Getting back up to speed

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After a month of packing, moving and settling in to my new position at the Cathedral of Mary, Our Queen in Baltimore, I’m delighted to resume the regular weekly publication of thoughts and practice tips on organ improvisation. I’m still discovering the fabulous instrument at the Cathedral – stoplist available here – and look forward to posting videos later this year.

How Fast Can You Play

Back in October, I wrote an article on the first part of my first lesson with Franck Vaudray. At the time, I couldn’t find the paper that summarized my lesson and was my practice guide for the next week, but luckily while packing to move, I was able to locate it! So four months later, I’ll finally tell you about the second part of my lesson. (If you haven’t read the first part, it is available here.)

Melodic dictation

After assessing my technique and ability to play in an atonal style, this next part of my lesson tested my dictation and transposition skills and concluded with canons. Asking me to look away from the keyboard, Franck Vaudray proceeded to play a melody that I had to then play back to him. No reference or tonality was given. I had to find the right pitch and play the melody as he had just done. I don’t remember exactly how well I fared at this, but I do remember that Mr. Vaudray was kind enough to play the melody several times for me before I got it. We repeated the process for a second melody. Both are pictured below.
DictationCanons

Transposition

Once I had the motives down, it was time to transpose them. If transposition is not something you practice regularly, I’d suggest moving up (or down) by half-steps through all twelve transpositions. Be sure and do this with both hands. As these motives are not exactly tonal, be sure and pay attention to the intervals and shapes as you practice the transpositions.

In my lesson, we may or may not have gone through all twelve transpositions of both melodies with both hands before we started a more advanced transposition cycle. Rather than simply move in one direction or even around the circle of fifths, I was asked to alternate hands with one hand moving higher with each transposition and one hand moving lower. Applying this to the first motif, the starting notes for this pattern look like this: (Stems up for the right hand, stems down for the left)
TranspositionPlan
If you were mentally tired after the atonal lesson, this one really stretches the mind!

Canons

In the themes above, you may have noticed a rhythm written out above the second melody. This shows the rhythmic placement for that motive in canon. Not only was I asked to play the canon in any transposition, but eventually to play the canon in different transpositions. For example, the left hand plays as written while the right hand follows starting on G, a minor third above. While I don’t think I was asked to do this then, it would be an interesting exercise to try and play the canon following the transposition scheme above. That would be a real challenge!

Free at last

Finally, I was given free reign to improvise a piece using these motives. After transposing and playing them in canon for the past thirty minutes, it was relatively easy to keep the themes front and center regardless of the tonality that I might have wondered in to. I prepared a worksheet with the melodies and transposition scheme that you can download here for your own practice.

Thorough preparation

How much work do we do with a theme before we improvise with it? While not all forms or pieces would require the amount of preparation outlined here, is there a hymn or chant that you improvise on regularly? Will it work as a canon? Perhaps you should put it through the transposition and canon practice outlined here. The better we know the theme, the more flexible we can be in our improvisations, and the more competent, convincing and coherent they will be as well!

Wishing you all the best for 2015!

Glenn

 
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Newsletter Issue 32 – 2015 02 02
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Veni redemptor gentium

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veni-redemptor
Veni redemptor gentium is assigned to the Roman Catholic Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours for Advent from December 17 through December 24. It was translated into the German chorale “Nun komm der Heiden Heliand” by Martin Luther with the melodic adaptation to the German words made by either Martin Luther or Johannes Walter. More recently, Dom Paul Benoit, OSB adapted the chant into the hymn tune Christian Love, as a setting of Omer Westendorf’s text “Where Charity and Love Prevail,” a common meter translation of the Holy Thursday chant hymn Ubi caritas.

See a list of other hymn and chorale themes here.

