September Contest - Writing for Organ

EDIT - DEADLINE OCTOBER 15

Ok you are to write for a small 2 manual (that is 2 keyboard) organ with a full pedalboard. I want you just to look at the specs for the two manuals and pedals for the JARDINE organ at this church

German Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Paul - New York City

Focus on the two manuals, pedal and couplers. Ignore the combo pedals. Couplers mean that you can combine the sounds assigned to one keyboard to the other keyboard or the pedal. Keep your registrations simple.

Tremulant adds a significant vibrato to the tone..

Here are the parameters:

Deadline - October 8th, 2008.

1) Duration of piece - Minimum - 2 minutes, maximum 3 minutes.

2) Free meter. In other words no barlines and no time signature given throughout.

3) Base the piece on the first 4 - 8 bars of a pop or jazz standard song that is at LEAST 15 years old. The more well known, the better.

You need not strictly adhere to the tune - you can distort it out of recognition, or you could quote it or just bury in the inner voices - but be sure to tell us what tune you are using. The important thing is you find a way to use it as a unifying element of this piece

4) Maximum number of registration changes - 3.

Again use the registration for more than color - aim for a registration that serves a structural purpose. It could be as simple as having foundation stops for your A section, voix celeste solo for your B, and then the accompaniment foundation stops in one manual while the melody from the A is played on the other manual with a registration of voix celeste.

5) No extraneous manipulation of the keyboard or pedals - in other words you deal with what instrument you are given and its resources.

6) You can use whatever harmonic language/key/mode/exotic scale you'd like

7) NOTATIONAL clarity will be judged.

In this case finding ways to make the rhythmic units clear and, if no key signature and it is not in C major, clear indication of accidental. ALWAYS USE THREE STAVES - treble and/or bass clef for the upper two (manuals) , bass for the lowest one (pedals). Also, indicate your initial registrations on top of the very first measure. For example

(I am using registrations from the smaller organ givennot the one you are using)

Man I: Dulciana 8 Traverse Flute 4

Man II: Gedeckt 8

Pedal: Bourdon 16

Swell to pedal (that means the Pedal will sound with the gedeckt and Bourdon)

Any changes in registration should be indicated slightly before or exactly at where you want. I'd place registration changes between the upper staves. BE SURE TO INDICATE WHETHER MAN I, MAN II, PEDAL or a combo of these are to be registered differently.

Overall, more importance will be given to CLARITY of RHYTHMIC DIVISIONS, CLARITY AND LOGIC OF ACCIDENTALS, and ABSENCE OF COLLISIONS AND IMPROPER TIES/SLURS. Registration indications will be considered too - but to a lesser degree.

Additional Comments

I urge you to keep the registration simple - my example above could be for the entire piece. The only change you may have is hands switching from one Manual to another. If you do this again indicate slightly before or exactly at the section you want this done.

Note - your registration choices will not be judged (unless we are really lucky to get an organist well versed in registrations to judge).

FINALLY - SEE ATTACHMENT FOR A GOOD EXAMPLE OF A CLEAN SCORE THAT EXCEEDS THE SPECS.

IMG.pdf - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

PS. If anyone finds this slightly vague or one of the parameters too broad let me know. I will not be judging this and probably won't have time to participate. I will answer questions about the organ.

In another post I'll provide links to organ range, basics of registration and some literature.

Interesting. As always, I will judge. :)

Review this Wiki Article on pipe organs

Pipe organ - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Range of Pipe organ

File:Organ Range.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note the sounding range reflects the sound you can get when you add stops. Basically the higher the number on the stop the lower tones you get and vice versa.

The repertoire for organ is gigantic. What I offer barely scratches the surface. For some of these pieces you will not be able to get the sound (Messaien, Ligeti's Volumnia, Franck, Alain especially) because the registration is extremely complicated - but I hope it spurs your imagination.

So I'll start with Sweelinck to modern day:

Sweelinck:

Couperin:

YouTube - COUPERIN - Cromorne en Taille (Simone Stella)

For the Couperin, the buzzy, reedy sound uses the Cornet on the organ I gave for you to write on.

Bach:

Listen to the bass carefully - the pedal part makes this piece especially difficult - the coordination of a complex pedal line with all that goes on in the keyboard requires much practice. Then you have to make it sing!

Mendelssohn

Franck

Distler

Messaien

YouTube - O. Messiaen - La Nativit

Will do! I need to be well-versed in order to judge well.

Yeah, that is why i think the judges should avoid judging the registration choices. Maybe for the winner or the top two organists could comments on the registration choices. Honestly you really need to try the organ out to know best but some broad commentary may help. What do you think?

