$120 Oil Ahead?

Hi guys, this is Vidas. Hello, Shah. Let's start episode 769 of Secret of Organ playing podcast. This question was sent by Mark and he writes, "Dear Vidas, thank you for your podcast, which I have found very enlightening." We have both a podcast, so. Maybe your podcast is enlightening and mine is not. Because I'm too realistic and too often putting no people and Vidas down to earth. Down to earth, yeah. So my question has to do with improvisation. As a church organist, I have an opportunity to improvise at least once during every Sunday's service. I've been working hard on improving my improvisation skills over the past two years and I would call myself a capable improviser. But lately I have found myself repeating the same formulas from week to week, often rule of the octave or romanesque progressions which my hands fall into very easily. Any advice for breaking away from these familiar patterns and exploring new territory, thanks, Mark, galupin music at YouTube. So guys, that's the question that Mark has written or so. What do you think? Well, I guess this question was addressed to you. But you know, if I would have to break from my own patterns, I think often improvisation is basically related to our memory, our motoric memory and in order to break from it, you need to create new memories. Or to memorize new patterns. Very good advice. If you want something unexpected, new fresh, you have to create new memories. It's like sometimes people with old age tend to speak only about the past, right? Because they remember better what happened not yesterday, not last year, but decades ago, when they were young. And that's probably not natural aging process, how our brain works. But partly it's because people forget to make new memories also. And get stuck with pleasant or less pleasant old memories of the past, when they were young. So not sure how Mark have learned improvisation, right? Was it through counterpoint or maybe continue playing? Because the rule of the octave is from the continua. Romanesque progressions could be also from continua. So that's one way to do it. But as Oshasas maybe try something new, right? Something new that you haven't done before. And maybe the way to do it is exploring new repertoire. Yeah, because you know, repertoire teaches a lot of things. Repertors teaches us how to compose music, how to improvise music and how to perform music. And even if you like progressions that were created beforehand and you just play variations on those progressions like Romanesque or Berga Maska or Folly or similar patterns, maybe look at composers that fascinate you. And I'm sure you will find 50 more progressions that they use. And just steal some of them, right? Yes, that's a good suggestion. Let's now drink some water. Drink some water from our secrets. And listen some. A secrets of organ playing, mugged, and listen to Oshas music in the background. So have you ever been in a situation Oshas where you felt that you needed to refresh your skills to get into new territory? Let's see. From for improvisation, how composition? Yes, and well, I think the worst thing was and the most exciting thing was when we were giving an interview for Polish TV in our church and actually we did not have any music for us. And we did what we did and our big organ was under renovation at that time. So we just played on our pedal harmonium, pedal reed organ near the altar and we actually did improvisation for hand improvisation. Spontaneous. Completely spontaneous. Yes. And the filming crew was quite impressed. Yes, and they asked. What is the composer in such a beautiful composition and we just said improvisation? I think we played two of them. One was lyrical, like a cantabular style with dialogues and do it between hands. Played on two manuals and another was more like a fanfare improvisation again with dialogues between our parts but more cordial texture, not linear. And we didn't even record it, right? We didn't have the recorder with us. It was so spontaneous. Actually we recorded it. They recorded it, yeah. And we kept asking for the recording but they never sent us any. But it's somewhere in the archives. So but that's what maybe Mark should do also to put him on a spot in sort of not a safe environment as he often plays in the church service. Maybe play a title and do some improvisation too. Maybe ask audience to send the film for improvisation. Or maybe just think that repertoire will expand your improvisations as Oshia said before. But study repertoire actually. Maybe play in the church service repertoire also for some time. Before you were studying and probably preparing improvisations and everybody was happy. And you were happy for some time but now you need some new ideas. So while you are looking for new ideas, just play it in music, right? While you are studying and after a month or two you can improvise like that. But don't get stuck on your improvisation. Yes, because for people who don't improvise, we think that improvisation is wow. It's the top of what you can know and reach. And we appreciate it and we sort of look at you as you are a god basically. But in general what I found out about some of improvisers that we get lazy for years. The advantage of the thing that we can improvise and we can never be prepared in advance and do everything on the spot. So actually we are losing ability to learn a new repertoire, more complicated repertoire. And we sort of improvise the same thing over and over again. Oh, similar thing over and over again. So repertoire is always a good idea to have it in a good balance with improvisation. But it takes time much more time than spontaneously showing up and playing at the church service. And you have to spend your familiar patterns. You have to spend hours on the bench. And of course, when we are talking about repertoire, let's see if you are improvising, I don't know, like variations or no choral pratitas, that sort of thing, you know, let's see baroque style or classical style, maybe you need to study more from antico-modern repertoire. And then try to improvise same thing in that style. I don't know what kind of instrument Mark has, right? If he has only baroque instrument with mint on tuning, temperament, then obviously playing chromatic, romantic music is out of the question. But it's very rare situation, I wouldn't. I think you are fantasizing. Yeah. Very, very unlikely. I think our organs have more versatility than we would probably give credit to. Sure, sure. Yeah. And modern improvisation would also work on nice on a mint on. Exactly. Yeah, if you still want to improvise, change your style, right? Change your harmonica language into patterns that are used maybe in the 20th century, in the old, right? That would be very good spice for your church service, playing and new direction, perhaps. Yes. And once in a while you will come back to the old stuff, too. After you spend months or years with something new, you will get probably sentimental about all their improvisations and said, "Oh, I would love to do it one more time, like I used to do it in my older days, right?" Sure, why not? I also play some times improvisations for people who ask me to demonstrate the organ and I mix styles between Baroque or common practice styles to demonstrate a partita or chord progressions for various organ stops and stop combinations. And since our organ at San John's is church, he has more romantic stops and chromatic music is very appreciated there. So I also switched to more modern styles there, too. Between those two is a good balance, I think. Good. Anything else to add, Oshan? Well, I think that's it for today, probably. Okay, guys, please send us more of our questions. We love helping you grow and sometimes your questions help us also get new perspectives about our organ play. Definitely, sharing information and thoughts is very helpful. And if you need more help, of course, check out the Total Organist Membership Program. We have good community there and hundreds of practice courses and courses in every area for organ playing. So just be mindful of the resources that our secrets of organ playing platform has and total organist is on the top there. Okay, and remember when you practice. Miracles happen.