Portfolio Element 1 Composition & Meaning

I am not an organist… There are very little knowledges on the Youtube of how to programme and play the pipe organ as every organ is a bit different. I am being very thankful to St James’s Church, Sussex Gardens and its manager Sue, who allows me to play pipe organ for 8 hours. I still remember the first session has become very scary and trapped in because there are audiences in the church, and I have really no ideas of which buttons do what. I feel like exercising is very significant before playing the organ pipe, because the organ pipe needs my coordination of my hands and feet playing at the same time. One thing about playing organ is very underwhelming is that it doesn’t have a sustain peddle…

Having listened to Áine O’Dwyer’s Music for church cleaners, primarily a harpist, for this release she played and recorded organ improvisations live, which loosely use a graphic score (included in the vinyl release). The album was recorded while cleaners were working in the church, who requested that she not stay on one note too long. ‘Saor’ weaves two tales: my journey across the Cairngorm mountains in Aberdeenshire, through its granite plateaux, corries, glens, and straths, and my exploration of the 1872 organ crafted by Peter Conacher & Co., Huddersfield at Forgue Kirk Aberdeenshire, the resting place of many of my forebears.” Which is quiet ambient and dreamy. Contrasty, Anna Lapwood’s Luna is very classical and shimmering which creates a picture of starry night to me.

Inspired by both constructed classical work and improvised work, it gave me possibilities of creating my own work for the last emperor: I am planning to compose one constructed composition and another one more vague and ambient ( mostly with chords ). The first scale came to my mind is F minor and A minor.

https://aineodwyer.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-church-cleaners

The variety of samples in organ was very intriguing: I could play something really loud and shock the floor within the full set up. Vice versa I am still be able to play something really soft like mellow flutes…

WHY PIPE ORGAN？

The organ has always been considered, and rightly so, the king of musical instruments, because it takes up all the sounds of creation – as was just said – and gives resonance to the fullness of human sentiments, from joy to sadness, from praise to lamentation. By transcending the merely human sphere, as all music of quality does, it evokes the divine. The organ’s great range of timbre, from piano through to a thundering fortissimo, makes it an instrument superior to all others. It is capable of echoing and expressing all the experiences of human life. The manifold possibilities of the organ in some way remind us of the immensity and the magnificence of God.

It represents the sound of history. It represents the sound of space and memory. It represents the sound of soul.