Hacker News Reader

Comment by cptcobalt | Hacker News Reader

The pipe organ is surely one of the most majestic & grand instruments, and I long for the day its most frequent use won't be drab church hymns. It's capable of so much more.

It's also difficult to get exposure to. You've basically got make friends with a church music director to let you play theirs. That's not easy, especially as a queer self-taught musician—no religion, no music degree won't get you too far. It's a self-reinforcing negative feedback loop that gatekeeps its wider use.

(Yes, sample libraries work, but they're just intermediate representations of a full console with multiple manuals, pedalboard, couplers, reverberant room, etc.)

View on HN

I don't want to be "that guy" but a mate of mine is the music director is in his local church here in the UK, plays the organ and piano, is mostly self taught and is also gay... he's even going to be teaching me to play the organ later on this year (and I'm joining his choir for a bit of fun... he also knows I'm not religious at all and in his own words "faith is not a requirement")

All I'm saying is you just need to find the right church and person... most people will happily share their passions with equally passionate beginners, and churches are crying out for organ players, they are a dying breed.

It's not even weird and I'm on the other side of the world. I know at least one gay organist in my town, and over half my local church choir are unbelievers. Most do it for the repertoire and keeping their pipes in good nick for their real passion: musical theatre.

Also here to say "queer self-taught musician" describes every church music director I've ever known (3)

I'm not gonna brush off the idea that it's tough as a gay person or someone who thinks gay people have the right to exist to get in with a crowd that often thinks lgtbq people deserve to die

Gay organists are common enough to be a trope.

If you're in the US, you may want to try to find an episcopal church. They seem to be liturgically conservative enough to still have organs but are generally socially liberal enough to be more accepting. Ymmv, obviously.

But I will say that personally in years of playing the organ and asking random churches (including conservative ones) if I could borrow their organs on a quiet weekday, my bisexuality has never come up. And I didn't have to be friends with the choir director either. Once, I attended one Mass and just went up to him afterwards to thank him for playing (it was beautiful) and ask if I could ever practice with it.

I know it's different from many places as I'm in a big city, but at least four organists whom I've known personally are gay. Many churches don't even require you to be religious even to be employed to play the organ there. Randomly on an airplane, I spoke with an atheist music professor who was choir director/organist at a congregationalist church. They didn't seem to care. So I doubt it'd be a big deal if you just want to practice. The choir director at my current (liberal) parish never takes Communion--I don't know if he is personally religious one way or the other, but it seems to be little more than a job to him.

Also, you should try to find some churches where there is more than just "drab church hymns." 20th and even 21st century voluntaries, anthems, and choral preludes are alive and well in certain segments of Christendom. See for instance the churches that Bálint Karosi plays in. I doubt you'd describe his music as "drab." My parish runs the gamut from Palestrina to something from the 20th century at least every Sunday. Just my 2 cents.

I once asked a church choir director: how many people in a typical choir do really believe in god. His answer was: zero. As for the priest - he said - it's more like a coin flip: some of them are still religious.

Triply so if the choir is a professional choir. It's a job. They don't ask you the Creed before you audition.

Hey, just contact your local church music director. You don't even have to become close friends, just explain politely that you would be super grateful to have access to organs. Most of the time things can be arranged if you or the music director aren't obnoxius persons. Being a queer or self-taught musician with no degree is of no interest for anyone involved in this kind of arrangement.

I'd assume not being a member of the said church is the biggest obstacle you can reasonably have here, and it can be non-issue too, especially if you are not hoping to instantly gain regular access. Don't be an ass about your lack of religion and hope that they are not an ass about having a religion. I know a few music directors in churches and they are definitely not very religious and it's mostly just a job for them and they are always eager to talk about organs to everyone interested, of course things vary a lot. One must also understand that giving access to expensive instrument that isn't even their own like organs (especially unsupervised) requires high trust and sometimes it's just too much to ask even if you are a lifelong member of the said church. But asking is cheap, don't hesitate to contact your local church music director(s) if you are seriously interested.

This being Hacker News, you could consider Knuth's approach: have one built for your home. https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/organ.html

Or the similar approach of the guy from This Museum is Not Obsolete, buy an entire Church organ secondhand and retrofit it into your home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVGr3J_LZaE

That's another level entirely :) Wow...