Videos:
Maria Scharwieß – Improvisation on ‘Veni redemptor gentium’ – Nathanaelchurch in Berlin-Schöneberg

Es ist ein Ros entsprungen

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Es ist ein Ros entsprungen
Often translated in to English as “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming,” the German chorale “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” first appeared in print in the late 16th century. The most familiar harmonization was written by German composer Michael Praetorius in 1609.

See a list of other hymn and chorale themes here.

Videos:
Eric Dalest – Improvisation on “Es ist ein Ros” – Virtual organ of ST MAXIMIN
Paul Damjakob – Kommet ihr Hirten und Es ist ein Ros – Würzburger Dom

A News Update and Happy Holidays

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First, I wish to offer my apologies for not sending out newsletters or posting regularly at organimprovisation.com for the past month. My schedule has been subject to change on an almost daily basis for the past two months as I have been coping with two different events in my life. In a live conversation, here is where I would ask if you want the good news or the bad news first. Since I’m writing and have to make the choice for you, we’ll start with the….

Bad News

On December 9, early in the morning, my mother passed away. She developed other difficulties while undergoing her second round of chemotherapy for lymphoma. Her condition kept us and the doctors guessing for several weeks as she would seem to be deteriorating as we got good test results or otherwise showed signs of improvement. I was able to spend a couple of weeks with her and my family as we journeyed through this difficult time together. I played for the funeral, improvising the prelude. Another organist friend sang a composition I had written earlier in the year when I began to face the possibility that my mother would not be with us much longer. For me, improvising is not just a skill for making music, but also a life skill. Being able to change directions and make choices that reflect your values and the current conditions is not simply a useful skill for creating a piece but also for daily living. I’ve had to employ it quite often while coping with the bad news and the …

Good News

On January 15, I will begin my new position as Director of Music for the Cathedral and Archdiocesan Liturgies at the Cathedral of Mary, Our Queen in Baltimore, MD. The space is fabulous with a large four-manual pipe organ. There is a tour of the building on-line here. With such a wonderful instrument at my disposal, I hope to begin posting videos in the new year where I can provide examples and lessons for the content I have been providing here. In the mean time, my postings may still be a little erratic, but I plan to be back on pace by the end of January once I am settled in Baltimore.

Happy Holidays

As I suspect this will be the last newsletter issue until after the new year, I will wish you both Merry Christmas and Happy New Year now. Thank you for your interest in organ improvisation. For your holiday inspiration, I found the clip below showing Pierre Cochereau improvising on a noel. Enjoy all the marvels of the season!

May all your improvisations be competent, convincing, coherent and colorful!

Glenn

CochereauVideo

 
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Newsletter Issue 31 – 2014 12 24
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Mendelssohn

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Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn originally composed this melody as part of a cantata in 1840 to celebrate the invention of printing with movable type by Johannes Gutenberg. William H. Cummings adapted the melody in 1855 to fit a text by Charles Wesley that was first published in 1739 in the collection Hymns and Sacred Poems. The first line commonly used today, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” is an alteration by George Whitefield in his 1754 Collection of hymns for social worship.

See a list of other hymn and chorale themes here.

Models and Anchors

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Composers create music for many different reasons. Occasionally, they write pieces to demonstrate techniques for their students, either as examples of instrumental technique or compositional practices to master. The Orgelbüchlein of Johann Sebastian Bach is a fabulous place to look for simple chorale treatment ideas. L’Orgue Mystique by Charles Tournemire offers a wealth of ideas for how to work with chants. As improvisers (and composers) we need to spend some of our time studying the masters that came before us and learning to use the material (notes, harmonies, and sound colors) that we have available to us.

Paul Manz

One of the great American composers and hymn players of the twentieth century was Paul Manz. He produced countless volumes of pieces based upon familiar hymn tunes. Published with the title of Improvisations, many of these pieces could be models for us to follow, suggesting ideas and techniques for us to learn and apply to other melodies. One of his collections that I’ve had in my library for many years is his Improvisations for the Christmas Season, Set 1. It includes settings of the chorales Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland, Veni Emmanuel, and Wachet Auf along with a few others. Though the volume is labeled for the Christmas season, these are Advent chorales, so I typically will use them in the weeks leading up to Christmas. (That is, if I remember to take my score out of the file cabinet and bring it to church!)

