Organ Practice

My father appears in the doorway of my bedroom: “Hey Chief, how’s the homework going?”

“All done, Dad.”

“Wanna help me practice?”

“Sure!”

One night a week, my father goes down to our church, South Acton Congregational, to practice the organ. He has his own key. It looks like an ordinary house key, but I know that it’s special. My father has this key because he’s an important person in the church — he’s the organist.  The people cannot have a service without him. He doesn’t get paid for his playing. He gives it to the church as a gift. He gets paid for doing his regular job as an electrical engineer. I’m not sure exactly what electrical engineers do, but I think it involves a lot of math.

We come in through the side door, the one near the minister’s study. It feels strange to enter the church this way. Usually, we come in through the two big doors in the front of the building. If the minister is here, and the door to his study is open, my father stops and says hello.  I’m a little embarrassed to see the minister in his jeans and sweatshirt, instead of the black robe he wears on Sunday mornings. It’s like running into my teacher at the grocery store. If the minister isn’t here, the church is dark inside and my father has to turn on the lights. He knows where the switches are. My father knows things like that about the church — which switches turn on which lights, how to coax heat from the cranky old furnace, when the outside was last painted.

We cross the social hall and go into the sanctuary, also through a side door, up at the front of the room, near the altar. It seems so casual to come in this way, instead of through the door at the back of the room and then up the aisle. We put our jackets down on one of the front pews and go up to the organ, which is at the very back of the altar. It’s an old pipe organ, with three sets of keys. Two are for my father’s hands and one is for his feet. The one for his feet is not a keyboard, but a line of wooden pedals. I don’t know how he manages to play notes with both his hands and his feet at the same time. I sit down on the bench next to him while my father turns on the organ, then arranges his music. He’s already chosen what he’ll play, and has run through it on the baby grand in the living room at home. He checks to see that the stops are set correctly for the first piece he’s going to practice. Then he begins.

I know enough from playing the piano myself to be able to follow the music and turn the pages for him. I’m proud that I can be his helper in this way. Every week, my father has three main pieces to learn. I know what they’re called: the prelude, the offertory, and the postlude. After he has played them a few times, he says:

“OK, let me try it on my own.”  He needs to memorize the notes just before and after each page turn, so on Sunday morning he can manage by himself without there being a break in the music.

When my father is practicing, I love sitting beside him. I’m very quiet and don’t talk to him or ask him questions.  I just listen to the beautiful music and watch my father’s fingers on the keys. They’re long and thin and very white. His nails are cut short and the skin around them is rough where he has picked at hangnails and flakes of dry skin. His wedding ring is the thinnest band of gold I’ve ever seen. It’s simple and quiet. I wonder if a wider, heavier band like my mother’s would get in the way of his organ playing.

Some of the music my father plays is loud and happy. It makes me think about how much he loves our small church, the old organ itself, with its gold pipes and smooth, shiny wood, and the swelling, layered music he can make with it. In a great arc above the pipes, painted in fancy black letters on the white wall, are the words, “Oh worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”  Sometimes, my father’s playing seems holy to me.  

There’s a special mirror mounted near the organ which allows my father to see what’s going on behind him. That’s how he knows when it’s time to switch from playing one piece of music to playing the next one, or when everyone has gone out to the social hall for coffee and cake, and he can stop playing. There’s also a special chair to the side of the organ where my father sits during the minister’s sermon.  

When I’m tired of sitting on the bench, I go down from the altar and sit in one of the pews. Sometimes I lie down, which feels naughty. But it’s not Sunday morning, so it’s OK. I like to look at the ceiling, most of which, like most of the walls, is covered with dark wood paneling. It always makes me feel like I’m inside Noah’s ark. I imagine the pairs of animals coming down the aisle during the processional and giggle to myself.

Sitting back up, I like to look at the stained glass windows. They aren’t as pretty at night, because there’s no sunlight coming through them, but I still like them.  My favorite is very large. The top of it is up near the ceiling and the bottom is at my eye level, just above the top of the back of the pews. The window shows Jesus as a shepherd. He’s holding a lamb and several more are at his feet. Also at his feet is his shepherd’s crook. He’s wearing a white robe and sandals.  His hair and beard are long and brown, while his halo is a sort of yellow fuzz around his head.  His face has a tender, soft, even slightly sad expression. The sky behind his head is blue and the grass around his feet is green. But the grass behind his body is a bluish green, as if the sky has bled into the land. At the bottom of the picture are the words, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.”  I’m proud of knowing that “suffer” in this case actually means something like “let.”  

When I’ve looked at everything as much as I want, I close my eyes and listen to the music again. Some of the music my father plays is quiet and sad.  I wonder if it makes him think about his own father, who died when I was little.

My father spends a long time practicing the prelude, the offertory, and the postlude.  When he’s satisfied with them, he runs through the three hymns: the processional, the doxology, and the recessional.

“OK Chief, ready to help me with the hymns?” he calls to me.

“Yup!” I call back.

 I stand up and sing in my best voice. I know almost all of the hymns, and the ones I don’t know I can easily pick up. I sing soprano in Junior Choir, but sometimes I experiment with singing the alto part. It’s easy to figure out how it goes when the organ is playing. I can hear all four of the parts — soprano, alto, tenor, and bass —  in the many notes my father’s hands and feet are playing.

I love the sound of my voice in the empty sanctuary. It sounds big and rich and full. I hope that my father likes my singing, that my voice sounds beautiful to him.