Category Archives: Lesson

Dorian Mode

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DorianMode
The Dorian mode is Mode 1 of the church modes used in Gregorian chant. In modern terms, it is most easily described as the scale from D to D using only the white notes of the piano. As improvisers, however, we need to know the structure of the scale in order to apply it from any starting note. The Dorian mode happens to be a symmetric scale in that the same pattern to generate the scale works either ascending or descending from the starting note. For the Dorian mode, that pattern is: whole step – half step – whole step – whole step – whole step – half step – whole step.

A handout showing the mode starting from all twelve keys is available here.

The Dorian mode is considered a minor mode because of the minor third above the tonic. It differs from the natural minor scale by having a raised sixth degree, though some chants labeled as mode 1 include the flatted sixth degree. While named for an original Greek mode, the ecclesiastical Dorian mode actually resembles the Greek Phrygian mode (and vice versa).

For suggested ways to practice a mode, please read the newsletter issue on Learning Modes.

Some themes in the Dorian mode include:

Interludes and Challenges

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First off, I must extend to you my apologies for not sending out a newsletter last week. I had started a draft but didn’t get to finish it before my schedule basically sent me off-line for a few days. Hopefully, the previous issues have given you plenty of ideas to work on so that you still had lots to practice!

Interludes

Today, I want to focus on the short phrase that appears between variations II and III of Ives’ Variations on ‘America.’ In my experience, many times it is during transitions and interludes that organists tend to wander and the coherence of the structure tends to break down. Knowing where you need to go and taking the shortest path to get there is something we could all spend some time working at. Ives is looking to move from F major to Db major, and since he is not afraid to combine two tonalities at once, he simply shifts the left hand and pedal into Db major while leaving the right hand in F major. It may not be a very pleasing sound to our ears (especially given the otherwise very tonal surroundings), but it certainly makes for a quick transition!

With these dissonant harmonies for the interlude, what does Ives give us to facilitate the transition? Thematic material, of course! Each hand harmonizes the melody in it’s proper key with the left hand making a canon with the right hand at the distance of one measure:
IvesInterludeExample
The consistent thematic material gives our ear an anchor even when the harmonic language is in flux. A convincing rhythm can go a long way towards enabling the listener to accept what the improviser creates. I have told many students that if the melody and rhythm are there, slips in the harmony may go unnoticed by the typical listener. Interludes and transitions are times to charge ahead with full confidence to the next destination, not times to wander aimlessly.

Canons

One of the steps towards improvising fugues is to learn to play canons. Though Ives only gives us a little snippet here, as we are studying the piece in order to find practice ideas, I can’t let this moment go by without encouraging you to practice making canons out of the themes that you study.

The easiest way to start is with the canon at the octave where the left hand follows the right hand. Depending upon the theme, the best distance may be a measure, half-measure, one beat, or even two measures. You should practice each of these playing all the way through the theme regardless of any parallels (fifths or octaves) that are created. When you are confident playing through the theme as it is in canon, begin to consider how you could alter the rhythm or melody in order to avoid any unwanted parallels or dissonances.

When you have mastered right hand leading with left hand following, be sure and try out all the other variations available at the organ:

  • right hand leads, feet follow
  • left hand leads, feet follow
  • left hand leads, right hand follows
  • feet lead, right hand follows
  • feet lead, left hand follows

Depending upon the theme, you might even try a three part canon which would give you nine more options to try out (and we’re still at canon at the octave)!

Ives uses a canon at the minor sixth for his modulation interlude. Though canons most often are at the octave, fourth, or fifth, there is nothing to keep us from practicing them at any interval we wish. While the results may not be harmonically satisfying, I encourage you to try canons at all intervals. Keep the right hand in the tonic and shift the following voice (left hand or feet) through each of the twelve potential starting notes. If the starting note (for example, D) is in the tonic scale (F major), what happens to them theme if you use the tonic key signature (F major or D dorian) instead of the starting note key signature (D major)? What happens when the leading voice is in a different key with the following voice in the tonic? So many options to try!