Veni Emmanuel

One of the settings in the collection that fascinated me was a very simple setting of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. It is a short one page piece. The pedal part consists entirely of a single note, the tonic E. The melody is presented on a solo stop and the chordal accompaniment on a softer registration. I found a performance on YouTube that you may hear by following the link here. What fascinates me about this composition is how Manz begins and ends with cluster harmonies and triads from within the mode, but then ventures quite far afield in the middle, using chromaticism might otherwise be out of place in a modal piece.

When evaluating an improvisation (or composition), I like to fall back on the four C’s that I outlined in the first newsletter issues: competent, convincing, coherent, and colorful. The mixture of chromatic and modal harmonic language could make this Manz piece incoherent and perhaps not very competent either, yet our ears accept the chromaticism. Why?

Anchors

This improvisation gives our ears two anchors to hold on to: the pedal point and the melody. Being a familiar tune, the melody (as the loudest voice) clearly has the strongest pull for our ears. The pedal point also orients us just as the north pole orients a compass. Regardless of which way we may turn, the pedal will enable us to gain our bearings and return home again. The chromaticism also has a direction to it – the chords continue moving up – giving our ear an expected resolution to the dissonance as well. All these together combine to create the color of the piece, enabling it to be coherent, competent, and convincing, in spite of the rather simple and perhaps uninteresting ideas that are combined to make the composition.

Try it for yourself

How can this piece serve as a model for us? What can we practice following this example?

While normally, pedal points can be boring and would often be discouraged, they can be useful in times of very chromatic movement. What sort of harmonic tension can you create over a pedal point? How long can you keep a listener’s attention with only one note in the pedal? Explore chromatic harmonies by changing one note at a time in the accompaniment. Does this work better with the melody in the soprano or tenor range? What difference does it make if the theme is in a major mode? What if the chromatic lines move down instead of up? Here’s a technical challenge for you: play the pedal point with the left (or right!) hand and the melody in the pedal. Choose different themes and try out all the different combinations of pedal point, melody and accompaniment that you can imagine!

May all your improvisations be competent, convincing, coherent and colorful!

Glenn

 
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Newsletter Issue 30 – 2014 12 01
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Veni, Veni Emmanuel

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VeniVeniEmmanuel

The tune ‘Veni, Veni Emmanuel’ was adapted by Thomas Helmore from a fifteenth century French Franciscan Processional. He first published it in The Hymnal Noted in 1854 with a translation by John Neale of the Latin hymn ‘Veni Emmanuel’. The text is a paraphrase of the O Antiphons sung at vespers during the seven days immediately before Christmas.

See a list of other hymn and chorale themes here.

Videos:
Timothy Howard – Postlude on ‘Veni Emmanuel’ – Pasadena Presbyterian Church
János Pálúr – Improvisation on ‘Veni Emmanuel’ – Óbuda Reformed Church

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland

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NunKomm

The German chorale “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” is a translation of the Latin chant Veni redemptor gentium made by Martin Luther. The melody for the chorale was adapted from the same chant by either Martin Luther or Johann Walter. While the chant hymn is designated as part of the Roman Catholic Office of Readings for December 17 to 24, the Lutheran hymn has become closely associated to the First Sunday of Advent.

See a list of other hymn and chorale themes here.

