TEACHERS, HANDOUTS (IN RED), & CLASS DESCRIPTIONS

Mark Atencio, PE – From Paper to iPad: Scanning and Preparing Scores (PDF)
DESCRIPTION – This is a hands-on class. Bring your iPad or sit by someone who has one. We will prepare one hymn for Sunday service. This will include scanning, importing, cropping, rotating, and creating multiple pages for multiple verse page turns. Then we will do it again. Questions and discussion at the end may include marking scores, page turns, and the best scanner to use.

Becky Azera (completed BYU’s Organ Certification levels 2,3 and 4) – Basic Manual Technique (PDF)
DESCRIPTION: Many new skills must be mastered on the manuals. In this class, we will be going over several different manual techniques:

Attack and release
Six legato finger techniques
Addressing breaks or rests between repeated notes
Phase endings and between phrases (PDF)
Independence among fingers and each line
Hymns in Beginning Pedal Technique (PDF)

BRING YOUR HYMN BOOK!

Becky Azera (completed BYU’s Organ Certification levels 2,3 and 4) – Hands on Beginning Manual Technique
DESCRIPTION: In this class, you’ll have the opportunity to work on the different manual techniques needed when playing an organ. There will be an instructor to assist you and answer any question you may have concerning new skills to be mastered on the manuals:

Attack and release
Six legato finger techniques
Addressing breaks or rests between repeated notes
Phase endings and between phrases
Independence among fingers and each line
Bring your hymn book, and any music you are working on that you need help with using the Beginning Manual Technique.

Millie Camire – Let the organ help you! Tips and tricks for beginners
DESCRIPTION: This class will demonstrate some features of the Johannus organ, but will be applicable to almost any digital organ (with or without the use of the pedals).

Ideas for organists with limited experience/practice time.
Choose, set, and use your own, custom registrations to enhance hymns and preludes. Using registration to create interesting and beautiful preludes from the hymnal.
Use of bass and melody couplers.
Repertoire for those with good keyboarding skills but limited pedal technique.

Mike Carson – How to do a 90- minute presentation to ward and stake organists, or a group of organist wannabees (PDF)
DESCRIPTION: Discussion, demos, and class participation based on the desired outcomes and methods as taught by Dr. Don Cook, et. al, BYU, Fall 2002

Mike Carson – To Motivate Better Hymn Singing from the Bench (PDF)
DESCRIPTION: Simple things you can do before next Sunday to inspire and edify congregational singing

David Chamberlin, MM – Conquering Challenging Pedal Parts
DESCRIPTION: Your feet are smarter than you think! It’s amazing what two toes and two heels can do when they work together as a team! In this class we will tackle some of the more challenging bass lines in the hymnal and perhaps a few pieces of organ literature. Bring your challenges and questions!

David Chamberlin, MM – How to listen to, evaluate, and make the best use of organ stops
DESCRIPTION: In this class you will learn to evaluate organ stops based on tone “color” (technical term: timbre) – bright/dark, stringy/fluty, transparent/opaque – much more than loud/soft. Your ability to assess organ tones in this way will enable you to combine stops knowledgeably and appropriately to various musical textures. Famous former tabernacle organist Alexander Schreiner encouraged organists to “get to know your stops; make them your friends.” This class will help you do that.

Don Cook, DMA, AAGO – (Youth and open to all) Intro to the pipe organ, a visual tour

Debbie Faires, BM, MLIS, SPC – Prelude Music, and Opening Hymn – #72 Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (PDF)

Landon Finch – Hands-on introduction to the organ console
DESCRIPTION: This class will provide a hands-on experience on how to navigate your way on the organ for a church service. It will also provide an introduction to basic techniques for fingering and playing hymns on the organ.

Renee Gastelum, CAGO, AAGO– (Youth and open to all) “The King of Instruments”
DESCRIPTION: Never seen an organ outside of church? Think again! We’ll be re-creating the organ sounds from Pirates of the Caribbean, Legend of Zelda, and more on this grand tour of the King of the Instruments.