Alan Kay too I think! "Play it grand"

As an amateur pianist trying to learn organ specifically to play "drab" church hymns, I can say that while I admire the complexity and scope of the organ, At the same time, I don't find the organ particularly interesting musically. I just don't think it "sounds" great. I think this explains the lack of popularity of organ more than anything else. In my free time, I would much rather listen to piano music than organ music. I remember even recently finding a new pianist I liked who also played the organ, and I simply didn't like his organ tracks.

> You've basically got make friends with a church music director to let you play theirs

No one is stopping you or any other secular organization from building your own organs. It seems weird to complain that churches were the only organizations willing to spend the money to build and maintain organs. If anything, you should be grateful they invested the resources in the first place. Without these churches, is it not possible the organ would be virtually extinct at this point?

I've seen people that are really good at playing organ play piano really well, but I've yet to come across a pianist that liked the organ. The lack of expression in the keys is what makes the organ a much harder instrument to play in a musically interesting way than the piano, but with the 'schwellwerk' you can offset some of that and you have endless combinations of stops to modify the tone and that's a big part of playing an organ (as well as the footwork).

There are some crazy good organists out there, and they definitely make them come to life in a way that people that don't have the organ as their main instrument would struggle with. I've been to some organ performances that were indeed boring and some that were out of this world, same organ!

> No one is stopping you or any other secular organization from building your own organs. It seems weird to complain that churches were the only organizations willing to spend the money to build and maintain organs. If anything, you should be grateful they invested the resources in the first place. Without these churches, is it not possible the organ would be virtually extinct at this point?

I think its reasonable to be both happy these things exist at all, and are available to some for free rather than in extremely expensive private collections, while also lamenting the long history of exclusionary practices of the places these things exist.

We can easily take this to an extreme as an analogy where it would seem more reasonable to you to hear the complaint.

The world isn't perfect, and as strong as the desire is to reduce things to a "good" or a "bad" the real world comes with confusing good and bad points that we don't have to average out into a final score.

> While also lamenting the long history of exclusionary practices of the places these things exist.

Can you go into more detail as to these exclusionary practices? All organizations, all things really, are defined by both what they include and what they exclude. Nothing is fully inclusive, else that thing would have no meaning!

To be more concrete, How, were churches more exclusionary than other private or civic organizations of their times? When we judge the history of something, we really need to judge it in proper context, including by comparing to the society at large within the same time frame. On the whole, Christianity can be argued to be one of the most inclusive religions ever. It would have to be, else it couldn't have spread across the world like it did!

> The world isn't perfect, and as strong as the desire is to reduce things to a "good" or a "bad" the real world comes with confusing good and bad points that we don't have to average out into a final score.

I'm not sure what this sentence is supposed to be conveying, really. It's point is far too banal to be a nugget of wisdom. It's more like a clump of dirt of wisdom! The world isn't perfect? Thanks for the reminder! But we all have a choice as to how we interpret our world, and I'm suggesting that the primary emotion or feeling an organist should have towards churches is one of gratitude, at least while we're staying on topic and talking about organs.

I think the main statement at the beginning of your comment is that they were and are exclusionary. Even if they were less exclusionary to the group the other commenter identifies as a member of than other things "of the time" that's a relative measure and "better than some other things" isn't really relevant to the point.

> On the whole, Christianity can be argued to be one of the most inclusive religions ever. It would have to be, else it couldn't have spread across the world like it did!

Hmm. I'm not sure religion mostly spread by being as welcoming as possible to everyone. It's also not relevant.

> I'm not sure what this sentence is supposed to be conveying, really. It's point is far too banal to be a nugget of wisdom. It's more like a clump of dirt of wisdom! The world isn't perfect? Thanks for the reminder! But we all have a choice as to how we interpret our world, and I'm suggesting that the primary emotion or feeling an organist should have towards churches is one of gratitude, at least while we're staying on topic and talking about organs.

You call it an obvious thing yet ignore it in the following sentence. There does not have to be some primary emotion and weighing these things is at best a waste of time. Accepting a bad side of something does not have to come with ignoring any good sides. This was the mistake you were making and still are. It's not a shocking bit of wisdom, it's just a simple thing to keep in mind when you find yourself drawn into an "is complicated thing X good or bad?" argument.

