A Portrait of the Organist as a Young Woman

I was guest organist at the First Presbyterian Church this past Sunday.  Currently, I am fortunate enough to have organist gigs booked at various churches until the end of August. I am usually pretty brimming when I finish a Sunday service—little descriptions and observations and feelings rising up wanting to be written—but there’s something extra brimming about this church.

Maybe because I’d come there as a wee granddaughter object, holding the hands of my grandparents. 

Or maybe because it is a tremendous echoing edifice, all bell towers and stony outcrops (I don’t have architecture terms for those things), and inside there are PILLARS. I’ve not played in churches with pillars very much. Tremendous marble pillars.

Or maybe because the instrument itself is over a million-dollar affair, with five manuals, and more buttons, levers, and stops than I actually know how to process. I’m waiting to push something and have a small genie come out and tell me off. I did push something the other day and a continuous tinkling of bells sounded, like an angel assemblage, and I realized the zimbelstern was in decidedly good working order.  

So I feel a little compelled to write about this church and my organ-izing within it.  

I slide onto the bench in this empty huge place before the people come in, flip the magic switch, and a huge beast breathes to life. You can hear the blower of its lungs taking a rich inhale, then the air moving through the entire length of its body, the little clunks and audible shudders and twitches that happen with this.

I realized I’ve built a mental association (just like my cat: an approach to the lower cupboard means food).  The sound of over a hundred people sitting down—slightly rustly and with subtle groans of the pews, maybe a few deep inhales after the singing—this to me is the sound of triumphant success and relief.  In a smaller space with a smaller crowd, this is much less magnified. But in this huge space it is echoey and majestic. It means I just finished a hymn, held the last resounding chord for as long as necessary for the weight to plumb deep, and then let off the keys to a wash of relief at having gotten through the thing, and these Sounds of Sitting.  

You see, this is not an unapologetic instrument, and I do not spurn the loudly encompassing foot pedal stops. But that means that if I do make a mistake, it is undeniable.   

The anthem for the choir this week was no insignificant affair, even on the piano, a lyrical rendition of Be Thou My Vision in 4 sharps (and then the occasional A-sharp thrown in for befuddlement). I had only a few days to learn it, and I had to work. I was marking sharps, practicing page turns, writing “aim!” over the unmanageable chords, singing lines to try and get them into my head. There were triplets, there were large hand-stretching chords.

But I did it. Having the perfectionist gene (or at least a similar one) means that this work is not always a choice for me.  (I guess I could get better at Faking Things and have more time for other pursuits…)

And then: Sunday morning, the choir sounded sublime, I didn’t burn my triplets, I remembered my sharps, I aimed my “aims”. And the final chord hung beautifully in the air…. and the thing was done. Over. Never to be played again.  The manifestation of all my work had 3 minutes of existence and no more. 

I think about it like its making a Mandala. Creating a thing with insistent carefulness for the sake of creating it, all those fine grains of sand in place, a practice, a focus on being present for a task. Others enjoy it for a bit, and then wipe-wipe-wipe its over.

And then the next Sunday you work for something else.

After the service I skittered downstairs to eat cookies (playing makes me undeniably hungry) and drink church-basement coffee.  Before I could escape the organ bench a few people approached, thanking me for playing, asking what year I was at the Ithaca College music school (“uhm, nope, I am a soil scientist at Cornell….”) and a Mrs. Norma Stevenson to send her regards to my grandparents. 

But I didn’t get a chance to chat with the pastor of this formidable church (a positively charismatic young woman, much beloved, incredibly positive and thoughtful). I had listened intently to her sermon about change. How change HAPPENS for us as people; we can become someone perhaps even nearly unrecognizable to whom we had been before. And this is natural and ok.

But later this week I was playing late at night in the pitch of the black space, just the organ overhead light on. I heard movement but could see nothing, blinded in my little orb of organ light. Then, like a radiant specter, she appeared by the bench and I could see it was Pastor. “I just wanted to say, I love it when you play,” she said. “It is so expansive. You obviously are not afraid of the instrument.”  This raised me about 3 feet off the bench, and I blustered a blushing thank you….and explained that once I had been afraid of it. Which is kind of why I felt I should learn how to play it.

After some thinking, I realized I have three levels of Organist within me. The first level is Faking It But Making It. These are the mornings where perhaps the night before was a little longer than probably proper, or where the week was busy and I didn’t have practice time. I can play hymns, I keep everyone in tempo, but perhaps I hit a few off-pedal notes. Perhaps I miss an entrance. My first few years of being a church organist were this level, whether I liked it or not.

The second level is Yes Right. Things aimed are landed accurately, music sounds good, it’s right. After a few years this was the standard. I focus and effectively make tidy neat music.

Now I’m realizing there’s a third level. It is called With Soul. This has been happening more and more lately. Where I am playing, and am able to take in and hear the music, not just play it. Where I can play a piece I’ve played 49 times before and suddenly here a phrase in a new way. With Soul is more likely to happen on sunny days, after beautiful bicycle rides or a special human interaction. I tend to play this content into my music. That phrase is the sunset view; this next phrase is being in love. I’m more liquid when I play this way; I can hear the congregation getting quiet for the prelude, or maybe singing more lustily on a hymn. If I sense this beginning to happen I get even more in it and thus begins a positive feedback loop. The Leo in me would argue I’m blissed out on the power of my own power. The humanist would say I’m grateful to be contributing something beautiful to the universe. Who knows.  I love it.  It’s also rare and I want to be wary of trying to control it.