Mental Gymnastics

Currently, I am preparing to run my first marathon. Anyone looking to accomplish a physical endurance task knows that you have to push your body outside it’s comfort zone if you are going to make progress towards the goal. Mental tasks require the same sort of stretching of our limits. Even if I only run a marathon once a year, training to do so, will make it easier for me to take the stairs at work, sprint across the street, or spend a day on my feet at a theme park. Likewise, practicing canons in assorted keys at different distances will give you more mental flexibility and confidence to tackle new improvisation tasks that will suddenly seem easy by comparison!

We readily acknowledge the need to practice physical technique (even scales and arpeggios). Improvisation requires not only physical skills, but mental aptitudes as well. I challenge you to challenge yourself and discover ways to move beyond your comfort zone. What can you do today to push your mental envelope?

Challenging you to find the next level,
Glenn

 
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Newsletter Issue 14 – 2014 08 04
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Twists and Turns

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For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been working from Charles Ives’ Variations on ‘America’ to discover improvisation ideas and practice techniques. After looking at the fireworks of the first variation, the polonaise, and the introduction, today we turn to the chromaticism of Ives’ second variation.

Chromaticism

The first difference to notice with this variation is that Ives has changed range. The melody begins one octave higher, allowing him to use chords with more open voicing – and thus more space for chromatic fill! This variation is filled with stepwise motion (whether chromatic or diatonic) in the lower voices. Only the soprano melody remains largely untouched. Ives also moves from the predominantly quarter note rhythm of the theme to consistent eighth note activity. As our first exercise (since Ives didn’t touch the soprano), let’s try to tun the melody into a flurry of chromatic eight notes:

IvesChromaticExample

Add chromatic passing tones between steps in the melody and chromatic neighbor notes for repeated notes. It may be overkill to do this only to one voice, but I think it is a great practice technique to explore, working our way through each of the voices in the standard harmonization one after the other. Do the same exercise with the alto, tenor, and then the bass alone. For step two, play the full harmonization while adding chromatic neighbor and passing tones to one voice. After you are comfortable focusing on one voice at a time, your ear will likely have led you to discover spots where chromaticism works better in one voice than another. Play through the harmonization again now adding the chromaticism in the voice where it works best.

Some tips to consider as you explore: In four-part texture, one of the notes of the chord is doubled. This is probably not the note to alter chromatically unless it is the root of the chord and you are adding the seventh. (Ives ignores this in m.4 of this variation, but ends up with parallel octaves between the soprano and this inner voice.) Thirds of chords can easily be major or minor. Choose whether to move from major to minor or minor to major based upon where the voice needs to go next. Fifths of major chords can be raised; fifths of minor chords can be lowered. The diminished triad (and fully diminished seventh chord) can transport us easily from one key to another, so provide excellent transition material (see m.6 of variation II). Ives also reduces his texture to only three voices at times in order to highlight the chromatic lines (and lessen his concerns about doubling). As you become comfortable shifting from one voice to another, be sure and try combining chromaticism in multiple voices at the same time!

And now, faster!

Typically when creating variations, the rhythms move from quarters to eighths, through triplets and on to sixteenth notes. After exploring eight notes, the third variation on ‘America’ by Ives suggests the triplet feel by shifting to 6/8 time. Ives also sets up an accented chromatic neighbor note in the accompaniment as a motif for this variation. Leaving modulation and discussion of the interlude for next week, Ives also changes keys here. Rather than change so many items at once in our practice, how about doing them one at a time? Stick to the original key, but instead of chromatic eight notes, add chromatic triplets! Rather than using passing and neighbor tones on the weak beats, try to use more accented chromatic neighbors. It would be overkill, but what if each note of the soprano (or alto or tenor) began a half-step lower and slid into the proper pitch? (How many vocalists have you heard scoop into a note? Why can’t we try it at the organ!) After you are comfortable in the home key, choose another key in which to practice the harmonization and addition of chromatics. Start again with eight notes and progress through the same steps outlined above.

After triplets, move on up to sixteenth notes. The final variation Ives provides keeps the same chromatic neighbor from variation three in the accompaniment, returns to the tonic key, but increases excitement by using a constant sixteenth note motion passed between the voices (including some challenging runs for the feet). While it looks complicated on the page, it really grows out of the techniques covered in the earlier variations.

