For the past six years or so, after my retirement, I have been trying to revive my much-neglected hobby of playing the Theatre Organ. Along the way I think I've developed some processes that might help someone else in my situation. If you are interested, please read on. I'll do a short background, a description of my current Hauptwerk setup, and then the processes I have developed to improve my skill and performance. I am still a 'rank amateur' (pun completely intended)!
BACKGROUND:
Back in the 60's my parents bought a small two-manual Conn organ because they liked organ music. It came with six free lessons and it was decided that I would take them (about age 14). The instructor was a great guy who played in a local restaurant/bar. As you might expect my training was on 'popular' music, mostly focused on the treble staff and chords. I continued the lessons through high school, and then stopped when I went to college. That was the extent of my formal training.
My parents upgraded the organ once (the new one came with a Leslie speaker), and gifted me that organ when I got married. I upgraded twice, with my final purchase being a used Conn 652. I continued to 'tinker' with this but with work and other commitments it was haphazard at best.
I retired in 2015 and decided I would have two hobbies -- woodturning and the organ. I began doing a little experimentation with virtual theatre pipe organ, first with Miditzer, and later with Hauptwerk. When we decided to move into a 55+ community I had to decide between moving the big, heavy Conn (which was getting very hard to maintain), or expand the Hauptwerk setup. I decided on the latter.
MY HAUPTWERK SYSTEM
This is still a work in progress, but I have a pretty functional unit. Here are the current components:
MY PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT PROCESSES
From my professional career I understood the steps to improving other processes, so I tried to apply those ideas to my organ playing. I knew that I had to learn to play a piece the same way each time. I could always improvise after that, but consistency was the starting point. I got a copy of MuseScore and learned how to use it and began the process of scoring a set of songs that I already knew somewhat. My goal was for a song to be one or two pages max, and since I was still not very good at reading both staffs, decided to stay with a treble staff and chords. I learned how to add occasional sub-harmonies and other techniques to the basic line and converted about 20 songs to this format. They are all printed on heavy paper and stored in one three-ring notebook.
To develop the arrangements I listened to various theatre organists, other organists/keyboardists, and instrumentals. I tried to make them interesting, a little challenging, but still playable with my skillset.
My next 'ah-ha' moment came as a result of a comment in this forum about 'Stepper' pistons -- something I was not familiar with. Changing registrations at various points throughout the arrangement consistently meant I needed some way to communicate on the score which combination to use. Trying to 'code' specific general or divisional combinations was a challenge. Programming a stepper sequence for each song was the better solution and easier to describe, so I made a second pass through my arrangements to create and add those. I simply enter the stepper 'code' at the appropriate point in the arrangement. I limit the number of codes to 10 (0-9) and occasionally will use a coupler to enhance a combination (i.e., second verse, etc).
So, that's my process. I'm enjoying the arranging part and increasing my understanding of music notation and theory. I'm playing more, but still more for my own amusement than entertaining others. And it's a complete change of pace from woodturning.
Hope you find this helpful. I am open to any suggestions or improvements.
BACKGROUND:
Back in the 60's my parents bought a small two-manual Conn organ because they liked organ music. It came with six free lessons and it was decided that I would take them (about age 14). The instructor was a great guy who played in a local restaurant/bar. As you might expect my training was on 'popular' music, mostly focused on the treble staff and chords. I continued the lessons through high school, and then stopped when I went to college. That was the extent of my formal training.
My parents upgraded the organ once (the new one came with a Leslie speaker), and gifted me that organ when I got married. I upgraded twice, with my final purchase being a used Conn 652. I continued to 'tinker' with this but with work and other commitments it was haphazard at best.
I retired in 2015 and decided I would have two hobbies -- woodturning and the organ. I began doing a little experimentation with virtual theatre pipe organ, first with Miditzer, and later with Hauptwerk. When we decided to move into a 55+ community I had to decide between moving the big, heavy Conn (which was getting very hard to maintain), or expand the Hauptwerk setup. I decided on the latter.
MY HAUPTWERK SYSTEM
This is still a work in progress, but I have a pretty functional unit. Here are the current components:
- Three M-Audio 61 Keyboards
25-note Lowrey Pedalboard with six toe studs (for percussion)
Two Behringer Launchpads
Homemade Stepper Rail with 000, xx0 through xx9 and +/-
Two 8" studio monitors, 8" subwoofer and headphones
Hauptwerk 6.x
Paramount 341
MY PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT PROCESSES
From my professional career I understood the steps to improving other processes, so I tried to apply those ideas to my organ playing. I knew that I had to learn to play a piece the same way each time. I could always improvise after that, but consistency was the starting point. I got a copy of MuseScore and learned how to use it and began the process of scoring a set of songs that I already knew somewhat. My goal was for a song to be one or two pages max, and since I was still not very good at reading both staffs, decided to stay with a treble staff and chords. I learned how to add occasional sub-harmonies and other techniques to the basic line and converted about 20 songs to this format. They are all printed on heavy paper and stored in one three-ring notebook.
To develop the arrangements I listened to various theatre organists, other organists/keyboardists, and instrumentals. I tried to make them interesting, a little challenging, but still playable with my skillset.
My next 'ah-ha' moment came as a result of a comment in this forum about 'Stepper' pistons -- something I was not familiar with. Changing registrations at various points throughout the arrangement consistently meant I needed some way to communicate on the score which combination to use. Trying to 'code' specific general or divisional combinations was a challenge. Programming a stepper sequence for each song was the better solution and easier to describe, so I made a second pass through my arrangements to create and add those. I simply enter the stepper 'code' at the appropriate point in the arrangement. I limit the number of codes to 10 (0-9) and occasionally will use a coupler to enhance a combination (i.e., second verse, etc).
So, that's my process. I'm enjoying the arranging part and increasing my understanding of music notation and theory. I'm playing more, but still more for my own amusement than entertaining others. And it's a complete change of pace from woodturning.
Hope you find this helpful. I am open to any suggestions or improvements.
David Muehlbauer
Mesa, Arizona USA
Mesa, Arizona USA