Hymn Playing for Organists
As I was preparing and practicing the hymns for today, I came across the following quote from Luther Reed in a book of Creative Hymn Accompaniments by Gerhard Krapf:
A poor organist will make of hymn playing a commonplace thing. A good organist will challenge the intelligent interest of the congregation and charge its hymn singing with thought and feeling.
I know I sometimes rush through the practicing of the hymns and liturgy so I can get to practicing the preludes and postludes (that’s the most important thing, right?). But those of us who are organists should remember that our most important function is leading the congregations song — and we can only do that effectively through practice. That means we occasionally search out alternate hymn accompaniments and introductions/intonations. Perhaps that means spending some time to “prepare” an improvised introduction or playing around with pedal points and registrations. Sometimes that means spending extra time on the hymns rather than the prelude or postlude.
See a previous blog post entitled Invitation to Sing for more reflections.
Let God’s people sing! — and you can help them sing out by being a good leader of the congregations song.
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3 Responses to “Hymn Playing for Organists”
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I can’t practice a hymn anymore, without remembering Kantor Resch’s admonition about ‘the pulse’.
Sometimes, just playing–while singing!–the hymn, in practice, means simply finding its pulse, above and beyond (or at least, before) finding alternative ways of performing it.
It’s being played, after all, for the purpose of people singing it.
Thanks Susan — the “pulse” is a very important part of hymn playing. If we don’t get it, how can we expect the congregation to sing? And truly, getting the pulse is much more important than being a creative hymn player. Thanks for the reminder.
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation
Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Plenary.