When on duty at the Coffee Lounge, I walked round the Church with a group of the children looking at the posters on the walls, admiring the colours, patterns and reading out the words, then we came to one at the front and I mentioned the organ pipes. This set off the youngsters; “organ pipes”, how does an organ work? Which made me have to think quick, how does an organ actually work? Later I searched Google to find a fascinating history back to the Greeks and Romans, on to Winchester Cathedral and Halberstadt in Germany, and to modern times, with the comment that the organ is the most complex musical instrument ever to be constructed. It has four characteristics, namely pipes, supply of wind, a method of directing the wind to chosen pipes and the means of releasing the wind into the appropriate pipes. Lots of information about pipes, various types and sizes; complex method of controlling wind, a system of ‘sliders’, ‘stops’, and the use of the keyboard getting to the end result of the organist pressing a key and rewarded with the sound selected. All very interesting to read and well worth a google.
We are lucky that over the years we have had members within our congregation who have willingly taken on the role of organist. I think that we are guilty of not acknowledging this in recent times and saying a particular thank you to Althea and Sandy.
Music in church is important to many of us and has been an important part of our Church services. Over the years it has moved on, the service celebrating the Church in Scotland made us think back on the services we were part of previously, the singing of the psalms, which I thought rather dreary then and do not regret now that they have gone from the hymnbook. Recently I read a letter written in 1915 which refers to a parish church in the north of Scotland where, “ the organ is quite new and is played only at night to accustom the people to it by a lady who performs only on one finger or else plays just an octave down”. I wonder how long it took ‘the people’ to get used to it and how many complaints there were about this new fangled machine. I have heard comments about the new hymnbook now being used in the Church of Scotland. It sounds as though there has been an attempt to include new hymns as well as keeping the old, producing a thick book, for the older members a heavy book to hold and to sing from. I expect this is an attempt to please, bringing in the new without losing the old. There was a very interesting television programme that propounded the theory that the Spirituals of Black America had their source from the religious mouth music of Scotland, the unaccompanied voices which can still be heard in some areas of the Outer Isles.
I enjoy the evening services when we have not had an accompaniment for the singing and we cope, is it that we are “to get used to” not having the organ? Is the future piped music, a hymn karaoke or possibly a strumming guitar, even Ian on his penny whistle! Whatever is the future for Sunday Church Services the music and hymns will continue to develop and possibly be simpler. At present it is important to remember to show our appreciation of and thank our organists.
Margaret Milligan
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