Sunday, September 13, 2009

Even Schoenberg, Cage, and Manz would have been shocked!

What the heck were all those wrong notes emanating from the organ during the introduction to the Sanctus during the second service?!?!

Well, you see, the Great Thanksgiving we're using is in the key of E, while the rest of the liturgy is in F. Normally, to correct that I simply "sight" the Great Thanksgiving up a half step. Today, though, I decided to transpose the electronic pipes and make it easy on myself.

Unfortunately, I forgot to "untranspose" before adding the real organ pipes to the electronic sounds. So when I started the introduction, you were hearing the organ being played in two keys simultaneously - a half step apart. Not a pretty sound!

My first organ teacher had a saying that she didn't charge for the wrong notes; they were thrown in for free along with the right ones. So you can just think of that intro today as twice as many notes for the same price.

It's pretty much impossible to make a quiet mistake on a pipe organ on Sunday morning, but I hope you'll all forgive the mistake. I'll do my best to avoid a repeat next week!

4 comments:

  1. What if we did the whole liturgy in E and F simultaneously?

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  2. Now C and F simultaneously, that would be more interesting. Manz might have even written things in running parallel 5ths.

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  3. With your love of musical theater, I thought we were being treated to the Phantom of the Organ

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  4. so, you are trying to be the Charles Ives of greater Cleveland? I love it!

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