Well, folks, I did it. I turned on the organ at church.
Not only that, I played it! I know! I am by no means ready to play for church (I still have to determine what settings I like and how the pedals fit into all this - which will take more coordination that I currently possess), but that first step is past. Whew!
I've wanted to learn the organ for as long as I can remember. When I was little, I was fascinated by the organ at church. Our organist, Marjorie, was an outstanding musician, and when church was over and she was playing the postlude, I'd go stand by the organ and watch her play. When she was done, I helped her flip the switches up - big time when you're six.
I wish I could play as well as she could. She was able to play by ear, which is definitely a gift and one I don't have. If it's written on the page, I can usually pound it out, but just picking out a tune and making it sound like a concert piece? Only in my dreams.
Music has been a part of my life for, well, the last (insert age here - you guess 'cause I'm not going to tell you) years. I remember listening to records when I was growing up. We (my brothers and I) would beg Mom to put our favorite records on the record player, and we'd sit by the speaker so we didn't miss a single note. We listened to the Lettermen, the Carpenters, the Percy Faith Strings, Sesame Street, the Smothers Brothers and others. We learned all the words and would sing along. I would try to make my voice sound like whoever was singing, whether it was Karen Carpenter or little Dicky Smothers, as his brother called him.
We had our favorites, of course. If we could have listened to the Smothers Brothers and Bill Cosby every day, we probably would have. We loved the Lettermen, too, especially the Alive Again album on which they sang MacArthur Park. We never stopped to consider how strange the lyrics are, we just sang them at the top of our lungs. Imagine kids ages 8, 6 and 4 singing "MacArthur Park is melting in the dark, all the sweet green icing flowing down. Someone left the cake out in the rain. I don't think that I can take it, 'cause it took so long to make it (or bake it, I'm not sure), and I'll never have that recipe again. Oh no!" And we'd hit the high notes, too.
Choir was one of my favorite classes at school. I still remember learning how to sing parts using "Hang On Sloopy." Once I got into high school, I got to accompany the swing choir and the choir on a couple songs, which was a lot of fun. Being an accompanist was no big deal because I played for Sunday school, church and sometimes special music. But the choir music was a bit more, shall we say, up-tempo than what we'd sing in church.
So I guess you could say I've come full circle. Now the challenge is to start a new circle - which I did today when I turned the organ on.
