Organ Improvisation Tips

Improvising Preludes

Imagine with me for a moment, it's Saturday evening and this week I worked a full-time job, spent a few hours relaxing, had some quality family time, did some household chores, took care of my personal business and realized, oh no! I don't have anything ready for Sunday morning prelude.  I could play that old arrangement for the 30th time or just play the parts to something out of  the hymn book.  Neither of these ideas are great but what else is there?  What I would play is a structured, improvised hymn or gospel tune.

When improvising on the organ, having an overall plan will give your piece direction and momentum. You want to take the listener on a musical journey. The organ allows you a lot of flexibility to choose a plan for your improvisation.  Taking into consideration the character of the theme song, decide on a overall course for the improvisation. Here are some plans that you could use:

1. Start soft and end loud
2. Start soft, get louder then end soft
3. Start medium loud, go soft and end loud
4. Start simple and end complex
5. Start simple, get complex then end simple

  For a meditative work, for example "Sweet Hour of Prayer",  plan 2 would work well by itself or combined with plan 5. Here is a description of what I might do.   Start with a four measure chord series on a soft string stop, Next bring in a soft reed melody solo, an oboe would work well. This could continue for the whole verse or may go to a flute duet on the 3rd phrase.  Next an optional string interlude precedes a second verse with a medium foundation stop voicing an a four-part hymn style setting. The third and final verse would be a "development" section. Maybe stretch out the timing with an arpeggiated flute accompaniment and   the melody on diapason 8' with 1 and 1/3 ' stop then return to the original setting for a quiet coda close. There are endless possibilities of course so be creative. 

Starting soft and ending loud works well for many musical selections. Just keep adding stops along the way. I would start with strings or flutes, add their upper registers then bring in the stronger foundation stops. By the final bars a full organ will be drawn saving a few louder reeds for the final punch. At the same time increase the rhythmic intensity and chord complexity end with a few solid full chords at double the time value. If you have this basic scheme ready to go then you can just let the particulars fall into place as you play.

The loud, softer then louder format is good for a bold theme that just needs a little rest in the middle to allow for a dynamic and climatic finish.

Another technique is to start simply. A solo melody on a single stop to start would be followed by a duet, then trio and finally four or more voices. Add some rich chords or altered timing to the full section. You could end full or scale back to a simple melody for the end.

If you have chimes, find an balanced accompaniment registration and play a stanza. Try playing "responsively". Alternate phrases or chimes and organ pipe sound.

Most hymn and gospel tunes are fairly simple in character so consider playing the melody in the pedals using just a 4' stop. This frees up your hands for some impressively florid arpeggios which are actually quite easy to execute with both hands on one manual.

I recorded this sample hymn improvisation on my Miditzer^(tm) virtual organ: