You make it look so easy!

I’m not sure the title of this post is anything to aspire to hear from audience members. If playing the organ were easy, an organist would get bored with it. And I’ve seen that happen to more than one organist. I want to be seen working my hiney off! I want to sweat, huff, puff, and pant in performance. Anything less and the audience isn’t getting its money’s worth.

Of course, some people can push notes down faster and more accurately than others. But without some soul, some work, some affection for the audience, and some unlimited respect for the composer, guess what it all begins to sound like – it sounds like notes being pushed down fast and accurately.

We should pay lots of attention to that man behind the curtain. The music may be jolly, but that organist had better be working for it. Once we allow complacency in, the assembly line approach starts to form around the notes, and trouble begins. I sometimes encounter a similar phenomenon with music I’m repeating many times during a season. But it’s not boredom. Rather, it’s a struggle to keep everything sounding fresh, which is what I want to do above all. But some music needs to rest, and too many repeats make it stale, despite my best efforts. However, a piece that is well-learned will resurrect later more quickly. When I return to a previously oft-played piece, a new freshness will appear, as will an easier time of playing the notes. But the sweat will remain, as it should.

The real test is in how it sounds, not how it looks. Looking easy can go hand in hand with sounding profound. And looking difficult can go hand in hand with sounding utterly scintillating. Every organist has his style, but great music requires our best efforts all the time. If only one could lose weight doing that.