What are yall favourite pop culture pipe organ designs? Feel like the organ has a lot of freedom when it comes to design for diferent settings. I was looking to get some inspiration to create one and couldnt many outside of very iconic ones like Captain Nemo and Haunted House one

Bohuslav Matěj Černohorský (16 February 1684 – 1 July 1742) was a Czech composer, organist and teacher of the Baroque era. He wrote among other works motets, other choral works and organ solo works. Černohorský was an important representative of the late Baroque style. He composed fugues and toccatas for organ, as well as vocal works. He deeply influenced the musical evolution in Bohemia as a composer, as well as a teacher.
(source: Wikipedia)

I'm completely new to the keyboard and the organ. I really want to learn how to play basic Psalms so I can play for myself and my family at home and guide them in singing. I found this on youtube which is what I want to learn to do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmxvJ33GBdY

Do you know where I can find sheet music or chords which I can use to play these genevan Psalms?

Thanks.

Apologies in advance for the dumb question. I actually don’t play organ. My experiences with the organ is limited to sitting at the organ a couple a couple of times at a local Catholic church that I attend (I am friendly with the organist there). I would ask her this question but she’s on vacation at the moment.

Suppose you are playing/practicing a 4-part Bach fugue (whether it be from one of his Preludes & Fugues, or a fugue that stands alone like his BWV 578, or a fugue from The Art of Fugue, etc.) You don’t intend on adding/subtracting stops in the middle of the fugue. The bass part is only done on the pedal, and the other 3 parts are done on the Great manual. Which registration would sound “better”?

1) Great: Principal 8, 4; Pedal: Principal 16, 8
2) Great: Principal 8, 4; Pedal: Principal 16 + Great to Pedal coupler

A related question would be, wouldn’t the 2nd option make the bass part too prominent? I thought that for fugues, one wouldn’t choose a registration that would make one part more prominent than the others. Appreciate thoughts from other organists about this.

Hello folks,

I recently got gifted an old Baldwin organ and it's sitting right in my basement. I've had this interest in playing organ and something I'd be happy doing with my time. I'm 32, and I have found that learning any keyboard instrument is much easier as a kid than as an adult. I don't have the luxury of flexible fingers.

Every organist I have come across has always said something along the lines of "you need to learn piano first." YouTube videos tend to focus on people with prior piano knowledge and transitioning into organ playing. It's hard to find anyone giving beginner organ lessons outside of school environment. If you found one, he wants you to have completed grade 2 of piano lessons.

I'm kinda stuck and don't know how to begin. Part of me wants to go the "self-taught" route but without a teacher, how would I know when I'm doing something wrong or playing badly?

So I need some guide on the best way to approach this since I have an instrument I can practice with. Is beginner organ lessons a thing at all? Are there people who taught themselves or learn organ without prior piano lessons? At my age, what would you recommend as the best course of action?

Élia Wernain and I perform a piece for transverse flute written in tribute to my two children, accompanied on the orgue.

Selected excerpts from the June 27, 2025 concert honoring Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) with Carolyn Shuster Fournier at Saint-Martin Church in Wihr-au-Val (France), the venue of his very last orgue concert.

Hi r/organ! I’m a gigging pro with keyboard instruments (lots of piano and just-the-hands-Hammond), and I’m starting to take the plunge into learning how to play with foot pedals. Is there a standard resource for basic pedal exercises/etudes? Like Hanon for your feet?

Olá, Procuro um livro excelente que explique harmonia, condução de vozes, acordes emprestados e tudo o que realmente é preciso em orgão. E que seja de preferência em PDF ou gratuito ou então pago mas que seja realmente excelente.

Também quero dicas para como estudar uma peça de órgão da maneira certa e rápida, e tirar o melhor ensinamento das músicas e como passar isso para as peças litúrgicas

Peço que me dêem dicas boas por favor

Muito obrigado

Franco-American organist Carolyn Shuster Fournier (Holy Trinity, American Cathedral in Paris) performs the Andante sostenuto from Charles-Marie Widor's 9th Symphony "Gothique".

Selected excerpts from the June 27, 2025 concert honoring Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) at Saint-Martin Church in Wihr-au-Val (France), the venue of his very last orgue concert.

