Console Conversation : )

I share with you today a snippet from my interview with Mr. Avinash Grub, one of the finest organists of India. His experience and passion for the pipe organ makes him a great resource for understanding the unique culture of organs in India.

Alan:    Do you think there's an Indian way of playing the organ that has developed as a result of the same organs being there in the same old churches, but now the congregations have changed, the tastes have changed, music has generally become louder, and so has the environment surrounding it, the higher noise floor as it were. So, do you think there's developed at least recently a more Indian way of playing the pipe organ? 

Avinash:    Wow, that's a very interesting question. Yeah, yes and no. Because, if you see, for example, okay, let's look at vernacular music, non-English language music, right? So, if you look at non-English language music, there's a different method of playing it. It's not, based on continuous four-part harmony which changes, there's more of a Indianized version of some, you know, what do you call, a little bit of Carnatic influence, you know, repetitive chords, less in complexity, chordal complexity is less, but there's more melodic complexity, right? And there's repetitiveness, etc.  The accompaniment per se might be different. So, in such cases, yes, the melody is more important than the chordal work per se. Regarding, okay, for Indian way of playing pipe organs, since pipe organs are not in great condition, most of the places, people tend to kind of, play them in certain keys. For example, I sometimes avoid certain keys if the notes are out of tune. That's one thing I do. Also yes, people want it loud because ambient noise levels have gone up astronomically high. It's not something which, is there during the instrument's time. There is absolute silence and all that, you know. There's fan noise, there's you know, forget the birds. There's traffic noise, you know that comes right into the church. . So, to leave it from that point of view, yes. Um, again, because of lack of, uh, really good instruments, probably people tend to play more of, uh, you know, uh, less of pedal work. That's what I noticed. It's more of manual and more chordal work for voluntaries, because it's easier.

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And, uh, again, um, it sounds better, rather than limited pedal stops, etc. I think, uh, that's about it. And, even in the manuals, one of the things I've noticed is that, because most of these are tracker organs, and the action usually isn't as well regulated, people tend to play heavier. And, uh, because you can't, you don't have the agility of something like a piano on older instruments like these.

The full interview is on YouTube. Please excuse the audio quality, which is somewhat lacking. The information however, is as priceless as you can get!