A Piano Player's Guide to the Organ

Most keyboard players start with the piano but there is no need to stop there. Playing the organ can be rewarding and also useful.  A pianist with intermediate level skills should be able to play the organ with a small amount of effort. The main skills to master are legato playing, pedal technique and organ registration.

Making the organ sound smooth (legato playing)

Although the keys of a piano and organ may look alike they control very different sound mechanisms. Striking a piano key causes a felt hammer to hit a metal string but depressing an organ key causes a pipe valve to open or an electronic circuit to be activated. With the key down on a piano the string continues to vibrate with a gradual decrease in volume. This is because a felt pad, called a damper, is lifted off of the string; releasing the key allows the damper to contact the string stopping it from vibrating. With the organ a steady sound will continue until the key is released. The pianist often uses the damper pedal to keep the dampers off the strings after the keys have been released but no such device exists for organs. (Some organs have a sosteneuto control but that is beyond the scope of this article.)  What all this means to the organ player is that to get sound the keys must be held down. The instrument will stop producing sound the moment a key is released.  The room's acoustics may give a little decay time but this will not be a factor in most performance settings. The exception is large spaces like cathedrals or sports arenas with very long reverberation times.  The good news for organists is that they do not usually have to consider the velocity with which they strike a key; the pipe has one volume level no matter how you play it. This fact allows the organist to use fingerings that would produce very uneven piano playing but sound just fine on the organ.  The organist can make finger substitutions, wiggle the thumb from one key to another and slide fingers between keys.  A good organ technique book will help you learn these patterns.

Learning to play organ pedals

The thought of using your feet to make music might be intimidating at first but don't let that stop you. Organ pedal parts are usually very simple. You have no doubt noticed that the pedals are laid out like a big keyboard. So if you can name your keys you can identify the pedals by name also. The only thing a pianist will need to learn is pedal technique.  This skill will take some time to learn. You didn't figure out the fingers overnight did you?  I suggest a book like (recommendation here).  Get some guidance from an experienced organist or instructor so you learn it the right way. Start with the proper kind of shoes. Something narrow with thin leather soles is good. Shoes designed specifically for organ playing are available at a reasonable price at  www.organmastershoes.com.

Organ registration for pianists

The other thing that is obvious to a pianist approaching an organ console is all those knobs, buttons and switches.  They can look quite different depending on the instrument but the controls all do the same functions. For a quick start have an organist that plays the instrument regularly show you some general presets you can use. Look for a row of round numbered buttons. These buttons, usually located under the keyboards, can completely set up the organ with a single push.  The organist controls the organs volume and timbre by selecting different combinations of pipe sets to play. Each control that invokes a set of pipes is called a stop.  These controls can be knobs that are pulled out to make a sound or tabs that are flipped down to engage the sound. The ones marked 8' sound in the same octave as a piano for any given key.  The smaller numbers produce higher pitches and larger give the lower pitches.   See Organ Registration Basics for a more detailed discussion of this topic.

Pianists can become good organists

The organ is certainly more complex than a piano but these complexities can be understood.  The musical skills you already know such as notation reading, fingering, music theory, listening skills and expressive playing will all be useful in learning to play the organ.  An experienced pianist can advance rapidly and master essential organ technique much faster than an absolute beginner.