Moonlight Serenade for reed organ!!

Something little out of the ordinary..! I have had the melody of Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller buzzing in my head for a long time. It's a melody that my father played from an LP record when I was little. It was only this autumn that I took it seriously and looked up Glenn Miller on a music streaming service. I was very fascinated by how the extremely legato melody hardly needs harmonic support from the orchestra, and thought that this must be transferable to the reed organ. And voila – I started a new project. It's taken me many hours to come up with the right playing style, while at the same time both preserving the sound of Glenn Miller and making all the necessary compromises to make it playable. It is actually quite difficult to play nicely. The result is very unique compared to what is already out there on the internet, so I consider this a bit of a gem in that respect. You can find the sheet music at www.organamateur.com as usual, look for the section for “Reed organ music”. Good luck!

4 American Christmas hits !!

Popular Christmas songs like "Have yourself a merry little Christmas", "I'll be home for Christmas", "Winter Wonderland" and "White Christmas" are very nice songs to play in between other traditional Christmas carols at the odd reed organ lunch recital during Christmas time. I have finally written them down, two of them are from last year with some minor modifications, the other two are new. I think they are quite unique compared to what is out there on the internet, and on top of that they are adapted for reed organ with a E/F bass section divide. As usual, you'll find the sheet music on organamateur.com. Just scroll down to the Christmas section. Enjoy!

Glade jul / Silent Night / Stille Nacht

Check out the new reed organ arrangment for the last verse of Silent Night. You'll find it under the section "Everything Christmas (and Advent)!" at the Organ Amateur Page (organamateur.com). It's is adjusted to fit the Norwegian metre and rythm, but you can easily adjust to your local variant, it's not that different. The harmonics are quite "jazzy", but it's laid out in a traditional hymn format / style of playing. As I have mentioned earlier, reed organs usually have divided keyboards for the bass reeds (16' and lower). My reed organ starts it's bass register at E (which means that F and above must be octaved down to get a rich sound with the 16'). This arrangement takes this into account. Well, that is really the art of sight reading for reed organ, being able to compensate for the divided bass register on the fly. For that very reason is it often a relief to rewrite the music to fit the properties of the reed organ, making sure I can play it correctly every time. Oh, Christmas time and all, I guess a "Merry Christmas" is in order, and also a "Happy New Year" which will come in a few days time.

New arrangement of an old advent song "Gammel mariavise"

Wow, I have finally published my SATB a Capella arrangement of "Gammel mariavise" (eng: Old Song of Mary). I realised too late that I made a mistake for measures 15 through 18 as the stems are pointing down, although the voice is meant to be tenor. I can't be bothered to fix it now, maybe later. Check out the sheet music on my web site The Organ Amateur Page under the section "Everything Christmas (and Advent)!".

Everthing Christmas

I made a little twist to the list at The Organ Amateur Page. I added a new section called "Everthing Christmas (and Advent)!". Most of the music there is found in other sections, I have just gathered them without changing the original location. Merry Christmas!

Nimrod for reed organ / harmonium

I have just published my transcription of Elgars "Nimrod" for the reed organ (or rather *my* reed organ), which I typed last winter. The Organ Amateur Page has been down for quite a while because it was hacked. I had to rewrite the code to make it safe agaist the evil of internet..! Anyway, you'll find the sheet music ready for download at http://www.organamateur.com

Anglican chant for psalm 16

I have composed a new Anglican chant for psalm 16. This chant has the last 4 bars in common with the earlier chant for psalm 7, which is intended. However, there are no more similarities. This chant breaks almost every classical rule of composing, but I think it does the trick anyway. It requires skilled singers to sound good - not saying all music doesn't. You'll find it at the organ amateur page under the Chant section.

O Store Gud, again... I made an arrangement

Some times I just can't help myself. I might just as well publish it. Check it out on The Organ Amateur Page under "Special hymn arrangements".

Diction and pronunciation

Choir music and solo singing are always challenged by the acoustics given by the building, the consonants simply disappear. Because of this, singers must exaggerate the consonants. If the pronunciation is poor as well as not managing to make clear consonant sounds, the perceived singing as heard by the congregation will impossible to understand.

