Joyful are those you discipline, Lord,
those you teach with your instructions.
You give them relief from troubled times
until a pit is dug to capture the wicked.
[Psalm 94 vv12-13]
In an earlier essay – ‘Pits for the Ungodly’ – I talked about some of the pitfalls that can befall organists when playing on an instrument with which they are unfamiliar – or even when they are familiar with a particular example of the king of instruments.
But organists face other challenges apart from the management of the beast itself. If familiarity can breed contempt, then unfamiliarity can lead to many unforeseen bloopers, especially when it comes to playing for church services.
As someone who has had the fortune (and occasionally the misfortune) to play across a wide range of denominations over some 60 years, I offer you a few anecdotes and the periodic warning about performing in a strange venue.
The very first time I played for a church service, I was confronted with the ‘mists of time’ syndrome. Most of what I had to do for the liturgy in the local church where I had sung in the choir boy and almost-man was clear. But one set of responses was less than obvious. I asked the choir members where the music was; nobody knew. I asked the choirmaster: he had no idea. The organist was baffled: he played these responses every Sunday but did it from some distant memory going back more than 20 years. There was no score for me to borrow and use. All I could do was listen to him play it over and then take the notes down. That is not the only instance of the MOT syndrome. How often do we do something (including if not especially in church) without thinking. The ritual has become almost subconscious. Perhaps visiting organists have a role to play in helping congregations out of their torpor occasionally.
Related to the MOT scenarios such as the one above is that of the ‘We always sing it to that tune’ situation. I remember as a very young adult hearing the then Bishop of Bradford, Michael Parker, state (with more than a little regret) that, if a major tenet of faith were changed in the Church of England, there would be little protest, but change a hymn tune and civil war might well ensue! I subsequently had first-hand experience of this when holidaying on the Isle of Arran, Scotland. My then wife, her sister and husband and I were staying in a cottage on the far side of the island, rent free. The generosity of the cottage’s owners was conditional on my playing the organ at the local non-conformist church where their brother was the minister. This was not a problem for me, except that the said brother was away on holiday the week we were there, and a visiting minister from the other side of the island (it might as well have been Hades, given what happened) had been hired in to lead the worship. The priest was friendly enough, though somewhat nervous given that he had never preached at this church before. One of the hymns chosen had two possible tunes: which one should I play? ‘The second one’, he answered. ‘We always use that tune at our church’. But that was the problem: this was not his church. As a result, when it came to the hymn in question, it was not long before he and I discovered that what was sung on the east of the island was not done in the west. And to prove it, the congregation resolutely refused to try and master the alien melody. As a result, my family and I – along with the bemused minister – bravely attempted to get through both hymn and the stares of the locals. ‘What was that tune ye played?’ The steward bellowed to me afterwards. ‘We no sing that tune here’. That was me told off.
These are but two of the many pits into which I have fallen over the years alongside such as: not using the alternative psalm chanting (unhelpfully printed in the smallest possible type at the foot of the page); not realising that there were four collects instead of three at the end of evensong (though I believe that I am fool proof on that one now); not realising that there are more verses of the hymn on the verso of the page (why do so modern hymnals do that?). Indeed, a recurring nightmare of mine has me playing the organ for a service; the choir is processing in and suddenly I find that I have no idea what music I am supposed to be playing. Fortunately – very fortunately – I have yet to be in this position in real life – just!
I take some comfort from the fact that vicars may have similar problems when deputising for their clerical brethren. Many years ago, the priest in our local parish where I grew up was asked to take a communion service at a neighbouring church. He was low church and the place where he was going was very ‘high’ Anglo-Catholic. He was nervous to say the least. He arrived to find the vestments all laid out for him; he robed in them and took the service as best he could. Afterwards, he felt confident enough to ask one of the servers how he had done. ‘Very well’, said the acolyte, ‘but don’t wear the bookmarks next time!’