Learning to play the pipe organ feels a bit like those early driving lessons – overwhelming awkwardness bordering on mild panic, convinced you will NEVER get the hang of it, though of course, you do. But also like driving a car, you will make better progress with a few initial one-to-one lessons if you can possibly afford them.
Out of Covid has come a complete transformation in online organ teaching, once considered difficult if not impossible: online options are available from many of the links below. You still need to jump through a few hoops in terms of an internet connection, and a suitable instrument, though this can be a digital organ: it doesn’t have to be a pipe organ if you don’t have access to one.
Find a teacher
The organist at your local church (or one of your local churches or cathedral – be prepared to travel a bit) may give organ lessons. Just start asking: if they don’t actually teach themselves, they will probably know someone local who does.
The Royal College of Organists in the UK has a searchable database of accredited teachers
The American Guild of Organists (AGO) has a listing for finding an organ teacher in the United States
Due to the remoteness of populations in Canada, the Royal Canadian Organists Association (RCCO) has a well-developed distance learning programme
Local Organists’ Assocations in the UK run their own training schemes: search their individual websites via the IAO Regions map. Often the schemes are aimed at training the next generation of church organists, and sometimes they include bursaries or other financial help for young organists.
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- Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Young Organists Training Scheme
- Halifax Organ Academy
- Diocese of Hereford Organists Training Scheme
- Pipe Up! Diocese of Exeter
- Surrey Organ Student Scheme
- The Bromley and Croydon Organists’ Association are making awards towards free organ tution for beginner organists aged from 7-21
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Teaching yourself
Learning to play the organ from a book is a bit like trying to learn to drive using a book – though you can learn lots from books once you have a grasp of the basics. Organ tutor books by the great and the good of the organ world from the nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries lurk online and in secondhand listings, but should be treated with caution. Although sound in many ways, they hold to ideas about music which have been superceded by wider modern attitudes to organ repertoire and performance practice.
Probably the best current organ tutor book for teaching yourself is The New Oxford Organ Method, published in 2020, by Anne Marsden Thomas and Frederick Stocken (both RCO Accredited Teachers). It teaches technique through appropriate pieces right from the beginning, and is suitable for the beginner as well as someone who who wants to refresh their organ-playing skills.
Anne and Frederick’s book, and the older organ tutor books, are for someone who can already read music – perhaps studied piano for a bit and can find their way around a keyboard. If that’s not you –
Go to First Stop! at www.firststoporgan.com where you can download Fingers and Feet, a tutor book is designed specifically for those starting the organ from scratch, including learners with no previous keyboard background. It’s free, along with a suite of 34 short films that guide learners through posture, movement and first musical steps. (I’ve written more about First Stop! here.)
YouTube organ tutorials? Yes, be totally inspired by performances you find on YouTube! – we all are. But a YouTube tutor isn’t watching over your shoulder as you play, checking your posture, correcting your hands and feet, pointing out the wrong notes, commenting on your choice of registration… the organ is such a complex instrument, that thinking you can learn just from watching videos is a recipe for false confidence until you develop the skills and experience to accurately critique your own performances.
Emergency skills
The following will help you survive, and develop your confidence as a performing organist, if you’re thrown in at the deep end:
My pianist to organist resources on repertoire, and playing for services, weddings and funerals for the first time
Philip Norman’s Organists’ Toolkit for beginner organists
The Reluctant Organist focusses on developing your pedal technique, and hymn playing, for beginner church organists