LDS Church Organ Manuals
Do you play the organ? Do you play the organ in a chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
Each organ bench should have the organ manual (meaning the booklet, not the keyboard) in it. It is common courtesy to leave the manual in the bench so it is always available to someone who is at the organ who may have a question about its operation. As an organist it is important to understand how to operate the organ, especially the instrument you will be using on a regular basis; however, not everyone has time to sit in the chapel and read through the organ manual. (For me, I'm lucky to get in an hour or two of actual practice before playing for Sacrament meeting-I'm working on that.)
After a recent organ workshop I thought, the organ manual must be available somewhere online and even if it doesn't match exactly I should at least be able to get more info from the manufacturer's website. Mr. Google and I had a chat when I got home from the workshop (which was wonderfully helpful) and I found that the church lists all of the organ manuals for church organs and has pdf versions available on their website.
List of organ manuals used by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The organ in my chapel is the Allen 22A. Having the organ manual available electronically means I can read through it at home or anywhere else and I can get answers to my questions while I'm preparing for a practice session or performance allowing me to dedicate the precious minutes I have available to actually sit at the organ to actually playing the organ.
Disclaimer: I did notice that the version available in my organ bench was updated more recently than the version online (our building and organ are brand new). So be sure to compare the update dates (on the cover) and figure out what differences may exist. I've done a quick comparison and found that there are two new sections at the end of the manual in my organ that aren't in the pdf: a section listing the preset organ settings for our organ (memories 15 & 16) and a section that lists the LDS hymns that the organ will play without an organist. The manuals are copyrighted so please check the terms of the copyright before photocopying any portion of the manual to determine whether or not you can copy the pages. When in doubt, don't copy it. I don't really have a need to access that extra information from off-site so the pdf file is perfect for me.
Each organ bench should have the organ manual (meaning the booklet, not the keyboard) in it. It is common courtesy to leave the manual in the bench so it is always available to someone who is at the organ who may have a question about its operation. As an organist it is important to understand how to operate the organ, especially the instrument you will be using on a regular basis; however, not everyone has time to sit in the chapel and read through the organ manual. (For me, I'm lucky to get in an hour or two of actual practice before playing for Sacrament meeting-I'm working on that.)
After a recent organ workshop I thought, the organ manual must be available somewhere online and even if it doesn't match exactly I should at least be able to get more info from the manufacturer's website. Mr. Google and I had a chat when I got home from the workshop (which was wonderfully helpful) and I found that the church lists all of the organ manuals for church organs and has pdf versions available on their website.
List of organ manuals used by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The organ in my chapel is the Allen 22A. Having the organ manual available electronically means I can read through it at home or anywhere else and I can get answers to my questions while I'm preparing for a practice session or performance allowing me to dedicate the precious minutes I have available to actually sit at the organ to actually playing the organ.
Disclaimer: I did notice that the version available in my organ bench was updated more recently than the version online (our building and organ are brand new). So be sure to compare the update dates (on the cover) and figure out what differences may exist. I've done a quick comparison and found that there are two new sections at the end of the manual in my organ that aren't in the pdf: a section listing the preset organ settings for our organ (memories 15 & 16) and a section that lists the LDS hymns that the organ will play without an organist. The manuals are copyrighted so please check the terms of the copyright before photocopying any portion of the manual to determine whether or not you can copy the pages. When in doubt, don't copy it. I don't really have a need to access that extra information from off-site so the pdf file is perfect for me.
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