Beginner Organist

[bonh-101]

I am a beginner organist and have just learned stops, drawknobs, couplers, ect...

I am learning the manual names and location and I have learned up to four manuals: choir, great, swell, solo.
but there is another called echo.

where is it in location to the other manuals?

[giovannimusica]

Hi bonh-101,

I have quite often found that the Echo division is a *floating division*, that is to say, a division that can be coupled to any other *fixed division* . It might contain some very colorful stops which can be used to highlight a melody or contra-melody line. If it is a fixed division it would probably be on the fifth or sixth manual, dependent upon many factors e.g. budget, space, tonal composition, acoustic, the playing action of the instrument -electrical, mechanical, pneumatic or electro-pneumatic. In short, there are a whole host of variables. Hope this is of some help to you.


Cheers,

Giovanni

[acc]

Hi,

Giovanni is right: there are no absolute rules about order or even names of manuals. Usually, Great is the first or the second manual; if it is the second, then Choir will be the first.

Historically, having Choir first comes from the baroque tradition of Rückpositiv in Germany or positif de dos in France, i.e. where the Choir division is located behind the player: in this case, it is technically much easier for the organ builder to put the Choir manual first and the Great second.

On other baroque organs (e.g. those by Silbermann), both divisions are in the same case, with Great below (and the other division is, quite appropriately, called Oberwerk). You would than have Great as first manual, and the Oberwerk second.

On some big instruments, you can also have a Brustwerk, a division located right above the manuals and at the front of the case (Brust=chest). The builder would then find it most convenient to put its manual closest to it, i.e. the last manual.

In French baroque organs, you sometimes have an Écho division, which indeed tends to be the last manual. For example, the Cliquot organ in Poitiers has the following order:
1 - Positif (Choir)
2 - Grand-Orgue (Great)
3 - Récit ("Swell", except that it's not swellable)
4 - Écho
and in the Dom Bedos organ in Bordeaux, we have:
1 - Positif
2 - Grand-Orgue
3 - Bombarde (contains strong reeds)
4 - Récit
5 - Écho

In French romantic organs, the Positif(=Choir) division is often located inside the main organ case, so there is no reason to have it as the first manual, and the most common order in a three-manual instrument is Great-Choir-Swell (with the Swell now being swellable, i.e. enclosed inside a box with shutters).

If an organ has electrical action, the builder could of course order the manuals any way he likes (rods can't be bent, but cables can!), but for convenience, most builders just stuck to the (by then well established) order of manuals that was customary in their particular country and time period - so that accounts for a great variety of possibilities, as Giovanni mentioned.

Probably the only absolute rules (i.e. with no exceptions known to me) are that Great comes before Swell and Solo, and that Choir comes before Solo.

[giovannimusica]

Hi acc,

I thank you profusely for your so beautifully filling in that which I left out. You certainly know your stuff - A full salute to you.

Cheers,

Giovanni

[giovannimusica]

I hereby publicly petition the Owner/Administrator to promote acc to officer rank since he has such good knowledge in his subject specialty.

Respectfully submitted,

Giovanni

[acc]

Well, I'm flattered by your proposal, Giovanni - thank you!

Actually, I don't know that much - I'm not an organ builder, or expert, or anything. Just an afficionado who has learned a number of things after reading the booklets of a few hundred organ CDs (plus information you can find here and there on the web).

Anyway, I'm perfectly happy with the idea of "working up my ranks" (pun not intended) as anybody else does.

[bonh-101]

Thank you for informing me of this...
I have one last question though, I am teaching myself Toccata & Fugue in D Minor and I can never get the right registration...

It's always off, and the pedals seem to have a really powerful stop on it... I am currently using a 16' Posaune: it has the right power but it just doesn't sound right, even when coupled with the great division. Do you have any suggestions?

[giovannimusica]

Hi bonh-101,

You might try saving the use of the Posaune 16' until the last few measures in the Toccata, likewise in the Fugue. It also depends on what you're striving for in the interpretation. I find quite often that avoiding the use of *full* organ is a benefit - it begins to grate on my nerves when all what I hear is a honking blast instead of restraint with the resources.

