A Trip in the Wayback Machine
In defense of the pipe organ
This afternoon, I stumbled on something I wrote back in October 2012. I never did anything with it. In fact, I’d completely forgotten I’d written it, and don’t have any idea what I thought I might do with it, if anything. The mention of “this week” in the first paragraph is especially curious, because I can’t for the life of me think of where or why I might have been writing weekly back then.
I read it with some amusement, because I was clearly very annoyed when I wrote it, and was definitely on my highest of horses. And I figured, after languishing for almost a dozen years, why not share it? If nothing else, it’s interesting to see a reminder of some things from a decade or so ago, and consider just how much has changed since then. And maybe have a good laugh at my younger self while I’m at it.
Certainly, I still agree with my conclusion, so nothing has changed there. Here it is—lightly edited—for your possible amusement and consideration. Illustrations are from today; I’ll add a few notes at the end.
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. And every once in a while, that truth manages to be more terrifying than the best ghost story. I'm responding to one such “truth” this week.
In what would seem to be a fitting accompaniment to Halloween, Jennifer Graham of the Boston Globe presented an opinion piece this week entitled, "Save the Church! (kill the organs)" [sic]. I read this piece in growing astonishment and horror.
I should preface my comments with a little background. I grew up in a household where the pipe organ was revered along with classical music in general. LPs of organist greats like E. Power Biggs and Virgil Fox featured prominently, and I doubt it’s an exaggeration to say that I heard more organ music in my first month of life than a lot of people hear in a lifetime. I’ve toured pipe chambers and organ factories. I am definitely no stranger to the world of the organ.
Ms. Graham spends her (mercifully brief) article making an “argument” that could, at best, be called specious. She claims that the reason the Catholic church is dying is because the organ is a dated and painful instrument only of use in horror films, and honestly seems to believe that getting rid of the organs will suddenly cause the church to spring back to life. I’m not Catholic, but even I know that the Catholic church has bigger problems than its music. And protestant churches have been trying to integrate more modern music into their services to draw bigger crowds, so it’s not just the Catholics that seem to feel they’re having trouble getting butts in pews.
Despite the fact that attendance is a non-denominational issue, Graham rails on, failing to make any sort of argument whatsoever. Instead, she opts to display her own biases as fact. (That this column was accepted for publication says a great deal about the state of news media these days—which is dying faster than any church!) Let me address a few specific claims from the piece.
[Organ music] endures not because anyone particularly likes organ music (there’s none on iTunes’s top singles this week, and, I’m betting, none on your iPod)
Wanna bet? I have E. Power Biggs’s A Festival of French Organ Music, and a wonderful, locally-produced CD of George Minne, now-retired organist at the Armagh (Northern Ireland) Roman Catholic cathedral. And that’s just off the top of my head. It’s also not just the organ music. I also have a pile of Ralph Vaughan Williams symphonies and choral pieces, Bach cello and violin suites...and again, that's just what immediately comes to mind. And there are plenty of other people who do, too.
It gets worse:
If Darwin was right, the organ should have led to the piano, which should have led to the guitar, which should have led to a string quartet, or a harp, or even a return to solemn Gregorian chant . . . anything that doesn’t remind us of horror movies. But no.
I swear on the graves of my grandmothers that I am not trying to be snarky here, and am only trying to understand...is she honestly saying that [musical] evolution means that we abandon the past and forsake it completely for the new? (Also, I’m pretty sure Darwin has nothing at all to do with the invention of new instruments, and that returning Gregorian chant would be both anachronistic and the opposite of evolution.) If that's the case, then if we only examine a brief chunk of time, we can say that Chuck Berry led to the Beatles led to Springsteen, and all of them eventually led to Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus. By Ms. Graham's logic, nobody would listen to the Beatles anymore, or Chuck Berry? Good lord, you might as well listen to Beethoven.
We don't throw out the old when we create the new, nor should we. I want to listen to the best of Lennon and McCartney just like I sometimes want to listen to Gregorian chant or my beloved Ella Fitzgerald. Chuck Berry and Ella haven’t ever been on the iTunes list; if Ms. Graham hasn't paid them any attention, well, I wouldn't be surprised, but I would be sad for her loss, just as I'm sad for her understanding of Darwin and evolution. The shame is that I doubt Ms. Graham would care.
I have to confess that I am reminded of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," in which Swift suggests that poverty and hunger in early 18th century Ireland could be solved if the Irish simply ate their own children. The problem is that Swift’s piece is satire, and while I want to think the same of Ms. Graham’s, her disdain is so strong that she can’t even piece together something that looks like a valid argument. There is no causality, no basis in fact or logic here. There is only Ms. Graham’s intolerance for an instrument that she doesn't understand. Satire requires a great deal of internal logic to be effective—otherwise it falls apart. If one of my writing students turned in a paper like this, based as it is on what one of the commenters called “fatuous ignorance,” I’d fail her for being a whiny crybaby instead of making a point. (And in my classes, you can argue pretty much anything you want, no matter how much I may disagree, as long as you can do it effectively. I taught secondary-level English as a Second Language students who could write a better piece than this.)
What disturbs me even more than the writing, though, is the attitude toward the creative arts. I know not everyone is a fan of the organ. That’s cool; I can't stand Jack White or the White Stripes. Live and let live. Ms. Graham, though, has taken her lack of affection for a single instrument and attempted to turn it into a crusade. By the end of the article, I almost see her as a classic Disney villain, laughing fiendishly in front of a bonfire made of organ consoles.
What she’s really arguing for, though, is mediocrity. She's begging us to join her in a race to the bottom, to the lowest common denominator. She’s tossing other people’s passions and professions under the bus simply because she doesn't like them. It’s just callous disregard for others, and for the arts. Ms. Graham reminds me of the child in an early VH1 Save the Music PSA who yelled insults at every street musician he encountered because, in a world without arts education, he couldn't see their value at all.
I take heart in the fact that the comments on the article overwhelmingly read more like this post than the original column, and that it looks like this article, and the backlash against it, is going viral within the music community (and beyond, I hope!). It’s reassuring to know that there are still plenty of people out there who enjoy music that may not have landed in the Top 10 for a few centuries.
I hope that you’ll take the piece as a cautionary tale, an example of how to make yourself look foolish in the name of your own biases, and decide instead to use your voice to promote things that deserve more attention in the world.
I also hope that you’ll take the time to appreciate your own creative passions and to let someone else know how much you appreciate theirs, even if what they do isn't your particular cup of tea. Most of the creative battle has nothing to do with how well your work is loved by others but with how much you need to create and share it, and that anyone goes to the effort, despite the possibility of responses like Ms. Graham’s, has dared greatly, and deserves credit far beyond that of any critic.
A couple things to add:
You can find the track listing for Scare Hell Out of Your Neighbors here. My dad’s neighborhood must’ve really loved him back then! He’s still a pipe organ nut, too, as you can see here, in a 2015 article about the restoration of the pipe organ in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall.
Baron George Minne has gone to the Great Cathedral in the Sky since I wrote this, sadly, though he lived a long and wonderful life. I became friends with him when I lived in Northern Ireland in the mid-90s. He was one of the most joyful and welcoming people I’ve ever met. Maybe I’ll write about him here one of these days.
I still can’t stand Jack White/the White Stripes. If you can? More power to you. Live and let live, y’all.