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Monday, March 30, 2009

Picture a Day - Day 118

We had the opportunity to attend a Masters Recital for our good friend over the weekend.

His instrument of poison is actually the organ and for his recital he got to play a pipe organ (in a really fancy church.)

If you've never seen an organ up close you should really go and take a look (assuming the church ladies won't attack you for daring to invade their coveted space.) Aside from both having some keys a piano and organ are like night and day.
All those little knobs on the sides control different sounds and ranges so the organ can sound like other instruments:
It was cool to watch him play too as he used not only both hands but also both feet and was at one point playing two organs (there was one back in the balcony you could connect through with the one in front).

I made a little clip using the very strange continuous option on my camera to show just how much of a workout it really is:
If he looks a little familiar it was actually the organist for our wedding. For a few examples of his work from that click here. Sadly I only snuck in a camera at the recital, I left the boom mike and camera equipment in the car.

Did anyone else get some culture over the weekend? I've never been able to figure out why recitals are always held in churches, every time I had a piano one when I was younger it was always in the local Methodist church.

Anyone else play an instrument? I did the clarinet/tenor saxophone thing for all of high school so I know the horrors of field marching very well.

6 comments:

  1. When I played piano, all the recitals were in a Presbyterian church.

    Pipe organs are intense. I really love the sound of them when you're in a church with great acoustics. It almost makes me want to learn how to play them. Almost. But not really.

    Kudos to your friend!

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  2. I think organ recitals are held in churches, because typically organs are not all that movable. On the other had if you were just going to recite organs, then just about any place would do. Even your local blog. Heart, kidney, skin, liver...

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  3. Beautiful images of the organ - I always find these fascinating! No culture for me over the weekend, just "Monsters vrs Aliens" with my nephew! No culture, but some great one liners! :)

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  4. I attempted to learn the piano when I was little. Didn't do too well. I wish I was more musically inclined.

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  5. I love pipe organs. When my family and I went to Europe one summer, my favorite thing was to go into the churches and listen to the people practice on the organ. We actually happened to catch a big huge organ celebration one weekend, haha. Yes. An organ celebration! It was a whole day full of organ playing.

    I used to be a pretty big musician back in the day. I started playing piano when I was 7, switched to flute when I was 12, then started playing piccolo too. I was a HUGE band nerd and played in all sorts of honor bands and youth orchestras. I only played for one year in college though. Guess I was burned out, haha.

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