From this I have developed a bad habit of criticising song performance of other genres, which of course have no relevance. One time I found a YouTube clip of an Asian artist singing Beatles' Black Bird. In it's own environment the song was probably quite al-right, but from a church musicians point of view it was ridiculous. I made the effort of writing down what I actually heard (and not what I knew he was trying to sing), and the result is given below. Imagine a similar case in a church service, we are trying to proclaim the Gospel, but the congregation may hear something quite different. I will certainly carry this experience with me as a big warning sign in everything I do related to church singing. Here it goes:

Black butts sing of the dead at night.
Sexiest bloke in Swindon learns to fry.
All your lies.
You were only waiting for tease, no men to a lithe.

Black butts sing of the dead at night.
Sexiest bloke in Swindon learns to fry.
All your lies.
You were only waiting for tease, no men to a lithe.

Black butts sing of the dead at night.
Takes these fucking nice and long to sea.
All you lie,
You were only waiting for tease, no men to be free.

Black butt, define.
Black butt, define into delight.
Offset dark black mind.

Black butt, do fry.
Black butt, do fry.
Into the night of dark black light.

Black butts sing of the dead at night.
Sexiest bloke in Swindon learns to fry.
All your lies.
You were only waiting for tease, no men to a lithe.
You were only waiting for tease, no men to a lithe.
You were only waiting for tease, no men to a lithe.

Another Anglican hymn translated to Norwegian

'Glory in highest heaven' by Charles Wesley (1707-88) is a wonderful praising hymn to the Eucharist and the redeeming sacrifice of our Lord, Jesus Christ. The exciting and joyous expression in this hymn is most certainly unparalleled in Norwegian hymn literature. That is why I had to translate it into Norwegian! The Norwegian language can sometimes be quite challenging because there are fewer words to choose from, the words are often longer, and the stresses of syllables are often the opposite of English. Most times I have managed to find a way around, but this time I had to change the original metre. I hopefully did this in the most obvious manner, by simply ignoring the ties in the music (6 in total). The original metre, which is 7 7.4 4.7 D, has become 8 8.5 5.7.8 7.4 4.7. I'm sorry to deviate from the original, but in practise this is quite common to do. There are many examples of deviations in the Norwegian hymn book that are far worse offences, like changing the melody, changing the rythm or phrasing, or changing the primary message of the text while still pretending it to be a translation. I think my alterations are quite acceptable. Anyway, check it out on The Organ Amateur Page.

O store Gud...

And then of course, this is why I found that new link - the world famous Swedish hymn "O store Gud", translated from Swedish to Russian and from Russian to English: "How Great Thou Art". It is said to be the 2nd most popular hymn in the world, only preceded by Amazing Grace.

This is how they do it in South Korea :-) :
How Great Thou Art in Korean, concert version

This is a very popular hymn in the USA, and it is translated to over 100 languages, I have been told. Naturally, this hymn is hard come by in the U.K (a rivalry phenomenon, or ecumenical differences?) and in also Norway, but I guess you may come across it in a baptist church, for all I know, as it was the American baptist minister Billy Graham that really made it so popular. In Sweden this hymn belongs to the Lutheran tradition.

Just let me say it once and for all: None of the translations I have seen can match the beauty of the original Swedish version! You'll find it as no. 11 in the Swedish hymn book "Den svenska psalmboken" (catch up on your Swedish first!).

New link added

I added a new link: Swedish hymn book (in Swedish)

This is a very informative site, and really an eye-opener to me regarding hymnology in Sweden. I have never bothered to dig into the heap of Swedish hymns and history, but now I see what I have been missing. I can read and understand Swedish quite well (can not speak it, though) so I don't know why I haven't been interested in finding out more. For your information Norwegian is very similar to Swedish (more similar than Dutch to German).

Recorded in the shed...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZHMxZCqtVE

I recorded this with my mobile phone. Just to give you an idea of how it sounds like.

Pictures of the harmonium.

It's just sitting there in the shed waiting for me to fix it.