While the road may offer many choices for the twists and turns to take, I hope you will take each step forward, confidently making progress towards creating your own fireworks at the organ!

Glenn

 
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Newsletter Issue 13 – 2014 07 21
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From ‘America’ to France (via Poland)

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After celebrating Independence Day last week, today is France’s national holiday: Bastille Day! While I couldn’t find the recording of Pierre Cochereau’s improvisation on La Marseillaise for General de Gaulle’s funeral on line, I did find Jeremy Filsell’s transcription/recreation for your listening pleasure:

While the theme is normally in a major key, as this improvisation was originally created for a funeral, the minor mode beginning suits the occasion perfectly. When we began creating holiday variations last week, we started working with Charles Ives’ Variations on ‘America’. Ives also provides us with a variation in minor which is what we will focus on today. (Here’s a link to the video in case you want a refresher.)

Polonaise

The polonaise (which is the French word for ‘Polish’) is a traditional Polish dance in 3/4 time. Ives includes one of these dance movements as his fourth variation on America. You can see the traditional rhythm in the excerpt below:
IvesPolonaiseExample

As mentioned last week, rarely does Ives let a measure go by without any thematic material. Here we have two measures to practice our polonaise rhythm before beginning the theme. If we wish to improvise polonaises, we could spend much more than two measures practicing the rhythm. Choose some simple chord progressions and practice the rhythm in different keys. While Ives keeps the rhythmic figure confined to the left hand and pedal, we could also practice it with right hand and pedal or hands alone.

Once you have mastered the rhythm, then it’s time to add in the theme. For the first half of this variation, the theme is played by the right hand on a solo stop. If necessary, practice soloing out the theme with a simplified accompaniment first before adding the polonaise rhythm back in. For the second half, Ives requires the left hand to play both the theme and the rhythm. Just as you would probably want to practice the left hand alone if you were learning the Ives, so too, you probably want to practice the same idea with whatever theme you have chosen to turn into a polonaise. The first variation in the Ives set has the left hand playing the harmonized theme, so even Ives gives you a simplified version to practice first before increasing the difficulty level. The right hand then adds some sparkle with it’s commentary.

Fireworks

It is interesting to contrast the Polonaise with the first variation Ives offers. Having already practiced the harmonized theme played by the left hand and pedal in a simplified rhythm, rather than add difficulty to the left hand, Ives adds a running line for the right hand to play. He begins with sixteenth notes (basically four notes to each note of the theme), but then doubles the speed to 32nd notes (8 to 1)! The fast motion, large leaps upward and chromatic movement downward make me think of fireworks which seems a most fitting idea for variations on a patriotic song.
While these two variations appear to be very different, there are several common techniques that we can practice to advance our improvisation skills. Thanks to registration options at the organ, we could also practice the same ideas found in each of these variations but swapping hands. For example, use right hand and pedal to play the polonaise rhythm while the theme is played by the left hand in either the tenor or soprano register. Play the theme with right hand and pedal while the left hand adds fireworks on a 2′ stop! What if the polonaise was in a major key and the fireworks in minor? What other dance rhythms could you use instead of a polonaise?

While not looking to start a revolution today, I hope you are inspired to create your own fireworks while practicing your improvisations!

Viva la France!

Glenn

 
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Newsletter Issue 12 – 2014 07 14
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Creating Holiday Variations

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One of the first forms many organists attempt to improvise is most likely a variation on a hymn tune. Perhaps you needed a little extra music for communion or didn’t have time to practice a postlude, opting instead to fill the time with some modified version of the last hymn that was sung. Louis-Claude Daquin (born on July 4, 1694) was famous for his variations on Christmas carols which he played before Midnight Mass at Notre Dame in Paris. Pierre Cochereau delighted audiences with his concert variations on popular tunes. Even the complex tonal language of Max Reger becomes more accessible when there is a chorale stated amongst all the chromaticism. Remembering the improviser’s goal to sound like a composition, I thought we would spend the next few weeks looking at some written variations to see what we could learn about improvising from a written piece.

