SOPP290: My dreams are to be able to improvise postludes
This question was sent by Danielle. She writes:\n \nDear Vidas and Ausra,\nI was an organ major as an undergraduate but had no background in harmony or scales. So even though I could learn organ literature, play for church services, and accompany choirs on organ, I could never improvise. Because I had no mental shortcuts (ie knowing what key the piece had modulated to, etc) the learning process was extremely arduous, and I stopped playing as soon as I could and switched to choral conducting. The stress of preparing for weekly church services was just too great.\n\nFast forward 25 years, and now I am subbing on organ for Catholic masses, and sometimes cantoring simultaneously! Thanks to some Dalcroze training, I can now entertain the possibility of improvising. But I\u2019m finding it to be more challenging to improvise on organ vs improvising on piano for children\u2019s music classes.\n\nSo my dreams are to be able to improvise postludes and to be able to\nre-harmonize the final verse of congregational hymns to add a few juicy twists. I see these goals as interrelated.\n\nThe three things most holding me back are a lack of understanding of\nharmony, a lack of handy chord progressions to lean upon, and a lack of an organized approach to tackle these tasks.\n\nThank you so much for your daily emails! They are very encouraging.\nDanielle in New York