Lesson 2 - Learning to Enhance Your Reed Organ Playing

Learning to Enhance Your Reed Organ Playing, Lesson 2 - I'm trying something new, maybe it might be of help for anyone that likes to play hymns on reed organs. This second video digs in a little deeper into the hymn, "Moment by Moment", with ideas and examples of phrasing, fingering & playing legato, the effects of fingering on stop changes and ideas for simple added notes. This particular video series are for those that already can play reed organ, other series for beginners will be posted in the near future. If you want to try this hymn, and follow along with this reed organ 'lesson', then the music can be downloaded from this link, and this is all free!
www.rodneyjantzi.com/moments/
Closed captions are available on this video for translation purposes.

[@arcticwolf4029]

Wonderful, Rodney. So helpful. I have watched your hands closely when listening to your videos and with this explanation it makes it all very clear.

[@Knappa22]

I found this really interesting, and for once feel quite proud of my organ playing skills because I think I do all this instinctively after many years of playing hymns. No-one ever taught me to swap fingers, sustain certain notes, clearly define the treble line etc. It came with trial and error and finding out what worked in order to create a smooth and legato quality.
I loved seeing it shown on a score all the same. Another of your simple but excellent videos.

[@Musique3579]

That was *fabulous* Rodney. The dumbed-down college professors of the late 60's taught completely different, and my fellow students did what they said. (How unfortunate.) The Hymns sounded hideous! RULE DEMANDED BY PROFESSOR: "If there is a repeated note, repeat it!!!!!!!!!" OMG Rodney, it was the most ugly way of playing a hymn you could imagine. I refused and walked out on the professor. Not one single regret to this day. Thank you for having made this video. Craig

[@earlnut]

You don't like you hymns sounding like a fairground organ? Haha! Good for you.

[@SevenRavens007]

You, sir, play very beatifully. Thank you for the advice. Maybe in a future life i will play half as well

[@ZeldaZelda-RichesToRags]

HEY...where did you get that BEAUTIFUL hand carved wooden Candelabra?...A fan from Boring Oregon must have sent it to you...but please, do NOT use wax candles...those electronic candles are what you must use...don't want a tragic accident. My husband and I continue enjoying your awesome music. May the Lord continue blessing you and your family. Hope we can meet you and your wife one of these years, for a celebration and sharing our pump organ stories. I feel so blessed with my finding a wonderful deal on a fully restored Cottage Pump organ, Craigslist $195...wow!

[@ericaclare4362]

Thank you, this is very helpful!
Keep them coming, Rodney!

[@peterdyson2378]

This is exactly the sort of information I am looking for. Thank you for these three videos, they have answered a lot of questions. Is there any chance you can be encouraged to share your analysis of other tunes, not necessarily hymns but perhaps tunes of the times ?

[@tom7601]

The first four notes remind me of "Lead, Kindly Light."

[@linblosune]

Wish Reed Organs could go on the production line.....

[@ZeldaZelda-RichesToRags]

OK. I'm new at reading the F-Clef lines and beginning to read music rather than playing by "ear"...I'm going to try and play this just as our awesome Reed Prof Jantzi.
Thank you for sharing this. Give me a few weeks...months? I'll post my accomplishments if I can master this.

[@ZeldaZelda-RichesToRags]

PS, MY not so saged advice, non professional "musician"... for someone new to reading & playing music, this can often be frustrating for an old gal like me...I'm finding that I reach plateaus then get so discouraged that I stop playing and learning...is something I've done my entire life, but NOT any longer. I recently learned that one WILL reach a plateau but mustn't quit, just understand that you must keep going and then you'll realize you're back to the challenge of learning...fingering properly gets confusing for my 66.3 yrs old brain.
But my "ADVICE" is to keep on learning, trying and playing as the goal is NOT to make yourself the object of attention, but to be a blessing to listeners who may appreciate even a one finger basic note playing! Playing and Blessing others or even our Lord who hears and listens to our praise whether be on keyboard or just our tears and it Pleases Him!

[@joyfulyes]

@@ZeldaZelda-RichesToRags you make important points. As musicians I believe we serve the music, not the other way around. And with spiritual music we are also serving the listener and ultimately God as well. When at our best we get out of the way, and let the music come through us. Rodney plays the hymn "Channels Only" whose lyrics you can find on other sites - it expresses this idea so well.

[@MrPolecat]

Rather than holding notes in the bass, I often like walk around within triads and occasionally walk through dominant 7ths or other dissonance-resolution stuff and such. I dunno, I think maybe walking around like that makes the music too busy and smothers the melody and makes everything less nice to listen to. But I think it is more amusing to play that way so, eh.... Haha.

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

Some Reed Organs have Bass Pedals like a Pipe Organ which means you can cover any Pipe Organ sheet music off the bat.

[@BCSchmerker]

+rodneyjantzi *Executing this vocal score on the organ or harmonium of:*
*MOMENT BY MOMENT / TRADITIONAL*
(Daniel Webster Whittle/May Whittle) Biglow & Main, MPA
Treating the dotted quarter note Measure 7 as a quarter note and eighth rest looks counterintuitive given my training on modern keyboards, but could be standard practice for organ and harmonium. My own tendency for Measures 2, 10, 11, and 26 would be to treat the first quarter note as a dotted eighth note and sixteenth rest, the second quarter note as eighth note and eighth rest, given the word assignments of consecutive syllables. Finger substitution is an underemphasized aspect of the organist's art, as needful on pipes as on reeds.

[@NewMusicWeekly]

Are the rules on what notes to tie simply personal preference, or are there well-known rules that were assumed in the way these scores are written? It would be helpful if you could write out your rules for the bass and treble chords.