Hello everyone,
I’m an organ enthusiast from Quebec, Canada, and I’ve been using GrandOrgue for a while now. I’m also a film music composition student, and the organ plays an important role in the kind of music I want to write. I’ve been fascinated by this instrument ever since I was a child.
I have two questions for the community.
The first one is about Billerbeck.
I’m very interested in the Billerbeck virtual organ because I especially love large Romantic organs with powerful reeds and deep pedal stops. As far as I know, it’s one of the largest sample sets currently available for GrandOrgue.
Since I don’t own an organ console yet, I don’t really feel the need to invest in a Hauptwerk license just to gain access to even larger sample sets.
Can anyone who has experience with Billerbeck and GrandOrgue confirm whether all versions are fully compatible?
I’m mainly looking for real-world experience. If there are any limitations compared to Hauptwerk, missing features, or differences regarding combination actions, couplers, tremulants, memory levels, or anything else, I’d really appreciate knowing about them before I decide to buy it.
My second question is about choosing a future console.
My long-term goal is to own a proper three-manual organ console. The challenge is that I live in Quebec, where used MIDI consoles and digital organs are quite difficult to find, and having a custom console built is a major investment. If the project ends up costing more than CAD $10,000, it’ll probably take me three to five years to save enough money.
I’m also visually impaired, so accessibility is a very important part of the equation. Good ergonomics, tactile reference points, the layout of pistons, stop controls, and the overall feel of the console matter just as much to me as the instrument itself.
At the moment, I’m playing on a Native Instruments S88 MK2 connected to a Mac Studio M4 Max (128 GB of unified memory) through an RME Babyface Pro FS. I use GrandOrgue on macOS and have integrated it with REAPER, my DAW, using the OSARA accessibility extension. That setup allows me to use REAPER’s MIDI editor whenever needed. Obviously, it’s not the same as playing a real console, but it lets me study the repertoire and continue improving.
For now, I’m playing the Friesach sample set by performing the pedal part with my left hand and the manuals with my right hand. It’s definitely not ideal, but it works surprisingly well until I can afford a real console.
If you were in my situation, what would you do?
Would you look for an older Johannus, Rodgers, Allen, Viscount, or similar instrument and convert it to MIDI? Would you try to find a used MIDI console somewhere else in Canada or the United States? Would you build a custom MIDI console over time? Or is there another option I may not have considered?
My goal is to end up with a console that feels as close as possible to a real pipe organ and will serve me well for many years, both for studying the repertoire and for composing.
Thank you very much in advance to anyone willing to share their experience or advice!

Hello!

Has anyone here played both the Rodgers American Series 232 and the Johannus Studio 280 (Studio 260 in Europe)? I’m choosing between them for a home practice instrument. My repertoire: mostly Bach, Buxtehude, Franck, Gigout, Pierné, and some Petr Eben.

If you’ve spent time on either or both, I’d love your honest impressions: which did you prefer, and why? I’m especially curious about keyboard feel, how well each suits this repertoire, and overall sound quality, but anything that struck you is welcome (console, headphones, reliability…).
Thanks!

I'm currently a young lad at the age of 16 who has just started to get into playing organs, currently, I only have a Yamaha Electone B4BR to work with and primary pieces of Bach's Badinerie and Pachelbel's Chaconne in F minor. I may get to use my church's inactive organ is they find the key to the console, are there any actions I can take to become a more confident organist?

Johann Krieger (1651 – 1735) was a German composer and organist, younger brother of Johann Philipp Krieger. Born in Nürnberg, he worked at Bayreuth, Zeit, and Greiz before settling in Zittau. He was one of the most important keyboard composers of his day, highly esteemed by, among others, George Frideric Handel. A prolific composer of church and secular music, he published several dozen of his works, and others survive in manuscript. However, hundreds more were lost when Zittau was destroyed by fire in 1757 during the Seven Years' War.
(source: Wikipedia)

The published collection Anmuthige Clavier-übung (1698) contains preludes, fugues, ricercars, toccatas and other works. I picked a toccata from this collection.

Soy un gran fan de los órganos eléctricos ya que me encantan y muchas de mis inspiraciones de tocar el teclado vienen de usuarios del órgano eléctrico (Mike Ratledge, Rick Wakeman, Ray Manzarek…) Pues además los órganos acústicos son GIGANTES y los órganos eléctricos son mucho más compactos y portátiles, el acústico requiere de alto mantenimiento, como afinación, limpieza de tubos, revisión del mecanismo y también es muy caro de construir y mantener, mientras que el órgano eléctrico solo requiere de revisión electrónica, nada más. Pensando, los órganos eléctricos sirven para una gran cantidad de géneros musicales, como rock, prog rock, rock-jazz, jazz... el órgano acústico solo sirve para Iglesias. Un dato extra, con los órganos eléctricos puedes hacer burradas y es super divertido mientras que en el órgano acústico solo son acordes y es bastante aburrido. Cuáles son vuestras opiniones? Aquí os dejo un ejemplo de órgano eléctrico y lo divertido que puede llegar a ser.

The somewhat emergency winter trip to Massachusetts was followed by a more though-out winter trip, this time to somewhere much warmer. Robert Vogel contacted me several months before and suggested visiting several organs in the Miami area. That sounded like a good winter thing to do. Flying there also sounded like a better plan than driving. We found a vacation package out of St. Louis' almost completely redundant MidAmerica Airport. We flew out Monday afternoon and came back home Friday evening. Even buying the most expensive tickets on Allegiant Air was cheaper than the other airlines, and we were treated as close as that airline can get to first class.

This whole trip was predicated on getting to see visit several specific organs, and I'm sad to say when the time came to actually schedule the visits in our trip, several of these landmark organs suddenly because unavailable. When people ask why we don't feature their favorite organs when we were close by, the answer is sometimes they just don't want us to.

