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How to play "Silent Night" on an Organ

How to play "Silent Night" on an Organ

This tutorial will go over some basics of playing the classical Christmas carol "Silent Night" on a traditional organ. Colin O'Malley from the Cunningham Organ Group gives an overview of the main parts of the organ, such as:

  1. The Divisions (keyboards) - Swell, Great, Positiv/Choir, and Pedals
  2. The Stops (sounds) and their assignments to the divisions
  3. The Couplers which allow you to move and combine sounds between the divisions
  4. The Expression Pedals for controlling volume
  5. The Combination Action Pistons (or Pistons for short) which allow you to program (save and recall) various stop/sound combinations at the touch of a button

Colin also explores the most effective stop combinations to create the best sounds for "Silent Night" with an understanding of how the various stop numbers affect the pitch and quality of each sound.