Worshippers enter the church interior, the pastor makes a call to worship and they introduce the service’s opening hymn. Striking yet warm sound engulfs the church as the organist begins to play, stretching their limbs across several keyboards.
The organ is a keyboard instrument that consists of generally two to five manuals — keyboards played with the hands — as well as a pedalboard for playing with the feet, all connected to several pipes for producing sound. Zoe Bondi (10) has played the instrument for two years and primarily performs at the Holy Communion Episcopal Church.
“On the sides [of the organ], it has sets of stops (controls that determine which ranks of pipes will sound),” Bondi said. “You engage the stops by pulling them out usually, and that connects the keyboards to a set of pipes. So you can connect a few different sets of pipes to the keyboard, and that makes it so that those pipes play when you press the keys on the keyboard.”
Bondi’s primary instrument is the piano, which they have played for eight years. Given the instruments’ similarity, Bondi was encouraged to learn how to play the organ before they officially began practicing.
“One of my music teachers, who is involved in a lot of ways in my life — she’s an organist — and has been encouraging me to take organ lessons for a long time, so I made time to do it,” Bondi said. “[The organ] seems like the next step up from piano because it’s a lot easier to do something productive with the organ; for the piano, you can only really be a performer for these big concerts, but for organ, it’s a lot easier to accompany a choir or perform in a church service.”
Due to the multiple keyboards on the instrument, an immediate challenge of playing the organ is being able to handle the extensive hand-eye coordination required. Furthermore, the pipes connected to the organ require the performer to operate the instrument differently for both style and technique than they would on a piano.
“You have to focus on a lot more stuff with the organ [than on the piano],” Bondi said. “It’s not just having coordination between your hands and your feet; you also have to have balance on the bench. It’s difficult to stay properly situated on the bench while trying to manipulate your hands and your feet. It’s also interesting because there are no dynamics — there’s no softness or loudness — because the pipes are all either going to play or not play. You can’t change dynamics just by how hard you press.”
The organ is one of the oldest instruments still used in contemporary European classical music. Historically, the organ has most often been used in church settings, and many of its most well-known pieces were written by Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach and by various French 19th-century composers.
“Since the organ is a lot less popular … there’s many fewer pieces that are just ‘popular’ music,” Bondi said. “You couldn’t find video game music; most of the pieces on the organ are going to be classical music and a lot of church music because the organ is very much a church instrument.”
Having attended church for all of her life, Bondi has been exposed to countless church hymns and melodies. They are now able to play many of these familiar pieces on the organ, putting memories to music.
“It’s nice to be able to play some of those hymns and pieces that I’ve known for so long fully on the organ,” Bondi said. “You can always translate them to piano, but you’re missing something without the pedal. There’s a lot of times where there’s a big gap that can never be bridged by your hands; you really need the foot pedalboard.”
In conventional church services, the organ often plays with a church choir. However, this type of collaborative playing requires a higher level of skill than solo performance does, necessitating more experience and practice before it can be attempted.
“True organists would usually be accompanied by choirs, but … my organ teacher isn’t comfortable letting me [play] with a choir because it’s a lot more difficult to have to focus on both your own playing and sometimes be messed up by the choir,” Bondi said. “So I mostly do for now just the start and the end piece in a service.”
For most instruments, practicing at home is a primary way to improve one’s skill. Due to the organ being fixed in place, extremely expensive and physically massive, practice opportunities are typically less plentiful than they are for other instruments.
“The main unfortunate thing about organ is that you really can’t practice at home,” Bondi said. “Even if you didn’t have to have all of these pipes, it’s still three keyboards and stops and the foot keyboard. So, I have to borrow space from whatever church is willing to let me [practice]. Currently, I practice two days a week for 45 minutes to an hour at Holy Communion Episcopal Church.”
In addition to playing the organ at her church, Bondi is a member of the youth leadership group, the volunteer audition choir and the vestry. Though not a full member of the vestry, they nevertheless can provide some input on how their church is managed.
“I am a youth representative [of the vestry], which means that I attend all the meetings [and] I can propose ideas and such,” Bondi said. “I don’t get to vote on any topics. The vestry is somewhat similar to the nonprofit board for a church, so they manage the finances and hiring people and events.”
Currently, Bondi plans to continue playing the organ and performing with her church.
“I haven’t fully planned out [my future with the organ], but I assume I’ll keep going with it as long as I have time,” Bondi said. “I was considering a music minor just because I have a lot of [Advanced Placement] classes, so I’d have time for it and it seems fun.”