Think of the conductor of an Orchestra - he/she can make or break the quality of a performance by overuse of the different classes of instruments in regards to dynamics, coloring or any other variable. I like to think about a good organist is like a good orchestral conductor.

A good conductor can not only jeopardise his/her own career by misuse of orchestral forces but can also cause the disreputation of the orchestra, likewise an organist might not ever again be invited to give performances because of his/her inability of marshaling the resources of the instrument and technical sloppiness.

Sorry for digressing - try playing the piece using only flutes - 16',8',4',2' and 1'. The ear won't be so distracted by all the color when one uses reeds and mixtures - you are forced to play more cleanly and articulately when using only flutes. Once you play the piece cleanly then start adding other colors very judiciously.

I hope this might help in your strivings.

Cheers,

Giovanni

[acc]

Your attitude is the right one : if your ears tell you it's wrong, then it's wrong.

I must say that on an instrument I don't know, I would also have tried something like this to start with:
<ul type="square">[*]Great : Principals 8' 4' 2' + mixture(s)[*]Pedal : Principals 16' 8' 4' (+ mixture) + Posaune 16'[/list]
If that doesn't work out, you can try different things:
<ul type="square">[*]remove Great to Pedal coupler[*]remove the Pedal 4' stop[*]remove some Great mixtures (when coupled to the Pedal, they can sometimes sound odd in the lowest octave)[*]etc.[/list]
Further than that, it's really difficult to help you out from here - as I said, your ears will be able to tell you much more.

[Thomas Dressler]

Hi guys--very interesting discussion! Sorry I've been quiet for awhile--I just got a copy of Sibelius (music notation software) and it literally kept me up til 4am the other night! Amazing!

Anyhow, I think the topic of registration is especially interesting and deserves its own thread, so I'm going to start a new thread, picking up where we've left off here with some of my own observations about the subject.

[Gareth]

Reading this.....I am going to learn organ one day!!!! So I hear that it is a completely differen't ball game? With then no sostenuto and everything like that?

[Thomas Dressler]

yes, the organ is different from the piano, that's for sure.

The most obvious difference is the lack of a sustaining pedal, so you have to get used to holding the keys down for as long as you want the note to sound. But there are lots of other differences, like having to learn to manage registrations (combinations of stops), having to learn to play the pedals (and coordinate your feet with your hands.) Then there some more subtle but very important differences, such as the fact that an organ key turns "on" near the top of the keystroke, whereas a piano needs to strike the bottom of the keybed to sound.

In general, when you're speaking of music up until about the time of JS Bach, the organ is most similar in playing technique to the harpsichord--much more similar than to the piano.

[acc]

Another big difference is of course that on the organ, you can't make the sound louder by hitting the keys harder. So accents (and, more generally, articulation) on the organ need an entirely different approach than on the piano.

[Thomas Dressler]

Oh yeah, that too! LOL

[Thomas Dressler]

Here's a bit more regarding articulation:

Legato playing is definately important for Romantic and modern repertoire. In the days of Bach and for awhile after (and before) the norm for playing was non-legato. This does not mean short, staccato notes, but detached. It's my belief that JS Bach probably played with a more connected but still detached style.

When playing using these detached notes, it is possible on the harpsichord and the organ to make some notes have the illusion of being louder than others by putting a bigger space in front of them. In this way, it is possible to create the illusion of playing loud and soft notes in a given meter, which is something they did. (What I mean is like beats 1 and 3 being stronger than 2 and 4 in 4/4.) This strong-weak kind of playing is an essential part of early repertoire and is still important in the music of JS Bach and CPE Bach, and perhaps even later composers. And on the organ and the harpsichord, it can only be done through non-legato playing.

Also, when dealing with the flexible winding systems of old organs and modern organs built in the same style, a carefully detached style of playing is much more effective than legato. But in this case, another difference between organ and piano needs to be noted--that on the organ one needs to control the speed of the release of the notes (at least on mechanical action instruments.) Very fast releases on mechanical action can be ugly, and with flexible winding, they make the organ jump and hiccup.