[rodgersorgan] Re: Breaking the rules with mixtures.




--- Carlo Pietroniro <organist@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> pardon my ignorance, but what's all this talk about
> "rules"? I've never met an organist who even
> mentioned the word "rules" when talking about
> registration, until joining several internet groups,

Carlo, I think most of us understood that this really
meant something more like "acoustic principles" or
even "laws of physics" rather than any attempt to
restrain your exuberant iconoclasm! When one teaches
beginning organ students, one tries to impart a basic
understanding of the effects of combining stops of
various pitches and timbres. Understanding the
principles involved provides a basis for informed
judgment. In casual conversation, we might call this a
set of "rules".

> I always use the stops the way I want to use them,
> and I've never been told what to do, or what NOT to
> do. 

But I'll bet that you HAVE been told what to expect,
and that some combinations are going to have extremely
limited usefulness in real life musical situations.
Again, that's no damper on your creativity, merely an
attempt to spare you from wasting a lot of time on
pointless experiments which the laws of physics can
tell you have little chance of offering anything
useful.

> Anyone making up
> rules governing registration, is doing 2 things.....
> 
> 1) imposing their own tastes in registration, and
> hoping the world will think like them.
> 
> 2) attempting to smother every organists own sense
> of 'what works for them'.

I can't agree. It could well be that such an
individual is simply trying to help you find the
things that will work effectively and to explain the
acoustical principles behind them. That makes this
writer your friend, Carlo, not a tyrant.

> There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing whatever
> you want when seated at the organ. 

Sure, but when you've completed your experiments and
have decided how you will actually perform the piece
in public, every registration you ultimately choose
will still be subject to the laws of physics. That's
not a plot designed to restrain your brilliance, it's
not a cabal of old organists trying to keep you from
succeeding, and it's not the ghost of your former
teacher trying to hold you to the things he taught
you--it's just reality!

> Hundreds of years
> ago, when Bach was alive.....can you imagine if
> anyone dared telling him what stops to use and what
> you're "allowed" to do?

I would bet that when he was a young student that
there was, indeed, someone who told him what stops to
use and what he was allowed to do. He was a genius,
unquestionably, but all that means is that he mastered
the "rules" more quickly than the average student
before moving on to add to them out of his own
creative resources...but he built upon what went
before.

> I think like Bach.

Then you will be among the first to appreciate the
value of learning the principles behind how things
work...even if you're uncomfortable about calling them
"rules".

Dan Gawthrop

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