The Pilcher at work

I have written much about playing the organ; it is high time I give an example.

In November, I am to be the proctor for an AGO examination in our chapter. I had the choice of having the exam professionally recorded (at my personal expense) or learning to do it myself. For this, my 1980's Radio Shack portable cassette tape recorder, which I have used for thirty years to evaluate my practice of improvisation and hymn accompaniment, would not be suitable.

Last week, I went to the local music store and purchased an MP3 recorder. I gather that such devices used to be expensive; not so much nowadays. This one, a “Zoom H-1,” was $100, with another $30 for the accessory kit. This week, I have experimented with it, and am amazed with its capabilities. I need to work with it a lot over the next month so that I can reliably record the exam and burn it to CD.

Today, I used it to record the beginning of our 11:00 church service, and have posted it on YouTube – my first attempt at such a project. That part of it was not so easy and took me about two hours, mostly in downloading the Windows Movie Maker software and figuring out how to change the WAV file that I recorded into an MP4 file that can go on YouTube. I patched on a photo of our choirs from last spring, which gives you an idea of what the interior of our church looks like, with the organ to the left in the background.

Better, you can now hear what it sounds like. The file includes the following:

Variations on a Shape Note Tune (Wondrous Love) by Samuel Barber
Hymn: All hail the power of Jesus' Name, to the tune Coronation
Salutation and Collect for Purity
Gloria in excelsis: setting by Robert Powell (S-280 in the H-1982)

The aural point of view is that of the Organist – I set the recording device beside the bench, pointed away from the instrument into the room, but it nonetheless is heavier on the organ during the hymn than it actually would sound in the room. And during part of the Barber, you might note the “Vox humana” on the tune – that would be one of the choir altos, who hummed along with me as I played. I am fine with this, for it shows that the music engaged at least one of the listeners.

The Barber is one of the classics of the twentieth century American organ repertoire, and I think that I played it pretty well today. The hymn is typical of what we do in our parish. One stanza is sung by the women, another by the men (and, in review, I was too loud for both of these), one unaccompanied by the congregation, and the descant from the hymnal on the final stanza.

Here is the link.