Hitting the golden note

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This article was published 28/11/2016 (3417 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For musician Melissa Gingrich, the transition from piano to pipe organ wasn’t an easy one, but well worth it.

Gingrich recently passed her Grade 10 Royal Conservatory examination for pipe organ and was awarded the gold medal for highest mark in the province. With the national average at 72 out of a possible 100 points, Gingrich received 90.

“I felt really good about that day and I guess the examiner agreed,” the Charleswood resident said.

Gingrich began playing piano when she was seven and in recent years felt the need for a change of pace. She began to study pipe organ with Don Menzies at the Westminster United Church and found that although her training in piano was helpful, organ was a very different instrument.

“I thought a lot of my piano skills would cross over but they didn’t,” Gingrich said. “My ability to read the music really helped but the physical touch did not. The biggest change is that you’re using between two and four keyboards for your hands but also one oversized one for your feet. That was a major obstacle of learning how to play.”

Besides the two octaves that the player’s feet are responsible for, an organist also has to use stops to get specific sounds and volumes between and during songs.

“It’s very technical,” Gingrich said. “I just dabbled before, just teaching myself, and turned out I was fairly off.”

Gingrich teaches piano lessons and works as the music director at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. Between work and spending time with family, she said she’s able to practise about four hours a week. It’s not something she can do properly without travelling to St. Mark’s or Westminster.

“At home all I can do is learn notes and rhythms, and the touch is different,” she said. “The organ at Westminster is a very traditional pipe organ. It’s a monster, it’s really cool. It’s like having a really expensive car, all the bells and whistles. It’s pretty addicting.”

An academic at heart, Gingrich said the challenge of learning new things has kept her motivated to move forward with her skills.

“I really just like to study and learn and advance myself, and in music, if you have the facility, the physical ability to just keep going, the music as you get to higher levels, I find, is really captivating,” she said. “You explore it in a way that a listener can’t really can’t even grasp. You start to understand the construction of the pieces you’re studying.”

She said the experience has also lent itself to her teaching.

“I have a different perspective on being a student again and I like to think it’s made me a better teacher,” she said. “Hopefully I’ve inspired my students a little bit to see me really doing it.”