Renee Gastelum, CAGO, AAGO – Hymn Sing (PDF)

Alena Hall, BS, MM – Chorus Registration Essentials
DESCRIPTION: Answers to the following questions will be discussed: What is chorus registration? What types of organ music use chorus registration? How do I combine stops to create an appropriate sound using chorus registration? And how can chorus registration be used in a worship service–for hymns, prelude and postlude?

Neil Harmon, DMA – Overcoming Performance Anxiety
DESCRIPTION: Have you ever prepared music that sounded great during rehearsal, only to have it fall apart in public? Stage fright is something we all experience. This class will address healthy ways to deal with the anxieties of performing in front of others.

Neil Harmon, DMA – Intro to Composition: Writing free accompaniments and introductions
DESCRIPTION: Writing your own hymn introductions and free accompaniments isn’t as complicated as it might seem. Learn some simple techniques that will get you started composing your own hymn enhancements.

Nora Hess – (Youth) Build and Play a Kit Organ

Nora Hess – Intro to Pitches, Families, and Pipe Demonstration (PDF)

Jim Kasen – Keynote Address: “Just How Much Do I Really Matter as an Organist?” (PDF)

Jim Kasen – The Work of Arranging: A Glance into Kasen Compositions (PDF)
DESCRIPTION: Jim will be discussing the process he undertakes as he arranges and composes. He’ll be carefully looking into several of his arrangements and providing background on how they were written. He will also be fielding questions from the class attendees. Attendees are encouraged to bring any of his organ volumes that they have, to be used as references.

Levi Kelley – Beginning Pedal Technique (PDF)

John Longhurst, DMA, FAGO – Creating a Simple Hymn Prelude (PDF)
DESCRIPTION: How to create a simple, interesting, and effective hymn prelude using the hymnbook together with a few garden-variety “tools of the trade.”

Blaine Olson – Nomenclature (and more)
DESCRIPTION: While this class will cover the correct terminology used in the world of pipe organs, more importantly it focuses on things every organist should understand:

Mutations (“fractional stops”)what they are and how best to use them
How to make “synthetic” voices such as Orchestral Oboe, Clarinet,
Mixtures(and how to use them in ways you may not have learned before)

These two topics alone (Mutations and Mixtures) should help you better understand the classes on registration. And of course, in this more informal class we will try to address any questions/topics you would like to learn more about. Think of this class as being where you can gain new “tools” (tidbits of knowledge) to help you better understand the King of Instruments. Beginners and seasoned organists alike may benefit from this class.

Lori Serr, BM, CAGO, NCTM – Feet-on beginning pedal technique

Beginning Pedal Technique (PDF)

Harold Stuart, CAGO – Introduction to the Organ Console and SATB playing (PDF)
DESCRIPTION: This class is an introduction to the organ console. The various parts of the console are demonstrated along with the basics of four-part playing.

James Welch, DMA, AAGO – Organs of the Holy Land: Pipes, Passover, and Pita
DESCRIPTION: James Welch and his wife Deanne are currently serving as the music couple at the BYU Jerusalem Center. Jim plays for the tour groups that visit the Center, for church meetings on Sabbath, and for the Sunday evening concert series. One of his quests has been to see and play as many other organs in Israel as possible. This has resulted in some amazing finds in amazing churches, and has also resulted in some wonderful new friendships. This is a land like no other, and the organs there are just as interesting.

Miranda Wilcox – The Poetry of Hymns
DESCRIPTION: Until the 1870s, American hymn books were small, portable anthologies of hymn texts printed as poems in stanzas without music. Such was the first Latter-day Saint hymnal, A Collection of Sacred Hymns for the Church of the Latter Day Saints collected by Emma Smith and published in 1835. Understanding hymns as poems aids organists in illuminating the meaning of the words our congregation singing. This class will introduce how to read poetry. We will explore meter, rhyme, and rhetorical patterns in Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And we will discuss how to use the hymnal’s Meter indexes. Please bring a copy of this hymnal.