51–60 of 108 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The sound track of Interstellar? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_(soundtrack)
Basically, the exception which proves the rule. I sincerely doubt most folks could name other titles which prominently feature organ as a focal instrument in a work. There's more, of course, but Interstellar tends to be people's first example.
The pipe organ is surely one of the most majestic & grand instruments, and I long for the day its most frequent use won't be drab church hymns. It's capable of so much more. It's also difficult to get exposure to. You've basically got make friends with a church music director to let you play theirs. That's not easy, especially as a queer self-taught musician—no religion, no music degree won't get you too far. It's a…
On the cheap end: you can build your own, which is what I did, I converted a really old analogue organ that I bought for next to nothing into a sample based organ running Grand Orgue, it's not quite Hauptwerk but it is very good and sounds amazing, much more organ than I'm worthy of. Total cost: about 500 euros.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's of course In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfpn3wHoNGA Plenty of other stuff if you look for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKVJt39mFUA&list=OLAK5uy_mTE... Not to mention the tons and tons of secular Classical music, particular from the Baroque era like Händel's organ concertos.
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida definitely doesn't have a pipe organ. It's a vox or farfisa.
[1] Now renamed as the Christ Cathedral, I assume it's still amazingly hot and stuffy when the sun comes out, ugh, what a terrible venue. :P
---
At one point, a little software business/hustle of mine had run its course, and I needed some steady income while I figured out my next move, so I got a job as a retail computer salesperson.
The store was located in Toronto's financial district, and we got a lot of lawyers, bankers, accountants, &c. buying computers and software, which we sold in boxes. Those days are long gone, of course.
One day, some of my colleagues were snickering to each other, and when I asked "What's up," they giggled and told me there was a customer who was asking for me. I was the only employee who owned a Mac, and my colleagues took great delight in sending me Apple customers.
Well, to digress, if a customer was asking about a laser printer for their Mac, my colleagues would ask me for my help, but keep the sale and its commission for themselves. But f a customer wanted a box of 3.5" floppies for their Mac, my colleagues thought it was great fun referring the sale to me out of teh good ness of their hearts.
This was another "goodness of their hearts" referral, for as I approached the customer, I realized at once that there was a personal hygiene thing going on. The customer was also dressed in a very shabby attire relative to the business norms of the 90s, and had trouble making eye contact.
Once I realized this was a prank referral, I resolved not to let them get my goat, so I played it straight, treating them as I would any lawyer in a power suit shopping for a half dozen PCs to automate their office.
The customer was browsing development tools, and so I asked if they wrote software. I was told they did, but I hadn't heard of anything they wrote.
"Why ever not," I asked.
"Oh, I write software for pipe organs," was the reply, "It's a very small industry, and if you know who the major manufacturers are, you probably already know who I am."
The customer actually worked on contract for some European manufacturers, and personal habits aside, was the real deal. After answering a number of questions about text editors—Anybody else remember when it was commonplace to pay big money for an editor? We still do pay for some editors, but it doesn't seem to be a common thing any more, thanks to OSS—the customer spend maybe $700 on tools as they were upgrading their entire development setup.
I never saw them again, but I have also never forgotten that our industry has many, many "niches" that can support independent contractors or even entire businesses. It's not all FAANGs.
---
And that's my pipe organ software story.
The pipe organ is surely one of the most majestic & grand instruments, and I long for the day its most frequent use won't be drab church hymns. It's capable of so much more. It's also difficult to get exposure to. You've basically got make friends with a church music director to let you play theirs. That's not easy, especially as a queer self-taught musician—no religion, no music degree won't get you too far. It's a…
As an amateur pianist trying to learn organ specifically to play "drab" church hymns, I can say that while I admire the complexity and scope of the organ, At the same time, I don't find the organ particularly interesting musically. I just don't think it "sounds" great. I think this explains the lack of popularity of organ more than anything else. In my free time, I would much rather listen to piano music than organ m…
There are some crazy good organists out there, and they definitely make them come to life in a way that people that don't have the organ as their main instrument would struggle with. I've been to some organ performances that were indeed boring and some that were out of this world, same organ!
The pipe organ is surely one of the most majestic & grand instruments, and I long for the day its most frequent use won't be drab church hymns. It's capable of so much more. It's also difficult to get exposure to. You've basically got make friends with a church music director to let you play theirs. That's not easy, especially as a queer self-taught musician—no religion, no music degree won't get you too far. It's a…
But I will say that personally in years of playing the organ and asking random churches (including conservative ones) if I could borrow their organs on a quiet weekday, my bisexuality has never come up. And I didn't have to be friends with the choir director either. Once, I attended one Mass and just went up to him afterwards to thank him for playing (it was beautiful) and ask if I could ever practice with it.
I know it's different from many places as I'm in a big city, but at least four organists whom I've known personally are gay. Many churches don't even require you to be religious even to be employed to play the organ there. Randomly on an airplane, I spoke with an atheist music professor who was choir director/organist at a congregationalist church. They didn't seem to care. So I doubt it'd be a big deal if you just want to practice. The choir director at my current (liberal) parish never takes Communion--I don't know if he is personally religious one way or the other, but it seems to be little more than a job to him.
Also, you should try to find some churches where there is more than just "drab church hymns." 20th and even 21st century voluntaries, anthems, and choral preludes are alive and well in certain segments of Christendom. See for instance the churches that Bálint Karosi plays in. I doubt you'd describe his music as "drab." My parish runs the gamut from Palestrina to something from the 20th century at least every Sunday. Just my 2 cents.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The sound track of Interstellar? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_(soundtrack)
Basically, the exception which proves the rule. I sincerely doubt most folks could name other titles which prominently feature organ as a focal instrument in a work. There's more, of course, but Interstellar tends to be people's first example.
But there is plenty more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's of course In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfpn3wHoNGA Plenty of other stuff if you look for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKVJt39mFUA&list=OLAK5uy_mTE... Not to mention the tons and tons of secular Classical music, particular from the Baroque era like Händel's organ concertos.
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida definitely doesn't have a pipe organ. It's a vox or farfisa.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No one is stopping you or any other secular organization from building your own organs. It seems weird to complain that churches were the only organizations willing to spend the money to build and maintain organs. If anything, you should be grateful they invested the resources in the first place. Without these churches, is it not possible the organ would be virtually extinct at this point? I think its reasonable to…
> While also lamenting the long history of exclusionary practices of the places these things exist. Can you go into more detail as to these exclusionary practices? All organizations, all things really, are defined by both what they include and what they exclude. Nothing is fully inclusive, else that thing would have no meaning! To be more concrete, How, were churches more exclusionary than other private or civic orga…
> On the whole, Christianity can be argued to be one of the most inclusive religions ever. It would have to be, else it couldn't have spread across the world like it did!
Hmm. I'm not sure religion mostly spread by being as welcoming as possible to everyone. It's also not relevant.
> I'm not sure what this sentence is supposed to be conveying, really. It's point is far too banal to be a nugget of wisdom. It's more like a clump of dirt of wisdom! The world isn't perfect? Thanks for the reminder! But we all have a choice as to how we interpret our world, and I'm suggesting that the primary emotion or feeling an organist should have towards churches is one of gratitude, at least while we're staying on topic and talking about organs.
You call it an obvious thing yet ignore it in the following sentence. There does not have to be some primary emotion and weighing these things is at best a waste of time. Accepting a bad side of something does not have to come with ignoring any good sides. This was the mistake you were making and still are. It's not a shocking bit of wisdom, it's just a simple thing to keep in mind when you find yourself drawn into an "is complicated thing X good or bad?" argument.