Writing for Organ

I know there are a lot of technical considerations that have to be taken into account when writing for the organ, but what are they? Do you have to worry about how fast the feet can play the pedals, or can an organist play them about as fast as their hands can play the keyboard? What about the keyboard itself? o.O

Well, the first thing you should consider is the lack of a sustain pedal. Whereas on a piano if you want a note to sustain, you hold the pedal down, on the organ one must continue to depress the key.

Additionally, each keyboard plays at a different volume. The top is called the Swell, I believe, followed by the Great and the Positiv (that's how the one we have is, anyway.) The Great is the loudest, followed by the Positiv and the Swell. Additionally, each keyboard has a different set of pipes/stops, but they can be combined. That's not really the composers job, usually, so don't worry about that much. I believe the organist usually decides what to play where.

Take into account range. Not all organists have hands like Lizst, and because of the lack of a pedal, closer chord writing is encouraged.

Also take into account that organs are not usually touch sensitive. However, organists have methods of crescendoing (such as adding more stops while playing) and can play at different dynamics by using the different keyboards.

Essentially, the main difference in writing is the lack of a sustain pedal.

The foot pedaling doesn't seem to be a problem. I believe most organists are fairly agile. I personally would say that maybe organists' feet are about 75% as agile as the hands.

I didn't know anything about the organ until Friday, and this is what I gathered. I'm sure some other members can shed some more light on the subject, but hopefully that helps.

IF you want to write for organ, first is actually look at what type of organs and styles there are. There's a huge difference in sound between baroque french, german romantic, italian, etc etc. Get an idea for how these organs sound (Bach/Buxtehude/Pachelbel/etc for baroque german, Franck or Vierne/Messiaen for Baroque/French style, etc)

Second, there's no such thing as a "standard" organ, all organs are different and the differences between keyboards and pedals from one organ to another are significant enough to not take into consideration trying to think carefully about pedals or such. If you want to know what you can do with Pedals, look again at Bach or such composers from the German front, they were the ones that developed almost virtuous pedal technique.

Third, remember that the organ has no real "dynamic" that can be done on key stroke, IE, no velocity changes. However! Depending on how the organist plays, you can do crescendos and such with the swell box' s opening and closing. This is used to great effect in the French school (Vierne, Messiaen, Durufle, Franck, etc.) You also need to think in terms of phrases. Because the sound of the organ is non-stop, you really can only do phrasing with careful articulation, so be sure to write your slurs and such. Specially if it's modern music. Remember that real legato on organ is NOTHING like on piano or harpsichord, and that you can hold notes indefinitely.

Fourth, you may want to consider giving indications of what registers to use. Try to do so when possible even if you're aware that registers can change from organ to organ. If you want something to have a bright loud sound, go for mixtures and principal stops, if you want something to be more mellow or as a background figure go for bourdons, woods in general, and "strings" (Viola da Gamba, Cor de nuit, etc, etc.) It, again, all depends on what type of organ you're writing the piece for.

The more specific you get, the less variety of organs can play your pieces. Also, be mindful that you have by a regular organ AT LEAST two manuals, so you can do complicated figures (chords playing within themselves, etc etc, note overlapping) which can be played pretty OK on two or more manuals. Same thing with the dynamics, you can have dynamic increases if you register it so that different manuals have different registers of increasing brightness, etc. So F passages would be played on the brightly registered manual, and so on.

Writing for organ should be thought more like you'd write for a symphony, than writing for piano. Pick and choose your sounds, what you'd like the be outlined, and so on. (You can clearly outline a voice by having it on a brighter register, and the background be on another manual with softer stops.)

In fact, look at the french "Symphony" tradition for organ, Luis Vierne and Widor made a bunch of those. French organs towards the romantic have the trend of emulating many instruments from the orchestra (such as strings, etc etc) and the result is that you can have a lot of color and contrast in your registers if the piece allows for it or is written with it in mind.

Technical issues can be also resolved if you look at what type of organ you're working with. For example, on a mechanical organ, it's uncomfortable to play quick passages with many registers coupled (since the mechanism for activating the airflow in the pipes is linked directly to the pressing of the keys, the more stops, the more links to the key so the key becomes heavy. By older organs this can mean that playing something quick becomes almost impossible.) This isn't a problem on electrical-contact organs, which are also pretty common.

Another thing to look at is the acoustics of the place, since some churches/auditoriums vary so much as to ask for different registrations. This is usually the concern of the organist, but you can also help by thinking about that ahead.

You can also do chords and such on pedals if you use both feet and the chords are well written to account for using the heel-tip of the feet. It's best if you check that with an actual organist, though remember that the organ pedals are set up like the manual (black key, white key, etc) layout, so you can measure more or less what a foot reaches if you imagine that heel-tip can press in distances of 3rds if it's from white to black key. If you have questions or you think it's difficult to play, ask an organist (like me ;P)

Also take into consideration if the piece requires an assistant to change registers (It may require one anyways depending on the type of organ used), and when the register changes happen. A well written piece accounts for stop changes and gives breathing room to change them or to set them up before the performance on the various manuals so not many changes need to happen. Work with your registers, again, like orchestral sections or sets of sound.

