blog.sinden.org

Finally, coming from the Minnesota Star Tribune, some acknowledgment of the circumstances surrounding the "organist shortage".

There's a shortage of trained organists because ...

Younger people are not pursuing it as a career because ...

They don't hear it played as much as their elders did because ...

There's a shortage of trained organists.

Return to Step 1 and repeat until the second coming.

Strickler, Jeff. Faith+Values: Modern bent squeezes classic pipe organs

So, we're really in a rut, huh? But maybe we can get ourselves out of it? I mean, we have built some really impressive organs in the past 20 years. Organ building is getting better and better. And as a consequence, there are better organs in more and more places.

As better organs make their way into churches, does it point to a change of course?

"The pendulum is starting to swing back the other way," said Beverly Claflin, Mount Olivet's music director. "Certainly a lot of churches have had a knee-jerk reaction to provide modern music. But I think that people are starting to look for that constant in their life that can come from music that has stood the test of time."

But some argue that the "praise band" is developing into an institution of its own right.

There are many different ways to spread the word of God," [Scott] Newman said. "It's the same message delivered with a different vehicle."

Fine. But I would add that the organ is a Rolls Royce, and the praise band is a VW Bus.

Some of us prefer to ride in style.

"Largest tracker organ in North America" tangent: Is the 114-rank Visser-Rowland built in 1990 organ at Wooddale Church the largest in North America as the article claims? It is substantially larger larger than the Visser-Rowland at the University of Texas.

Update: 22:35 23 January 2008: Via Osbert Parsley, per his comment below, "a somewhat different take on the article", "Imminent Demise of Organ-Playing!"

Labels: organs, shortage of organists