01 Back to Basics
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ส.ค. 2022
- At the age of 68, I want to improve my organ playing. To do that I am going right back to the beginning and will chart my progress with regular videos. This is the first part. Unlike the majority of organ learners, I was not proficient on the piano when I started. This part explains a little of my background and my grade 1 piano piece, Gavotte by F Couperin, I first played on the organ when I was 15, having given up the piano when I was 10/11.
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Bravo
For someone with so little training, you show remarkable aptitude. I was most impressed by your performance, which was stylish and technically competent. Nearly everyone makes slips from time to time. I am some years older than you and I share your concern over maintaining concentration. I am a professional organist and harpsichordist but these days I find I have to do twice or three times as much practice to achieve the standard I used to take for granted when younger. So you aren’t by any means alone. The main thing is to enjoy and communicate the spirit of the music, which you certainly did. Immaculate performances can be deadly dull - yours was very much the opposite, so be proud of what you have achieved and carry on with confidence! Best wishes!
I agree with Colin, you are being a little too hard on yourself. I really enjoyed your video and your insights into documenting your organ playing again. None of my performances (even on TH-cam) are 100% perfect, maybe not even 90% perfect, but I'm human and at the moment in time, that's how I played it. Enjoy your playing, record when you feel you are ready and keeping making these videos.
The Organ Loft, Hi there I too am self taught in the organ and I began playing by ear for many years until when I turned 35, is when I started learning music notes. @4:19 hitting the wrong note does happen, anyone of us that play the electric organ, pipe organ, harpsichord, clavichord, accordion, piano, and harmonium players hitting the wrong note has happened to many of us, even me Sir. Your still doing beautifully! So don't sell yourself short.
You certainly made that Couperin Gavotte sound like much more than a Grade 1 piece ! TH-cam has just made me aware of your channel. Will look forward to catching up on your previous posts and your future ones.
Great! I would love to watch more videos of you
I enjoyed the Couperin very much!
Very interesting and enjoyable! I found myself willing you on, to get to the end without error!
Hello Colin. Like several of the other folk say in their comments, I actually really enjoyed your Couperin performances and would emplore you to focus on your success rate rather than how any slips you might play. Do you remember when you were at school? How would you feel if you got 99% for any quiz/test or piece of work you did. Not sure I ever did achieve that myself. Lol
So if we were to analyse the statistics of the Couperin piece and count up just merely the notes and then count up your rate of correctness in the notes you played, I would be pretty certain that you’d come up with 99%, or even rounded up statistically to 100%
My organ teacher at the Royal College of Music once said to me, why focus on the incorrect notes? Just think of how many correct notes you played.
However, playing music is not just about how many notes you can play correctly according to a score. These physical notes are less than half of the skill required to be able to convey and interpret and present a piece of music. I can think of many musicians who can play all the notes correct but the performance bores me to death and I would choose not to listen to that particular performance ever again. Whereas another musician might not be able to achieve all the correct notes and yet the performance is alive with nuances of musical sensitivity throughout and engages me to stop what ever I am doing and to listen and enjoy.
Your performance, to me, is safely in between these two stages Colin, if I can say that without hurting you in any way. I really loved your soft voice introduction and the gentle character you inadvertently share with your viewers. Your performance was very much enhanced by your lovely character thank goodness and I listened almost throughout. I say almost, as I got slightly annoyed with your insistence on pursuing absolute accuracy and playing what was a perfectly lovely performance again and again so skipped a bit to the end.
There are many aspects of your technique even with this apparently grade 1 listed piece, which you naturally incorporate into the music. The potential flow of the melodic lines, the attention to detail in the slight separation of the more rapid notes and the consistency of this approach throughout. Seriously Well done.
Now in the interests of improvements that you ask for help with… there was one tiny ‘happening’ that caught my attention and this highlighted in turn a more general thought process. When you left the great manual to transfer the music to the swell manual, although the last melodic note was a short one, for me it felt aurally clipped too short and stood out, especially as the great is by nature louder than the swell. This, I guess was done in order not lose the flow of the tempo and it is here where I would encourage you to focus your brain’s concentration. Incidentally, as I get older (I’m 66) I have to REALLY make a conscious effort to keep my brain on task, as the slightest external interruption and now even an internal interruption of my mind, can cause me to come off the rails so to speak. Grunt. So, I ask you, as you clearly like playing this piece, to take yourself one very important musical step further and to really ENJOY playing this piece. That is to let air into the piece a little more. Fully enjoy the last note on the great manual, then calmly introduce the next shadow section on the swell. Let the melodic lines sing a little more as if you were conducting the music as you play. Bring even more life to the piece letting it breathe as you go. Sod the odd slip, you can play this piece perfectly well and so focus totally on the musical aspect of the performance. You are more than 3/4 of the way to achieving this. Enjoy!
Hope these thoughts from a fellow organist living in Devon are in some way helpful to you Colin.
Best wishes, M
P.S. I’d have a serious issue playing next to that window as anything going on outside could distract me that’s for sure.
I think you mean Andrew!
I liked your video presentation and thoughts about organ practice and recording. I thought your performance was highly musical and I could have listened to more. Try not to be too hard on yourself - you had this piece learnt pretty well and the odd slip will never detract from the overall impression on the listener. I’d prefer to listen to a musical performance with the odd mistake rather than a dull and lifeless technically perfect rendition. Keep up the good work! 👍
Hi, Collin, which organ do you play for illustrations in your video? Is it a Johannus Sweelinck 30? Greetings from Brazil!
Johannus Opus 377
I think you are being too hard on yourself. I was enjoying both versions 1 and 2 of the Gavotte when they suddenly stopped! In a live performance 'slips' will happen but you obviously want to post your 100% best on YT. Yes, mind wandering is a problem in a piece; it is not just you.
You may have edited the video. I would suggest you correct the bar initially with the errors, before starting again. Perhaps you done that off camera. I'm the same as you, when under pressure (live). That piece sounds more than Grade 1. Perhaps they've been dumped down.
Yes, I didn't actually suddenly stop at the mistakes but shouted at my thumb for hitting F rather than G and made him do it again and again. I also screamed at my right hand for not getting to the Great in time.