Because we just celebrated Independence Day here in the US, the first set of variations I’d like us to consider is Variations on ‘America’ by Charles Ives. E. Power Biggs asked Ives if he had any organ music that he could perform on his weekly radio program in 1948. Though Ives had written the piece in 1891 when he was sixteen, Biggs performance on July 4, 1948 led to the publication of the piece in 1949. If you are unfamiliar with the piece, I encourage you to listen to the performance by E. Power Biggs below which will also allow you to follow the score (sometimes with Ives’ manuscript):

Out of the fourteen-page modern edition, there are only a handful of measures where there is material that is not explicitly connected to the theme. No aimless wandering here!

Introduction

As today is the introduction to our survey of variations, we’ll focus on the introduction that Charles Ives writes. While only two pages in length, it offers a wealth of practice ideas for us to master. Looking at our theme America, we can see that it uses two-measure phrases. The only time Ives deviates from two-measure units is in measures 5-8 (repeated as 29-32) when there is a tension building harmonic progression that has the loosest connection to the theme of any material in the piece. Here’s our first element we can extract for practice. I’ve simplified the chord progression for these measures below. Ives provides two different figurations in the introduction. How many more can you develop?
IvesExample1

You should also learn to transpose this progression into every other key (as suggested when we explored color).

Transposition is also something Ives uses liberally in his introduction. Phrases of the theme appear in F major, G minor, D minor, D major, B major (or E Minor). Later on, we have an entire variation in Db Major, so being able to play the theme in any key seems like a worthwhile skill to practice. If the entire theme seems a little long to work with, Ives seems to change keys every two measures (in keeping with the phrse structure), so try practicing in bite-size two measure units. Depending upon the theme you have chosen, the adaptation in to minor mode (from major) can sometime prove tricky. When Ives ventures furthest afield in the introduction (mm 17-24), he keeps the rhythm, but adapts the melody to suit his harmonies. While it can be a worthy exercise to be strict in your transposition, don’t be afraid to make adaptations and adjustments to make the changes more musical. After all, we are in the process of making variations here!

Variety

Whether you are making variations on a patriotic tune for a concert or competition, providing an extended Christmas prelude, or introducing or concluding a hymn, studying written variations can provide us with ideas and tools to practice. Just as we break down repertoire into chunks to practice, so too we can break down our improvisations into bite-size practice bits. Looking at Ives this week, we identified nuggets about practicing phrase length, transposition, and a harmonic sequence in just the Introduction to Variations on ‘America.’ Next week, we’ll explore ideas from the actual variations. How much more gold can we find in this piece?

Hoping the freedom you have inspires you to freely create music!

Glenn

 
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Newsletter Issue 11 – 2014 07 07
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A Next Step to Harmony

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Last week, we looked at Harmonizing: A Method to Encourage the Art of Improvising by Sietze de Vries. It focused primarily on basic chords in the same key as the melody. Today, I’d like to offer an idea on developing a tonal vocabulary more in the style of Jean Langlais.

Building Chords

Common practice harmony uses chords built by thirds. When choosing how to harmonize a melody note, it typically is the root, third or fifth of a chord. Eventually, we could consider the possibility that it is a seventh, ninth, or a non-chord tone, but we’ll keep it simple for now. Keeping only to major and minor triads, this will give us six options of how to harmonize a single melody note:

HarmonyExample1Sm

Using our chorale Lobt Gott den Herrn, ihr Heiden all from last week, our first step will be to harmonize the theme with one of the six chord types all the way through. Here is the first phrase with the melody as the root of a major triad:

HarmonyExample2Sm

Play through the entire chorale using each of the six types of chords one at a time (Root of a major chord, root of a minor chord, third of a major chord, and so forth). Enjoy the cross relations like the C# and C natural in the second measure above. Eventually, you can venture into diminished and augmented triads, or even seventh chords:

HarmonyExample3Sm

Once you can consistently apply one chord type to the melody, it’s time to start looking for different progressions that will provide the most interesting colors. If the melody note stays the same, be sure and change the type of chord (from root of a major chord to third of a major chord for example).