> I think the main statement at the beginning of your comment is that they were and are exclusionary.

Now I'm wondering if you read my previous comment. I already stated: all things are defined by what they include and exclude. Excluding and including is amoral. It only takes on a moral character when you consider what is being included or excluded and why. Being "less exclusionary" could be bad, depending on your perspective! I asked you to be more specific, and you chose not to do so, although I can probably guess what you mean, I will instead wait on you to be explicit.

> Hmm. I'm not sure religion mostly spread by being as welcoming as possible to everyone. It's also not relevant.

Inclusivity and welcomeness are not the same thing. Christianity is inclusive because it posits every human to be a child of an all-powerful God, having instrinsic worth, and the capacity to be saved and exalted by that God. While conquest definitely played a part in the religion's expansion, it certainly isn't the only factor or even the primary factor.

> You call it an obvious thing yet ignore it in the following sentence.

No. No, I didn't. And the rest of your final paragraph doesn't make any more sense to me. For instance, I never said there had to be a primary emotion. I did, however, suggest that there should be one, at least relative to the subject of organs, specifically organ production and access.

> Now I'm wondering if you read my previous comment. I already stated: all things are defined by what they include and exclude. Excluding and including is amoral.

Yes I did, and at no point did I even assign a moral value to the exclusion because it's not relevant. Even the original poster didn't.

It can be necessary for the group, inherent in groups, whatever. You don't need to argue around the balance of good Vs bad and can leave it at simply "this part in isolation is a shame". That's it. It's not a big revelation, or shouldn't be, but it may help you with not reacting like such a simple statement is an attack on a larger part of your identity.

> No. No, I didn't. And the rest of your final paragraph doesn't make any more sense to me

You called it obvious yet didn't understand it.

This isn't Reddit and I don't want to contribute in turning it into that, if you don't want to read my banal points then don't - I have nothing to win or lose here. If you want to try and understand I think I've framed it as best as I can, so try reading it without assuming it's an attack, responding further after a few misunderstandings is futile because either I can't explain it to your further satisfaction.

Much like the balance of emotions, there does not need to be some winning think out of this.

Now that so many people are non-religious, I wonder why groups are not being formed to take the place of churches, and have choirs and organ music. Clearly there is a desire for such things. If churches can do it, surely secular non-profits could do the same thing. Gather together one or more times a week to sing and listen to music. Maybe have talks about whatever people want to talk about (hopefully avoiding things like politics so everyone feels welcome). Organizations to replace the community that churches used to provide. It could provide service opportunities, a resource for the poor and needy to get help. Even a place to find a boardgame group. It would need a one word name like church/synagogue/mosque so people could move into an area and ask “Where is the local …”

Maybe people aren't so non-religious as they seem. I see a lot of claims in here that there are no believers in church choirs etc. At best that's wishful thinking, at worst it's maybe even a lie to draw people in.

In my experience, most groups that have Christian hymns in their repertoire are closet Christians at least on average. Even in the choirs that sing strictly secular songs, believers are overrepresented just from selection effects, since they sing a lot more.

But yes, there are choirs that stick strictly to secular repertoire. There was a "red" choral revival in the 70s, and of course worker and patriotic choirs go a long way back. They got to have something that unites them besides the singing, though. In my town the main secular choirs are the opera choir, which is united by their love of opera and classical music, and the chamber choir, which is 90% doctors and nurses from the local hospital.

> Where is the local …

Library.

Libraries are often community based, can hold events and talks, are an assumed "no cost" place too. I've lived in cities where you can go and play music on their instruments, use 3d printers, computers, access training, hold community groups, use their sewing machines, watch performances and more.

What you need is the funding.

Yes... all the libraries with Pipe Organs and choirs...

I see what you are saying, but library isn't it. It needs to be an organization like a church, just non-religious. Libraries and churches have some similarities, but the many differences, and not just religious versus non-religious.

I want to see a purely voluntary organization. There is a head of the organization, but that person has a normal full time job, as does everyone else who "works" there. People need to pay dues to pay for the building, the utilities, the pipe organ, etc. but none of that money can go to a person's salary. No mega "churches".

There's some great classical organ pieces, but I suspect you've heard most of them :)

I had the pleasure of hearing this guy[1] perform with the local symphony the other year and was impressed by his take on the instrument. He not only played classics like Saint-Saens Symphony No. 3, but also his own creations.

