Stainer's Organ method

I have been working on Stainer's organ finger substitutions for sixths and thirds. These are a real challenge for me but as othe things assigned by my teacher, I see the need. Other past challenges like these have done wonderful things for my playing.

Griffith Beach organ

I am going to play a 3/24 Griffith Beach theatre organ in someone's home this Saturday during an open console. It will be interesting to hear how it sounds. I will have to practice hand registering.

Turkish Towel

I have been looking for the music for "Turkish Towel" by Sammy Fain and I acquired a copy of "Turkish Towel Rag." Normally I could not attempt to play the original piano music from a rag. But I can make an acceptable shot at this one. It is in the key of C so it will be easy to work out an organ arrangement.

Look Lively

I have been working on creating a lead sheet for "Look Lively" by Billy Mayerl from a blurry photocopy. The tedious part is entering the lead line in my music transcription software, Encore. After that comes the challenge of figuring out the chords.

Christmas Music

OMG I had forgotten how many sheets of Christmas music I had on my iPad (in the old format.). The program has been upgraded to use PDF files but.. That means I have to load each song individually into the program and the re-save the file. I just worked at it for almost an hour and I crashed. I am more than halfway done so it should be finished tomorrow. Phew!

A Cuckoo In The Nest

After several years of searching, I finally acquired an old blurry, copy of a copy of "A Cuckoo In The Nest", a piano song which Sidney Torch made popular on the organ. I have been working on my own organ arrangement. The first draft is finished... Some of the chords need tweeking.

Also think I have a lead on "March of the Blue Marionette" and Verandando... We will see. It is a shame when this old music disappears.

Quest for Music

I have long been a fan of Sidney Torch's novelty numbers that he recorded in England in the 1930s and 1940s. One of my favorites which I thought was approachable to me and my playing ability is "A Cuckoo in a Nest." After much digging and asking around, I acquired a copy of a copy of the original piano music. It is quite blurry, but I think I will be able to create a lead sheet play on the organ. I am excited... now for the work of entering into my music transcription program (Encore) so I can print out a nice copy.

Ipod Music

My old MP3 player died and with it my entire CD collection (over 350 CDs) which I had transferred to it. I was going to get an ipod and then save what I needed on iTunes, but came up with a better idea. I purchased a larger chip (32 G) for my Android phone and am transferring the theatre organ CDs to it and also my iPad. Also.. I am not copying the entirety of each CD... only the songs I want.. some I have only downloaded 2 or 3 songs.. others the whole CD.. This way I will have just what I want.

Chesterfield Brass Band, Inc.

I am always on the search for the music of certain song which are out of print. One was "A Soldier on the Shelf." I recently found an incredible place on-line. It is a membership library of old band music... they are trying to save the old arrangements and tunes. There is a yearly fee, plus a fee for each arrangement you borrow. They had a band arrangement of "A Soldier On the Shelf" and it has been a great exercise in transcribing it to a piano/organ arrangement -- this one does not even have a conductor's score. It is coming along great. I will have to scan their catalog of old novelty band numbers to rent others.. before my yearly fee expires. If you are interested,
www.chatfieldband.lib.mn.us

Just another source

Inter-Library Loan

I have a list of songs of out-of-print music that I have been trying to acquire for a long time. I just tried inter-library loan and got the piano music for a song Sidney Torch recorded - "Something About a Soldier." I will try some more requests through this mode and see what happens.

Middletown, NY Paramount Organ

I went up to play this wonderful organ at open console. This instrument is perfectly suited to the space and it has a Kurzweil electronic piano connected to it which sounds pretty good. I enjoyed playing it but had some trouble with the piston settings. I guess I am just to used to the ones I have set up on the two organs I play. They started a second round of open console, and my playing of "The Boy next door" came out much better than my earlier pieces. It took a while to get used to the Wurlitzer pedals which appear to be a different spacing than the standard AGO which Allen uses.

Themed performance

This past week was the first time I was able to do a entire concert at Bristol Glen based on a theme. I did it in honor of the hurricane. I started with storm and rain songs... followed by a couple of rainbow songs... ending with sun songs. Some the songs I kind of stretched to fit in the category (like "When Sunny Gets Blue") but the residents enjoyed it all.

My Old Flame

My Old Flame...I am not talking about a former friend but a luscious song. I recently found it and the tune has a sexy, haunting melody.

Making Recordings on the LL324 Midi Assiatant

One the of the residents who knows how to use the midi assistant for playback asked me to record all the songs from my last week's concert before their Wednesday night movie. That would have thrown me into a tizzy before (I am not a professional musician) but as of today I have already recorded 5 of the songs. I must be more confident with my playing. What is nice to sit in the back of the room and listen to yourself play. Each session, I ran through the song once and then just played it through, recoding it. They were all keepers. While there were no glaring mistakes, I heard things in my technique and registrations where I could improve. I guess I should record more often.

Piston Settings

I play two Allen theatre organs organs on a regular basis (LL324 and my Q311sp) and have tried to keep their pistons the same so I do not get confused. I thought this was kind of cheating... until I listed to Walt Strony on the ATOS/Allen theatre organ DVDs. He said that he tries to set up the pistons of all the theatre organs he plays in the same general layout.