HarmonyExample4Sm

Lobt Gott den Herrn is a very stepwise melody. Be sure and practice with other themes that include mores skips (especially thirds!) in them so that you are very comfortable with the cross relations that develop from keeping the chord type consistent. You can practice this using only one hand at a time (Yes, you should do it with your left hand alone!), both hands playing the same notes, or eventually right hand chord with left hand (or pedal!) playing the root. This last one can become particularly tricky once you start changing chord types. Remember the instruction from Naji Hakim (a student of Langlais): “Never play faster thank you can think.”

Finally, add a little rhythm, a few manual or registration changes, and you are well on your way to creating a piece like the Pasticcio from Langlais’ Organ Book or the Dialogue sur les mixtures from Suite Brève.

Hoping your harmony is colorful!

Glenn Osborne

 
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Newsletter Issue 7 – 2014 06 09
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The Final C: COLOR!

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While I did not plan for the series to end this way, it seems appropriate that on this day when American are waving their red, white and blue to celebrate Memorial Day, the topic of the newsletter is color. Whether you are from the USA or somewhere else, I hope you will take a moment to express gratitude to those who gave their lives to enjoy the freedom that you are able to enjoy today.

Registration

While registration is an issue of competency, it also is an aspect of color. In the first issue on Competency, I expressed the need for an organist to be familiar with the registrations and combinations of organ stops available to him or her. Even a small organ of 12 stops offers 220 combinations of three stops! (You can check the math or try other numbers here.) While not all of these would project a sense of competency, I believe we fall into registrational habits and often fail to exploit all the colors an instrument may offer us. Instead of simply pulling out the 8′ Flute as a solo, why not try using a 4′ down one octave or a 2′ down two octaves? That 16′ reed in the swell might make a lovely 8′ solo stop if you play an octave higher. Using “non-traditional” registrations like this can also increase your mental dexterity and make it easier for you to play a melody or theme with the left hand or pedal.

Melody

Speaking of melody, a layer of color can come from melody notes that are non-chord tones and the contour of the melody itself. Every style (see The 3rd C: Coherent) has a set of rules for the relationship of melody to harmony with guidelines for how to treat non-chord tones. One simple exercise that was given to me by Philippe Lefebvre for finding colorful melodies was to hold a chord with the left hand and only play notes not in the chord with the right hand. It will take trial and error to discover which notes of the scale work best with what sort of chords, but let your ear be your guide. Perhaps the simplest rule I ever heard for non-chord tones came from Gerre Hancock in his admonition “Salvation is always a half-step away.” If you play something that sounds a little off, chances are there is a note right next to it that will sound better, and if you can repeat yourself and play it again, you become convincing and colorful at the same time!

Harmony

A lot of my instruction in improvisation has focused on building and creating my own harmonic language. One of the ways to do this is to take a colorful harmonic progression from a written composition, memorize it, and then transpose it into all possible keys. Here’s a sample from the first movement of Louis Vierne‘s Symphonie no. 3:

VierneHarmonySequenceSm2
The pedal part is an ornamented pedal point. (We could consider it a melodic way to add color to a static note!) The manuals could be simplified by only playing beats one and three of the chords. With these adjustments, we have a progression ready to transpose into all other keys and will be adding a new way to color a pedal point to our harmonic vocabulary.

What passages from repertoire do you find colorful? Examine them closely, simply if necessary and transpose them to make them part of your improvisational vocabulary. I’d love to know which composers and pieces you find inspirational.

Happy Memorial Day!

May all your improvs be colorful!

Glenn Osborne

 
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has been greatly expanded. There are now over a dozen method books and over fifty recordings with a separate section now for Pierre Cochereau!

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Newsletter Issue 5 – 2014 05 26
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The Four C’s of Improvisation: Coherent

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As we continue our journey through the month of May and the Four C’s of Improvisation, this week, we arrive at #3: coherent. We already explored the first two (competent and convincing) and colorful will be our topic next week. Last week’s lesson from Naji Hakim – “Never play faster than you can think.” – will also be a key to being coherent.

