)

[samzer]

A great experience for you and I wish you many more. Please enlighten this old foggie though... what is a "preacher chord"? Minor I know, as well as major and dominant seventh etc. but preacher is a new one on me. :D

mike

Mike, I was also curious about the "preacher chord" and as your question went unanswered decided to google. Found a couple of possibilities. One is a song "Preacher" by the band "One Republic". It makes use of one basic chord progression which is I, V, VI, II.

The other is the American gospel tradition where the organist(usually playing a Hammond with Leslie) accompanies the preacher during the sermon providing support for his message. The organist's job is to enhance and support the preacher's delivery of the sermon. The organist is supposed to stay in the same key as the preacher. He uses lots of diminished chord modulations to move from key to key. It's sort of like the Neopolitan II and VI chords used for movement in classic music but used much more frequently. You can find instructional videos on YouTube for playing preacher chords.

Still hope that "14YearOldOrganist" will tell us about his "Preacher chords" and that he has many more happy gigs with pipe organs.

Sam

[myorgan]

Mike, I was also curious about the "preacher chord" and as your question went unanswered decided to google. Found a couple of possibilities. One is a song "Preacher" by the band "One Republic". It makes use of one basic chord progression which is I, V, VI, II.

Sam,

Thank you for sharing your discoveries. Is the II chord to which you referred major or minor? If it is minor, it is usually written with lowercase letters (i.e. ii vs. II).

Again, thank you for sharing what you discovered.

Michael