Overall, I'd say you have to actually listen to a lot of organ music before you decide what you want to write since it's one of the few categories of music where the instruments are so different one from another and there's no real "guideline" to writing for them.

But one thing is certain, the organ isn't a piano or a harpsichord. It's its own instrument with many different nuances and technicalities which give it a very distinct character than other instruments, so again, emphasis on writing more orchestral-thinking and less pianistic.

SSC -

Very good summary.

Regarding what stops to use, I recommend you get organ recordings with liner notes providing the stops used. Harald Vogel has on MDG an excellent stoplist and excellent renditions of Buxtehude. Also, he plays with excellent articulation which is extremely important.

Now, the organ can be an orchestral instrument or a chamber instrument. But in either case think of the organ as a wind instrument which can be either. Instead of controlling articulations with the mouth and lips, you use solely your hands and feet. As said above, phrase indication and articulation is very important.

So, compositionally here are some things you can do that are not possible on other keyboard instrument -

a) if you can take a few organ lessons or more. Otherwise, go to organ concerts and have consultations with organists. As with any instrument that you aren't conversant you should do this to write a decent finished product.

a) extremely long note values can be held over shorter ones either by the hands or feet. You can look at my piece I posted for an example or the multitude of works from the literature. This means several articulations can be going on simultaneously. A staccatto melody in one hand with a legato accompaniment in the other while the pedal plays bass/tenor non-legato (a touch in between staccatto and legato). Excellent example is the third movment of a piece I am studying - Franck's Theme Fugue and Variations.

c) You can switch from huge blocks of sustained sounds to ppp passages. This can be indicated with dynamics and/or registrations. Be sure that there is either a rest for the organist to change stops or you have one of the keyboards (manuals) preset for very quiet stops.

d) As has been said volume can be increased by changing the registration. There is too little space to go into detail but in short you are adding overtones to the pitch. As you add stops with lower numbers (eg 4, 2, 1 1/3 ) you are adding the higher partials of the overtone series --- eg you will get a brighter, fuller (and louder) sound as if you had the altos and sopranos of a choir join the basses in singing a melody. As you add stops with larger numbers (16 and 32), it is like adding double basses, contrabassons tubas or trombones to say a cello, viola accompaniment.

e) the organ literature is huge, suggested composers Sweelinck, Buxtehude, Grigny, Couperin and of course Bach. After Bach, some wonderful works from Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms and of course the great French Romantic - Modern tradition - Franck, Dupre, Vierne, Messian (sp?), Gillou. More recent - Stockhausen, Ligeti, and Reich have written works for organ.

So have fun and please do not be overwhelmed by it.

I would have to add that one should not write for the organ simply for the effect of showing off the different stops - write for the organ if you have something that can only be said with an organ. Regardless of how many notes you may get through coupling and different registrations, keep in mind that just like a piano, you're really only going to have 3 or maybe 4 different 'things' going on at one time (bass line, background harmony, melody, maybe a countermelody or descant).

It would behoove you to emphasize taste rather than novelty. (I say this after being dragged recently to an "Organ Stop Pizza" joint and being subjected to an absolutely horrid experience with an organist that should be shot on sight)

flint -

Excellent point. What the heck is an "Organ Stop Pizza" joint? Did the organist play Rudy Valle songs with cornets, voix human pan flute and 32 ' bombarde in the bass for stops?

BTW - flint as your are a wind player, would love your opinion on a fragment of a woodinwd quintet piece I am trying to figure what to do with it. I put in the chamber subject (accidently).

Organ Stop Pizza is a pizza restaurant with a gigantic Wurlitzer theatre organ from the early 20th century. An organist takes requests from the audience and plays horrid versions of popular music of yore using the most obnoxious collections of stops possible. The organ is connected to various percussion instruments (drums, sound effects, actual vibraphones, marimbas, xylophones, a grand piano, a celesta, etc.) which the organist tries to incorporate as much as possible. Not to mention the lighting effects that turn on when a stop is activated...

Geez, I still have nightmares from that experience. I got bonus points for going from the in-laws, though, so it was worth it.

Egad, sounds like a geriatric acid trip.

Organ Stop Pizza is a pizza restaurant with a gigantic Wurlitzer theatre organ from the early 20th century. An organist takes requests from the audience and plays horrid versions of popular music of yore using the most obnoxious collections of stops possible. The organ is connected to various percussion instruments (drums, sound effects, actual vibraphones, marimbas, xylophones, a grand piano, a celesta, etc.) which the organist tries to incorporate as much as possible. Not to mention the lighting effects that turn on when a stop is activated...

Geez, I still have nightmares from that experience. I got bonus points for going from the in-laws, though, so it was worth it.

Lol. I have been afraid of going there. I have avoided it like the plague <_<

weas the pizza any good?

My dad apparently knows the place, since he lived in Phoenix for a while... He says the pizza's bad... Haha.