Another harmonium

Yesterday I got another harmonium for free that I am going to repair. It's a Norwegian make "Jacob Knudsen" and it seems quite salvageable despite a lot faults. It's not missing any parts, and that's a good start. Pictures coming soon...

By free, to be precisely, I mean that I rescued it from being thrown into a garbage container. It was either incineration or me taking it home. So I did... put it in the shed.

Terror organist

Today I played at the same church as 24nd July. This Sunday was, despite the likelihood, made a remembrance Sunday by the church centrally to remember the victims the terror 22nd July. As it seems, I have become my home town's own terror organist!

Luckily, I didn't have to change much of my prepared music, I just had to play a few extra pieces as part of a change in the liturgy. I did do too badly, I think, although I was distracted during the postlude and had to improvise a few bars before I could resume the music as it was printed. I also had some "ill-haps" during a intermediate piece, but this wasn't really an important part of the service, so I don't think I matters so much.

Regarding the postlude, I discovered a strange phenomenon. Some thing, or some thought, distracted my attention while I was playing. Probably because I was tired, but I don't know. Anyway, suddenly I caught myself playing on "auto pilot", my mind were wandering in memories from practice sessions the previous week just as if I was present in those memories. My hands and feet played by themselves, and my thoughts and images in my head adjusted to what I was doing, forming a very real pseudo-reality. Usually I would call this dreaming, but I wasn't asleep, I was playing the organ! Sleep-playing!? Suddenly I realised that I wasn't present in the real world, and it was then I got lost and had improvise while I desperately tried to find my way in the sheet music! Has anyone else had this experience? Why does it happen, and how do I avoid it?

Unconvenient stand-in

Tuesday 19th July i was asked to play at the Sunday Service as the organist had been injured. On the Friday (22nd July) I went to church 4 pm to practice for the comming service. Little did I know of what took place in Oslo at the same time, a maniac killing 80+ people.

I was of course shocked to learn about the tradegy, but took no further notice organ-wise until the priest phoned me 10 pm (22:00) Saturday evening wanting to change the music for the service the following morning. So I ended up playing at a very special service indeed, for many parts unprepared. Being an amateur isn't always easy...

Oslo Lutheran Cathedral had the "official" and fully broadcasted service for 24th July, where Elgar's Nimrod was played during procession, ending in Abide With Me (in Norwegian). Hopefully, Elgar's music may gain more popularity after this.

Here I am again!

After a long break from performances, but still keeping up the harmonium playing at home, I played at a wedding last Saturday. Sadly, there wasn't any organ, only a piano (a small church).

The coming Friday I am asked to play at a funeral in a small chapel. There is just a piano there too. I haven't played at a funeral before, so this is going to be an interesting experience I believe. Also a challenge to find suitable music for piano, as I usually never play the piano. I found a 1900 European style funeral march among the sheet music from my grandmother that sounded OK on the piano. I also supposed to accompany a solo singer to Amazing Grace and Doggdropen (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZgDUfPRAoY). I'm supposed to pick up the sheet music for all the music and hymns tomorrow.

More organist stand-ins

27^th of June and 8^th of August I played at Lutheran services, in two different churches respectively. I am starting to regain the confidence and playing skills I had 7 years ago. I hope to continue this good trend so stand-in assignments can be done without unnecessary struggle on my part. Then I can actually start producing some real music, which would be nice. I was very close to playing the Andante by Macpherson the 27th of June, but I gave in to lack of confidence and resorted to improvisation instead. I don't want to play a famous piece in a horrific manner, although sounding OK to the unknowingly, in case someone in the congregation would happen to know the music. I played the Nun Danket by Karg-Elert on the 17^th of May, but I didn't deliver the goods. However, many people loved it because they had no clue what it was supposed to sound like... I got away with it, but I will not count on getting away with it another time...

Gospel Shouts

Normally I wouldn't pay any attention to "gospel music". On youtube I found this video. Just look at their faces. I can never get tired of watching it. It really is an inspiration to all musicians to watch the joy they're expressing.

However, I can not imagine having this music in my church....