Yeah, that is why i think the judges should avoid judging the registration choices. Maybe for the winner or the top two organists could comments on the registration choices. Honestly you really need to try the organ out to know best but some broad commentary may help. What do you think?

Well, I have permission (and have used) my church organ in the past. So, I will go up and study some scores and do some research. I like the organ, and I would like to learn to play/write for it. So, now is as good a time as any to get familiar with it. However, I do agree with you.

I will attempt this. I have already been hashing out a Jazz standard arrangement, I will turn it into the direction of an organ piece.

PS-CO, you're missing a deadline. Also, perhaps I misread. Did you mean "no specific requirements for meter? or did you mean you don't want it to have a meter/time signature. I'm confused. Please clarify.

Lordy lordy! It MUST be free time? And I don't get the purpose of the jazz standard...

I r confused. :(

Ok - free meter means no time signature and no barlines. See the example.

What I mean is by jazz standard is you can use the first few measures of something like "Take the A Train", "My Funny Valentine", a Carla Bley tune etc . In other words, a jazz vocal standard - sorry about the vagueness.

Also, don't get too overwhelmed by registration. Do a little research and give it a shot. I t is more important you get the fundamentals of writing for organ down rather than try elaborate registration.

waste, no one will do that men... think about the POPVLVS...

down the rules, this is the VOX POPVLI

VOX POPVLI, VOX DEI

Anyway, I will judge too.

-again, no one will join men, down the parameters-

5) No extraneous manipulation of the keyboard or pedals

Extraneous manupalation of anything is my speciallity ;)

Jose -

Well then good luck in the real world when you are asked by a company or arts organization to write something for them and they are paying you nicely for your work.

But I am happy you will judge. Do look over the material about the organ and its literature.

Okey!!!! I love to learn.

Chris, I'll judge. I don't have enough time between projects right now to write another piece I think.

This is cool... but I have one problem.

I only have FinalePrintmusic and I don't think i have the option of not having any barlines or time signatures....

How would you prefer me to get around this?

Should I write it IN time with an OUT of time feel?

Ok, can't you "hide" the barlines and time signature in FinalePrintmusic?

I was a little concerned by the no-barline/meter things but after looking at the example... I have an idea and should start working on another piece.

I lost my last competition. Better luck this time.

I use print music as well and the first thing you have to do is setup the document.

I'm in.

Review this Wiki Article on pipe organs

Pipe organ - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Range of Pipe organ

File:Organ Range.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note the sounding range reflects the sound you can get when you add stops. Basically the higher the number on the stop the lower tones you get and vice versa.

The repertoire for organ is gigantic. What I offer barely scratches the surface. For some of these pieces you will not be able to get the sound (Messaien, Ligeti's Volumnia, Franck, Alain especially) because the registration is extremely complicated - but I hope it spurs your imagination.

So I'll start with Sweelinck to modern day:

Sweelinck:

Couperin:

YouTube - COUPERIN - Cromorne en Taille (Simone Stella)

For the Couperin, the buzzy, reedy sound uses the Cornet on the organ I gave for you to write on.

Bach:

Listen to the bass carefully - the pedal part makes this piece especially difficult - the coordination of a complex pedal line with all that goes on in the keyboard requires much practice. Then you have to make it sing!

Mendelssohn

Franck

Distler

Messaien

YouTube - O. Messiaen - La Nativit

Thanks Corbin!

I'm wondering if you knew how to make in time signature-less in finale.

You can't actually write without time signatures/measures, but you can get the same effect by:

1) Hiding the bar lines and the time signatures.

or 2) Having one huge time signature in which your whole piece fits.

Usually, it may be best to combine those two to some degree. Just hiding bar lines has the disadvantage that it still creates problems when trying to write notes that "overlap" a hidden bar line, beam over such an invisible bar line, have tuplets spanning several bars, etc. And just using one huge measure will make Finale try to fit your entire piece in one system, plus you need to know from the beginning how long your piece is, or you'll have to adjust it all the time.

So it may be a good idea to first think of what meters to use when so everything fits in nicely (even if that means using stuff like 39/4 time) and in a second step make the barlines and time signatures invisible.

I cannot make them invisible on my version of finaleprintmusic. If anyone knows how, please tell me how. For now, however, I will write it IN time with and OUT of time feel. I hope this is sufficient... the actual values of notes/freedom of the piece/etc will not change, just the appearance will. Is this okay?

Jimmy -

If you cannot find out how to hide the barlines and time sig, do your best.

I am in. I try to write something

nice list of works. Jehan Alain is great

Gardener

I can't find out how to hide the barlines, but I tried the giant signature thing, but it had to fit everything in one line, squishing everything.

It doesn't matter though, I won't be entering, because I know nothing of organ.