Videos:
Ján Blahuta – Maestoso über den Choral ‘Nun komm der Heiden Heiland’
Ján Blahuta – Trio über den Choral ‘Nun komm der Heiden Heiland’
Ján Blahuta – Sarabande über den Choral ‘Nun komm der Heiden Heiland’
Ján Blahuta – Quasi Fughetta über den Choral ‘Nun komm der Heiden Heiland’
Wolfgang Seifen – Orgel-Improvisation ‘Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland’ – Charlottenburg

Thank You

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This week in the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving. While it has become a commercialized holiday that at one point marked the start of the Christmas shopping season (which now begins before Halloween), I believe it is very useful for everyone to spend a few moments from time to time to express gratitude to others. Today, I’d like to thank you for visiting organimprovisation.com. If you enjoy the content, would you thank me by sharing it with your friends and colleagues and asking them to subscribe? Every time I see a new subscriber or get a note from someone, I feel encouraged because I believe in some small way I’ve been able to help someone become a better organist. Thank you for your confidence in my abilities to offer you useful information. Please feel free to email me with your ideas for topics or lessons that would be most helpful to you.

Now Thank We All Our God

One of the most popular hymns sung at Thanksgiving is the German chorale Nun danket alle Gott, and one of the most popular settings of the chorale for organ is the Virgil Fox transcription of a movement from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata no. 79. (Here Virgil Fox play it on YouTube here or the original Bach Cantata movement with orchestra here.) I’d like to use this piece as our model to imitate this week. How can we break this piece down and use the pieces to build something like it with a different choral?

Language and Form

Being composed by J.S. Bach, the musical language is very tonal. Secondary dominant seventh (or ninth) chords are about as adventuresome as we get harmonically. If you wish to treat another tune in this style, make sure the tonal language of the theme is consistent with the style.

For form, the piece basically alternates what I will call concerto material with phrases of the chorale. The second half of the chorale is also repeated, creating additional length for the piece. The chorale theme always appears in the left hand on a solo stop and is also given a half-note pulse. This allows time for the right hand to provide concerto material for each note of the theme, but the harmonic rhythm does not move any faster than the theme itself. In some other forms, doubling the length of time a melody note is played gives the composer the opportunity to fit more chords in the harmony, but this is not the case here. Bach keeps it simple.

Getting Started

The opening concerto material is actually the same material that is used to accompany the first phrase of the chorale. Rather than play the chorale, the left hand just played a rhythmic idea to keep the piece in motion:

FoxNunDanket

Perhaps a first step to try if you wish to do this with another chorale is to simply use the left hand accompaniment figure to above to play through the harmonies of your new chorale theme. For example, here’s the opening of All Glory, Laud and Honor (Valet will ich dir geben):

FoxAllGlory

After this, it’s time to experiment to find a motif or idea that you can play with the right hand. Bach uses both rising and descending thirds as well as neighbor notes to create his concerto material. Try using similar material for your harmonic progression, but keep the idea simple so that you can remember it and use it or reference it again and again in between each of the phrases of your chorale theme.

Pulling It All Together

One of the other details I noticed about the Bach cantata movement is that each full phrase of the chorale is interrupted at the halfway point by a short phrase of concerto material. At the end of a phrase of the chorale, there is a longer section of concerto material before the chorale returns. This makes it easier to modulate to the dominant where the second half of the chorale begins and is an easy way to create a longer piece if you have more time that you need to fill. To shorten the piece, leave out the additional concerto material that interrupts the theme at the midpoint of each phrase.

Thank you again for visiting organimprovisation.com. I hope you find these tips helpful and that your improvisations fill those around you with gratitude for the musical gifts that you have been given!

Happy Thanksgiving,
Glenn

 
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Newsletter Issue 29 – 2014 11 24
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Diademata

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Diademata

Written by George J. Elvey for the text “Crown Him with Many Crowns” by Matthew Bridges, DIADEMATA was first published in the 1868 Appendix to Hymns Ancient and Modern. The name of the tune is derived from the Greek word for “crowns.” While occasionally used for other texts, the melody retains a close association with the original lyrics.

See a list of other hymn and chorale themes here.

Videos:
Kerry Beaumont – Improvisation on Diademata – Coventry Cathedral
Gerre Hancock – Improvisation on Diademata – Texas