Tag Archives: hymn introduction

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.

Invitation to Sing

When I went back to an Organist Workshop last summer at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, IN, Kantor Resch reminded us of the importance of how we introduce and lead hymns. Subconsciously I knew this, but it was good to be reminded and reinforced.

As I recall, Kantor Resch referred to the hymn introduction as an “Invitation to Sing.” If the introduction is “blah”, the singing will be “blah” as well. The “invitation” by the organist gives a foretaste of what is to come. One of the primary responsibilities of the organist is to engage God’s people in song.

Sometimes the introduction will be playing the entire hymn through once. Sometimes it will be the first and last music phrases. For me this can get a bit repetitive and rather uncreative. More often than not I will either improvise an introduction, use an introduction from one of the organ books in my library, or repurpose a portion of an organ piece from another composer.

The idea for this blog post came after a number of people from church over the last week complimented me on the introductions and accompaniments for a number of the hymns. I was told they were creative, engaging, and reflective of the texts. I can’t take credit for them all — some of them were my own improvisations, but a number of them came from the works of Carl Schalk, Jeffrey Blersch, and Kevin Hildebrand. If any of you organist’s out there do not have Hildebrand’s newest organ collection, Bethlehem’s Rose – 12 Easy Chorale Preludes, get it for the 2008 Christmas season.

P.S. I do not work for or get any commissions from Concordia Publishing House. ;-) I just happen to use a lot of the organ music that they publish.