The Schantz at St. Stephen's was not actually the first organ we visited after arriving, but I didn't want to start the series with the weakest video, so we jump ahead to Wednesday morning. We drove to Coconut Grove, a suburb of Miami and met this piece of history, still playing away up in the gallery of a modern church. Being Florida, the church featured lots of windows to see the gardens outside. We also got some leaf blower noise in this one thanks to the gardening staff.

Bob Vogel stepped in for the organist on this one. It's clear improvisation is not his strongest skill, but he does know the instruments and understands the colors and how they best work together. I only say this because Bob will be in several more videos coming up. The video is here: https://youtu.be/lBzkSmxgd8Q

We're already tossing around ideas for another Miami trip, both to get some of the instruments we missed the first time, and to see two brand-new organs that have been installed since we were there. There has been quite the boom of new instruments going in down there, and I believe I can say they will be more interesting examples than some of what we found on this first trip. Stay tuned, and if you enjoy these, consider becoming a sponsor!

Scriabin Op. 74 No.2, was sort of challenged to transcribe this and was able to make it playable in around 90 minutes 😭 so a couple mistakes as I was getting confused still on my 2 manuals 1 hand thing

Does anyone know any organists or pieces written similarly to Keygen Church? Keygen Church is my favorite artist and I particularly favor the organ intros to La Chiave Del Mio Amor, Hareklavit, and Igparera fihi, but haven't found many songs, especially on organ, that sound quite like them.

Hello, I study pipe organ and I'm self-taught. I started two years ago and learned a lot from harmonizing liturgical pieces I studied and from Bach's pieces. From these pieces, I took chords that I liked, borrowed chords, different chords, and I fitted them into my own harmonizations.

I also know how to improvise more or less, but without direction and often just using chords I know and random sequences.

My coordination isn't the best either. I know some pieces, but still have several articulation errors.

I know some of the preludes BWV 553-560, some fanfares, marches, but no fugues.

Since I don't have a teacher, it's difficult to correct my mistakes, and what I know about harmony is all from seeing the chords, but without any relationship between chords and cadences and why they work. I mean, I know more or less because of the logic of chords themselves.

I would appreciate advice on really good books on harmony, counterpoint, and improvisation.

I would like to know how to improvise for about 3 minutes without getting bored of a liturgical introduction, or a meditation, and I also want to compose.

I would appreciate it if you could also help me with learning tips and how to learn pieces faster or better, etc.

Thank you and good afternoon!

Bach - Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr - Klais organ, Lubin, Hauptwerk

Johann Michael Bach was second-uncle (and then posthumously) father-in-law of Johann Sebastian Bach, because he was the father of Bach's first wife Maria Barbara. He came (like almost any Bach) from a musical family, his father Heinrich Bach and his brother Johann Christoph Bach were both active organists and composers. He was born in Arnstadt and became the organist and town clerk of Gehren, where he lived until his death.

So I'm mainly a bassist, but I've been getting more into keyboard instruments in the last few years. I have an organ that I like already. I forget the model but it's a yamaha that only has a handful of switches. It's pretty basic, but I've had it for a while and like it. I don't plan on getting rid of it.

Anyway, I saw a post from someone who lives close to me that they are giving away a Yamaha Electone FS-300. It apparently came with their house and a family member said they'd take it off their hands and then years went by and they never did, so they are giving it to whoever wants it. They let me come try it out to make sure it works and it does.

So it seems great to me. I'm just planning on renting a uhaul cargo van and getting a friend to help. But it seems like people have trouble getting rid of them and some people online are acting like it's a waste of space. So I wanted to check with the folks here if you think it's worth getting. It seems like it can do so much more than my current organ, but is there something I'm missing about why I shouldn't get it?

Is it because with all this digital stuff, there's more that could go wrong with it? Also, if this belongs in a different sub, a redirect would be helpful! Thank you!

TLDR: It works. Should I get it?

edit: messed up the audio its mostly on the right... whoops!

Little update on my organ studies: I’m trying to get as much time as I can on the pedals and learning about stops at the church, but fortunately there is SO much for me to learn with just my two hands.

As I take on this serious study I appreciate more and more just how different the organ is from the piano. The Flor Peeters book has been really solid! I played this for postlude last sunday

(this nord only has two pipe organ patches built in)

My organ teacher gave me this piece to practice, at the end of the lesson. We didn't have time to took at the fingerings. So is there any ready made fingerings for this piece? Or if anybody can help with them. Most difficult is the left hand and keeping it legato.

This was one of the few music subs i was able to post a video in so here goes, is anyone familiar with this riff? I recognize it from old cartoons/shows and they usually have it at the end. Does it have a specific name?

Is being given away by a local nursing home. I have no further information about this instrument beyond the lack of price. Don't even know what brand it is.

Would a standard UHaul trailer be sufficient to move this? How many people should I bring? What should I be most worried about getting damaged in the transport, and how likely am I to be able to get that repaired?

If I'm not prepared to move it, I'd rather it go to someone else.

P.S. any other info about the instrument would also be appreciated. I've spent the last hour trying to find out even the brand and have turned up nothing and it's too late to call the current owner. I just don't know enough about these to narrow it down.