The Basic Skills for Organ Improvisation

Master  Chord Theory and Usage

For most church music purposes you will need to be able to :

1. Recognize the chord form a four-part harmony
2. Know all the positions and inversions of the chord
3. Play blocked chords and arpeggio patterns with both hands
4. Fill in chords under a melody line
5. Know the major, minor, dominant 7th, diminished 7th and augmented chords in all keys
6. Play a pedal part based on the recognized chord.

Understand the basics of counterpoint harmony

Being able to at least improvise two-part counterpoint containing a melody and a counter-melody will add much to your organ performance. You can just play the simple two-part pieces or work the counter melody into a larger accompaniment scheme.

Know your organ's stops and registrations

Get a good feel for the volume and clarity of each stop and combination you will be using. Know how the stops mix, what will be heard and how loud the overall effect will be. Learn how to use any combination action feature your organ may have. Read the article Organ Registration Basics for an introduction to this topic.

Develop a "Bag of Musical Tools"

Use you ears to identify interesting chord patterns and sequences. Glean these from written arrangements, organ works or anywhere else you run across them.  Practice these patterns in all keys and meters. Try different accompaniment patterns. Learn some bass line fills and block chord patterns also.

Train Your Ear

This is about understanding the music that you hear.  The better your ability to mentally label and organize the music you hear, the better you can translate it into organ improvisation. Learn to identify melodic and harmonic intervals by their sound, then chords and rhythm patterns. Eventually you will be able to form a mental image of what you want to do and be able to realize it at the organ console.

Be Able to "Sight Analyze" a Four-part Hymn Score

Using your knowledge of notation, chord and melody structure, be able to isolate the melody, chord and  bass parts. Once you understand the components of the song it is easy to arrange them differently. Most hymns use simple structures so this should become easy after a little practice. Recognizing major, minor and seventh chords in all positions and inversions will get you a long way down this path.

Original article