Style

Continuing our general metaphor of music as language, style can be considered the type of language or dialect that we are using to communicate. A coherent speech will be given in the same language. Hopefully, it will be one that the listener can understand. Anyone who has ever had the privilege to attend a multicultural celebration (mass or other worship service) where languages were changed frequently will quickly recognize the difficulty in achieving a coherent celebration when certain segments of the population can not understand what is being said in one or more of the languages used. Just imagine for a moment constructing sentences where all nouns are in German, verbs are in French, adjectives are in English and adverbs are in Spanish. Even though my general comprehension is pretty good in all four of those languages, combining then together into a sentence makes an incoherent mess: Ich voudrais chocolate Eis hoy. While I recognize there are occasional words that have crossed from one language to another, even then, the pronunciation usually changes. It is far more coherent to present in one language than to mix them all together. So it is also with music. Choosing a musical style that one has mastered or playing slow enough in a style in order to master it is a key element to coherent improvisation.

Form

The order can in German words change.
Even if we manage to use the same language, if there is no apparent form, we lose coherence. I remember from my study of German that you could put just about anything at the beginning of the sentence in order to choose to emphasize some particular element. Someone once pointed out to me that I would never hear a German interrupt another German speaking because until you heard the verb – which often was at the end of the phrase- you wouldn’t necessarily have any idea what the person was actually saying about all the other elements you had heard. There are simple forms and complex forms that we can use to improvise: binary, ternary, passacaglia, variations, rondo, sonata allegro, fugue, and so forth.

We can also construct our form as we go through motivic development. The key here is to have a plan in mind. Sure, we may need to end the prelude or offertory quicker than expected, so our form may be subject to change along the way, but if we started with a plan and know where we are in it, then we should have a pretty good idea of how to bring the piece to a coherent close. I remember once hearing Naji Hakim improvise for an offertory where he started treating a chorale (or chant) in a specific way as an ornamented chorale. It became clear to me that if he continued this for all the phrases of the chorale, the piece would be too long, so just before the last phrase, he changed and did something different. I remember being quite shocked at the time, but in the twenty or thirty seconds that he took to wrap up the piece and include that last phrase, he managed to turn it into something completely coherent with what he had done before. I could have hardly imagined a more fitting ending to the piece. One of the simplest, yet perhaps most difficult ways to practice form is to practice repeating oneself. Play a melody or chord progression and then immediately repeat it. Increase the length or complexity of the phrase until you have difficulty. Repeat yourself, but change tonal center in the repetition (transpose the idea). If you are playing just a melody, repeat yourself with the other hand or even on the pedalboard with your feet. Repetition is the key to motivic development and a comprehensible formal plan, and these are the keys to coherence.

The Store

Hopefully you found some time to practice your competency and conviction last week and didn’t get stuck in a YouTube spiral watching Derren Brown clips after my last email…. While working to add as much useful information to organimprovisation.com as possible, this week, I set up a store on Amazon.com where you can go to purchase items related to improvising at the organ. When I have access to the items, I expect to offer reviews and critiques of the items in future newsletters or posts. Perhaps because I’ve been working on my collection of improvisation materials for some time, I find the sample available at Amazon.com to be a little sparse at the moment, but then again, I think most of my materials I’ve picked up from a specialty retailer (if not from the organist on the CD directly)…. Have a look and let me know if there is anything that catches your eye that I should review promptly. I also added a list of summer courses in 2014. Please let me know of any others that you might know of.

Next week, it’s on to color!

May all your improvs be coherent!

Glenn Osborne

 
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Newsletter Issue 4 – 2014 05 19
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2014 Summer Courses

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In addition to the offerings at the AGO National Convention in Boston, there are several other courses around the world offering improvisation instruction during the summer of 2014. Please feel free to share information about other courses in the comments. I will try to add to the list as I find out about other offerings.

London Organ Improvisation Course
http://www.loic.org.uk
15-18 July 2014
The London Organ Improvisation Course is intended to help organists of all standards to improve their improvising skills for personal musical development, service-playing, concerts and for the examinations of the Royal College of Organists. One day of the course will take place in St. Albans and will include a concert by the guest teacher, Franz Josef Stoiber, Organist of Regensberg Cathedral, Germany. Other teachers for the course include: Ronny Krippner, Duncan Middleton, and Gerard Brooks, Course Director.

Masterclass: Masters Of Ste Clotilde
http://steclotilde-organ.tk/
Monday June 30 to Wednesday July 2 2014
Monday to Wednesday, morning: (9h-12h):
Franck, Tournemire, Pierne, Duruflé, Bonnal, Langlais, Cogen,…
Monday and Tuesday Afternoon (14h-17h): Improvisation
with Olivier Penin and Nicolas Pichon

Classical Music On The Spot:
Eighteenth-Century Keyboard Improvisation
Eastman School of Music • 26 Gibbs St. • Rochester, NY 14604
Workshop I: June 30-July 4 / Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Workshop II: July 7-11 / Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Gilad Rabinovitch & Johnandrew Slominski, directors
Two weeklong 18th-century keyboard improvisation workshops in which students will hone their improvisation skills and deepen their understanding of the galant and high classical styles. There will be a special emphasis on the Italian tradition of partimenti and on Robert Gjerdingen’s galant schemata as a basis for keyboard improvisation. Analysis and listening will complement practical improvisation activities. The first workshop will be an introduction to style improvisation; the second workshop will examine advanced topics (including ornamentation and performance practice) and treatises (Quantz, C.P.E. Bach, Niedt, and the Langloz Manuscript).

Haarlem International Summer Academy for Organists
http://www.organfestival.nl
12 – 26 July 2014
Improvisation for advanced students: an extended, 11-day course for advanced improvisers directed by Jürgen Essl (Stuttgart) and Peter Planyavsky (Vienna).
Improvisation for beginners: A 5-day course with the Haarlem Stadsorganist Jos van der Kooy, well-known for his sympathetic and encouraging approach to professional organists lacking improvisation skills.

International Summer Organ Conservatoire
http://organconservatoire.org/
July 12th – 28th 2014
Directed by Nigel Allcoat with guests, Prof. Erwin Wiersinga (Berlin University of Arts and the Martinikerk, Groningen), and Prof. William Whitehead (London). The first week is in Saint-Antoine l’Abbaye (12-19 July) and the second week is in Poligny (20-28 July).

The Saessolsheim Organ Academy 2014
http://www.asamos.org/
23-30 July 2014
Saessolsheim, Alsace, France
Improvisation instruction will be offered during this course by Francis Jacob.

Smarano Organ and Clavichord Academy
The 18th Century Fantasia and C.P.E. Bach
29 Jul – 8 Aug, Venice-Smarano, Italy
Will include sessions on improvisation: “Free Fantasia” and “Stylus Fantasticus” at the keyboards by William Porter and Edoardo Bellotti.

South German Organ Academy OAO 2014
31 July – 3 August 2014
Organ class on the 1784 Holzhey Organ in Obermarchtal Monastery with a visit to the ISAM (International Summer Academy of Music) Organ Class in Ochsenhausen with Jürgen Essl.
Johannes Mayr will teach a participant’s free choice of repertoire from early Baroque to early Romantic and/or improvisation.

Organ course with Ansgar Wallenhorst
Glenstal Abbey
County Limerick, Ireland
August 11th-13th 2014
Taught by Ansgar Wallenhorst, this workshop is open to organists at every level of ability who wish to develop their own creativity in improvisation either in the context of liturgical services or in concert performance. With a combination of group work in the mornings (9.00-12.00) and individual lessons in the afternoon (15.00-17.45), the workshop will be adapted to the abilities, tastes and preferences of the individual participants. Participants are invited to bring music which they already play or are learning as an indication and basis for developing according to their own level and stylistic preferences. Evening sessions will include, on Monday, an exploration of improvisational style in Irish traditional music Cas Amhrán Cráifeach – a poetics of religious and secular song from the Irish sean-nós tradition with Nóirín Ní Riain PhD, and a short recital on Tuesday.

International Organ Academy Improvisation Course
1-5 September 2014
Improvisation course by Thierry Escaich on the Schwenkedel organ of the St Donat Church (France)

Faszination Orgelimprovisation
3–6 September 2014, Waldsassen, Germany
Course for Organists by Franz Josef Stoiber