How do i play on an organ?

Some help but wouldn’t it be a personal thing what hand you use where and what not , and if you can’t / don’t play organ shouldn’t you just play piano to be safe ?

Using the stops on the sides of the organ you can assign the instruments that the organ will emulate on each keyboard. It’s probably safest to put both hands on the same keyboard. An organ also has foot pedals that allow you to play low notes with your feet. It takes a lot of coordination to play all this at once, so you should probably stay away from these without any practice.

Too tempting.

@pdworkin thank you for your restraint

@pdworkin Eh, “too easy” is what I say.

Use your head to play!
IT’S THE ONLY WAY
Don’t mind the blood coming out of your head, that just means to play more.
Practice makes perfect

Talk to the church organist who regularly plays there. Each organ is different, and has different strengths, weaknesses, and quirks, and the regular organist is the best one to advise you on them.

Basically, each keyboard (“manual”) can be linked to a different combination of pipes—so you could set one manual to be flutey and reedy, and another manual to be brassy and bright, and alternate verses in a hymn that way. Also, you can often set combinations to be remembered, and hit a button in between verses to change the combination of pipes for each verse.

All of this is also true of the pedals, but if you don’t have any organ experience, you’re probably better off avoiding them entirely.

Depending on the size of the organ, there may also be a swell box connected to one of the manuals—a big wooden box with the pipes inside, connected to a pedal that opens louvers in the side of the box. If you close the louvers entirely, the sound will be distant and muffled, and you can use the pedal to put in a crescendo.

Also, there may be other divisions of pipes—in large churches, it’s common to have at least one rank of pipes elsewhere in the church, so that the organ can call and respond to itself. Depending on the organ, there may also be chimes or bells.

Again, the best person to instruct you on all of this is the church organist who knows the organ best. It’s unlikely that he or she will be all that happy about letting you play the organ without a meeting first, so the sooner you set it up, the better.

I suggest you find a very good instruction book, or illustrated online instructions and practice every minute you have. Maybe you could convince the regular organist to give you some quick lessons.

@Grisaille, you have a point.

@cwilbur went there on tip toe.

It’s a different instrument with different techniques. Your keyboard skills won’t just transfer over. I wouldn’t recommend trying this without lessons.

@galileogirl: yes, it’s all about heel-toe-heel-toe-heel-toe.

Also, the size and shape of the pipe determines the quality of the result.

“Also, the size and shape of the pipe determines the quality of the result.”

(And to think I always thought it isn’t the size of the dingy that counts, but the motion of the ocean! Those LIARS!)

Depending on your piano skills, I would tend to agree with Jeruba. The only similarity between organ and piano is the keyboard.

How much time do you have to learn the organ technique? Have you played other keyboards (synthesizer, etc.)? I’ve played various keyboards most of my life, and while I consider myself a very good accordionist, I still have a lot to go to bring my piano skills up to the point that I can perform.

If the music your aunt wants played is within your technical range on the piano, I would still allow for several months of intense practice. Your knowledge of scales and chords will serve you well, but you will have to work on reading and interpreting another line of music, as well as a completely different system of expression using the expression pedal to control the volume.