After listening to he DVDs and having used (and modified) my piston set up for almost two years, I have some up with one set of pistons (for my memory on the Bristol Glen LL324 and my 311 at home.) It is a combination of my tastes along with Walt Strony & Simon Gledhill suggestions from the DVDs.

It took a while to tweak settings on my organ at home (in the meantime I discovered one of my pistons was not working correctly) and I thought I had it set up fine on the LL324. Well, after playing my usual Wednesday night concert there, I had several sound balance problems. Yesterday I went over to Bristol Glen with my usual type of music and I worked hard for about an hour on the pedal/accomp/great/solo balances. Hopefully this will is the way I like it for when I play my usual pre-movie concert next Wednesday night at Bristol Glen.

Ray Bohr & the Radio City Music Hall Organ

I was excited when I finally found a CD of Ray Bohr at the RCMH organ on Amazon.com of all places. Unfortunately, it is a terrible recording. It has the up-front-in-your-face recording of George Wright recordings with none of the quality of his recording. I think it was miked from inside the chambers. If you see the recording, do not get it.

Bach Fake Book

Yup, you read that correctly! I was searching for an arrangement of "Come Sweet Death" that I could play when I found the "Bach Fake Book" published by Cherry Lane. It is interesting to improvise from. It would also be good if one was trying to make arrangement (perhaps for choir) out of one of Bach's tunes. Each piece has a lead line (sometimes intermixed with a second part .. after it was originally polyphonic music.) Many of the chords also have other bass notes than the first inversion of the chord.. for example Fm7/Ab. It may be something you want to look at.

O Mio Babbino Caro

I recently performed in a choral concert which sang "O Mio Babino Caro"by Pucinni from Gianni Schicchi. I have been working on an organ arrangement of it. The song is a wonderfully lyrical melody and will be great when I work it out.

I do not write out my arrangements but work from the piano music which I purchased online at www.freehandmusic.com.

Lafayette Theatre in Suffern, NY

I played the 2/11 organ at the Lafayette Theatre in Suffern, Ny this past Saturday. It is the first 2 manual organ I have played in a while. It has an interesting installation. The console is in the stage left balcony and there is only one chamber which is stage right. That way the organist gets to hear a balanced sound from the organ.

Vintage Music

I have purchased a bunch of vintage music.

In order to get "There's A Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder", I found an Al Jolson book which also included "My Mammy" which I will use for Mothers' Day.

I also have been finding a lot of Shirley Temple music that I was not aware that she sang.
Goodnight my love
and this fun tune I never heard of
You've Got to eat your spinach, Baby.
Also, I finally found the music for this trumpet novelty song which she sang and danced with Bo Jangles.
Toy Trumpet.

For Shirley Temple, when I find the songs, I can look on Youtube to see how she performed them.

Songs For Mother's Day

This Wednesday at Bristol Glen I will play two "mother" songs in honor of Mother's Day this past weekend.

My Mammy
M-O-T-H-E-R

Wish I had more.

Piano/Organ lessons

My piano/organ lessons with John Barratta have been and continue to be a big help. I can see improvement. I try to practice the Hanon and Czerny daily. I have also started working on classical pedaling technique (heel and toe - with my organ shoes.) This has been a struggle but it is coming along.

MusicReader update

The computer program and app in which I store my performance printed music had a major update. There were some bugs as usually with any update, but www.musicreader.biz people were very helpful and responded with corrections. I really like the program.

One thing I will be doing.. since ipad screen is smaller than normal sized glasses I will be getting "organ glasses." They will have a focus length of 30" (I measured the distance from my eyes to the music rack at Bristol Glen) and also will have some magnification. I figure that distance should be fine if I ever play on a 4 manual (or larger) console since the eye doctor said they will a leeway of 10-12 inches. We will see how they work

Woody Woodpecker theme

Last week I acquired several pieces of vintage sheet music from Kampko among which was the theme from the Woody Woodpecker cartoon. It is fun to play. I played it at Bristol Glen this week asking them to guess what it was. I got several cheers of "Woody Woodpecker."

Kampko Vintage Sheet Music Shoppe

I have spent a lot of time this week looking through the online catalog of Kampko. They have vintage sheet music from the 1800s up through the 1980s. It is a great source for out of print music. I placed two orders and can't wait for them to arrive.

www.kampko.com

MusicReader software upgrade

The MusicReader software I use to display my printed music when I play is supposed to be releasing a significant upgrade this week. I have been waiting anxiously for it.

If you are interested, you get get more information at...
www.musicreader.biz

On a Little Street in Sinapore

When I heard a recording of an organ arrangement of "On a Little Street in Singapore" I thought it was a great tune but not like the arrangement. I have finally made a simple, yet haunting arrangement of it which I really like. Hopefully the people at Bristol Glen will like it.

Middletown Paramount

I drove up to Middletown, NY to hear John Baratta play the silent film, "Steamboat Bill" at the Middletown Paramount. He did a wonderful job and the organ sounds great. It is a 3/12 Wurlitzer and I was invited to go up and play it when our schedules could link up.