He also built his own electronic organ that he takes on tour. Hacker and a musician.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Carpenter

We are much of the same mind. The organ may be the queen of the instruments, but the human voice is king, and I much prefer singing without distracting organ accompaniments.

That being said, I don't think you can get a full picture of Bach's achievements without having some appreciation for his organ work, particularly the chorale preludes. Those are some of the most magnificent pieces he ever wrote, and I adore them despite my ambivalence towards the sound of the organs.

I think organ music loses more in recording than most other forms of music. Not only the earth shaking acoustics, but also all the improvisation that's typically part of liturgical organ music.

Other organizations have them as well, though they are still difficult to get to — most professional and many college concert halls, theaters (especially, perhaps, those restored to their movie palace glory).

> At the same time, I don't find the organ particularly interesting musically.

Find different organ music!

I can do without Buxtehude, say. But I would rather listen to Duruflé and Howells then basically anything else.

I don't see a way around that - Organs are inherently rare because of their size, cost, locations and maintenance requirements.

Unless someone finds a way of scaling up production and/or reducing the cost, you're not gonna see organs popping up everywhere, hence limited access.

Calling the organ rep "drab church hymns" is an unfortunately common misunderstanding. Both because the hymns can be beautiful and varied (both in compositional and performance style -- registration, improvised counterpoint, etc), and because there is a lot more beyond hymns: hundreds of years worth of preludes and fugues, toccatas, concerti, organ symphonies, and various other forms. Most of the placed I've lived, I've been able to find a nearby church that does a (secular) concert/recital series that often features the organ. Try finding one of those if you are interested.

As for getting access to an instrument, I second others who have replied to you: many of the organists I've encountered were queer in some way or other (though mostly gay men by far), and the rest of them were well aware and understanding that many of their peers and teachers were gay. I think if you reach out to a church organist they will likely be understanding and helpful.

Have a look at the high end electronic organs, they are pretty good (and also pretty expensive, but still a small fraction of what the real thing would cost). Mixtuur, Johannus, van der Poel and quite a few others will give you the opportunity to play and practice to your hearts content and typically a 50 euro donation to the church will get you a 1/2 hour (sometimes more) to play on the real thing if and when you feel you are ready for that (and if you're really good they might get you to become their stand-in organist).

On the cheap end: you can build your own, which is what I did, I converted a really old analogue organ that I bought for next to nothing into a sample based organ running Grand Orgue, it's not quite Hauptwerk but it is very good and sounds amazing, much more organ than I'm worthy of. Total cost: about 500 euros.

The sound track of Interstellar? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_(soundtrack)

Basically, the exception which proves the rule.

I sincerely doubt most folks could name other titles which prominently feature organ as a focal instrument in a work. There's more, of course, but Interstellar tends to be people's first example.

Well, if you like classical music ... there are some organ concertos. There's e.g. a modern-ish one by Poulenc (but melodic, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsFsBNAmCd0), and a romantic one by Saint-Saens (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GrO47WJKTI), and there are baroque organ concertos by Handel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RNUsN0Kh3A&list=OLAK5uy_k1u...).

Kali Malone’s “The Sacrificial Code” is my favorite musical find of the last year, and is entirely on pipe organ. Very mysterious and meditative.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bpZqFa0Qiro

For a midcentury, modal, classical bent, I love the music of Rayner Brown, who was a church organist in Pasadena. Recordings are rare but worth it to track down. There are a few good examples on YouTube; here’s one:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xL8p-MuwzDY

In that same vein, Leo Sowerby: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9O55UTNhHk4

* Warhammer 40k Mechanicus OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLsX9WUdYnU&list=PLnSG0OA5vY...

* A bit on that on IXION one by same author https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhTXyUERugQ althought more on synth side

Also kinda many tracks by organ's tiny brother, hammond/tonehweel organs seen plenty of use for the obvious reason of being portable.

There's of course In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfpn3wHoNGA

Plenty of other stuff if you look for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKVJt39mFUA&list=OLAK5uy_mTE...

Not to mention the tons and tons of secular Classical music, particular from the Baroque era like Händel's organ concertos.

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida definitely doesn't have a pipe organ. It's a vox or farfisa.

Sounds pretty nice on a church organ though; in high school, I played in the orchestra for honors district graduation at the Crystal Cathedral[1], and the organist would play some riffs during rehearsal.

[1] Now renamed as the Christ Cathedral, I assume it's still amazingly hot and stuffy when the sun comes out, ugh, what a terrible venue. :P

Yup, it seems that was a Vox Continental: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_Continental

Quite a few according to this list: https://www.hirten.com/the-pipe-organ-on-film/

The Abominable Dr. Phibes is an absolute classic.

Anna von Hausswolff [1] performs "pop" music on the organ.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_von_Hausswolff

On that note: Barbara Dennerlein.

Theme from Rollerball [1]?

[1] Yes, I know it is Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, but cptcobalt said "name" not "recognize", and while a vast majority have probably heard Toccata and Fugue in D Minor I'd guess most of them don't know that is its name. They will name it after somewhere they heard it used. Similar to Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra. Everyone has heard it but I bet most people would name it as the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Saint-Saens Symphony No. 3

https://youtu.be/eW-7S9fjyfU?t=33

> Basically, the exception which proves the rule.

Exception can only weaken the rule, although it might still statistically hold well enough to be called a rule.

I think that's just because it is recent.

But there is plenty more.

Rollerball.

I've got a second hand organ (trademark "Content", but there are more) at home with two manuals and (almost full) pedal. They're not expensive. There are three and four manual versions too. More than good enough to learn and practice. And no mistake: professional organists use these too, since practicing at a real organ is hard for them, too. Many (smaller) churches use similar organs instead of pipe organs, because of the economics.

> they're just intermediate representations of a full console with multiple manuals, pedalboard, couplers, reverberant room

They're near perfect recordings with all the features, e.g. https://www.sonusparadisi.cz/en/organs/netherlands/rotterdam...

If you want to hear what people play on their home setup: https://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/home/front

If you are in the states and having trouble getting access to church organs, find your local theatre organ club or ATOS chapter. Most of them have some form of access to theatre pipe organs and if you learn on a theatre organ you will be able to transition to a less diverse and more refined beast like a church instrument. It also helps to not be in a high cost of living area.

The lower the cost of living, the lower the cost of auditorium space. The lower the cost of auditorium space, the easier it is to get access to organs (to a point).

> It's a self-reinforcing negative feedback loop that gatekeeps its wider use.

I'm pretty sure there is no loop here, just "you need that much money to play". Not exactly something easy to fit in the house either

> (Yes, sample libraries work, but they're just intermediate representations of a full console with multiple manuals, pedalboard, couplers, reverberant room, etc.)

From what I heard simulated ones get pretty close

There is this thing called "Organteq". It's made by mad scientists (well, mathematicians and engineers) from France and is based on physical modelling. Look it up, it's great!

Oh super I did not realize they have a linux version of Organteq, I will definitely have to try that. I've used Grand Orgue so far and that works quite well, but I am a very happy user of Pianoteq (you can guess what that does) and Modartt has definitely raised the bar there, so I'm curious what they can do with Organs (arguably: easier to model in theory but probably a lot harder in practice).

Also Hauptwerk, or if you prefer something open source there's GrandOrgue

https://github.com/GrandOrgue/grandorgue

There is a small group of people who have built their own console with "multiple manuals, pedalboard, couplers". I've been meaning to do that myself, but time is lacking. With software and good speakers you can probably get the reverberant room as well, though to my knowledge this hasn't been done yet.

There's a lot of people using Hauptwerk (virtual organ) for this and assembling their own consoles. Here is an organist on YouTube who shows his whole build process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UtzLlfwJ5w&list=PLUL_VC1ItB...

Yeah, it really does seem like you can bodge something like this together with reasonable fidelity out of off the shelf stuff, starting with 3-4 synthesizer keyboards and a few pedals. Of course, that's no small expense right there already, and I'm sure this is one of those things that can get arbitrarily expensive as well, depending on that level of fidelity you're after.

You mean like the best use I've seen being from the Simpsons?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulDC1w1ydLI

I mean I wouldnt look at this like organs are somehow gatekept : theyre just fucking expensive so you have to get in with the institutions that own them to be able to play em.

In a way, the entire room is the instrument. How cool is that.

I bet half the organists at Catholic churches are gay.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com