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Should the pedal be used when playing hymns or should I simply never use it at all?
What do you think?
I find that playing hymns on an organ can actually be easier than playing them on a piano.
I have just recently started taking organ lessons and I can at least play some hymns without the pedals. The difficulty the piano has it that we have more than one way of depressing a key. On an organ this problem doesn't exist so hymns on a piano can be harder.
How do you deal with this? Do you ever use this ability of the piano when playing hymns?

And do you have any way of playing sixths? Let's assume we have a hymn with three sixths in a row in the RH eg E-C, D-B,C-A. What fingering would you use? Just use the thumb for E,D,C or something else?

When I play hymns on the piano, I use the sustain pedal and re-pedal with chord changes. To my ears it sounds too dry without it. Practice it both ways and see what your ears tell you. You want to avoid a ‘mushy’ sound

Hymns - I assume you mean one chord after another with maybe a few passing notes in between (like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR1okKsu5HM ) - are much easier to play on a piano than an organ, if there are no notes that need to be played with the organ pedals.

With the organ, you have to keep switching fingers(*) to keep the legato line flowing; with the piano, you just use the sustain pedal and do legato pedalling (rapid up & down flick to clear the previous notes immediately after you've played the new chord).

(*) Finger switching = switching fingers on the same held note without replaying it, to enable you to reach for the next note with another finger without a break in legato. It's essential in Bach especially, where you normally can't use the sustain pedal to keep melodic lines unbroken because that will muddy other contrapuntal lines.


Are you talking about three consecutive descending chords in sixths?

Use 5-2, 4-1, 3-1.

Yes, you are correct. I am refering to the traditional way of playing hymns.

But you are confusing me. I use the same fingerings for piano and organ. Why should piano ha e a different fingering? It seems just not very smart to have a different fingering
So please explain what you mean? I just dont ubderstand what you are talking about.

When playing the organ there is not sustain, so one often has to use finger substitution, as mentioned above. This is sometimes awkward but often necessary.

On the piano, with the judicious use of the damper pedal, sustain can be obtained without resorting to awkward fingering. It makes sense, then, when playing hymns on the piano, to use the fingering that is most comfortable, though it may differ from that required when playing the same hymn on an organ. Different instruments, different technique.

Regards,

That would nearly be changing the pedal for every beat.

... and that's often what has to be done. It becomes intuitive and it can be done without even thinking about it.

Regards,

Let's look at example 219 from https://i.imgur.com/hLq1Saq.jpg
What fingerimg would you use for piano? Why would I want to waste time learning two kinds of fingering when I am already comfortable playing the finfeeing in the book? I mean, oragn fingerings like the one in this example is pretty comfortable. I see no need to change it.

The reason why I find piano being harder is that it forces me to think of how I accent certain notes. Not really an organ problem.

I think a little bit of common sense should apply here. If one fingering works for both instruments, then there is no need to learn a different fingering for a different instrument. I thought that my post implied that if a necessary fingering for organ felt awkward on the piano and there was an easier fingering for the piano, (maybe even easier on the organ, but not applicable for that instrument) then use that fingering.

With experience, much fingering becomes intuitive; it doesn't become necessary to work out fingering note by note, chord by chord. One doesn't have to "waste time learning two kinds of fingering" when the successful fingering is almost determined by the instrument itself.

Regards,

Ok I see.
I would still like to know what a piano fingering would be for 219.
I know that you would have to jump with thumb from E to C.
It seems that you lift you fingers for piano fingerings. Or lift your hands.
You could start with 1-5, 1-5,1-5 in the RH. I am asking about the fingerings for these notes.
This would only work when using the pedal.
So piano fingering refers to how you use your fingers when playing with the pedal? Otherwise organ fingering is to be used?

Except...,... as mentioned earlier, there is no sustain on the organ so you often need to substitute fingers before you play the next note so that it sounds legato ... like in the example 219 you linked. On the piano, that is not necessary ( In a time far away, I was the substitute organist at church).

The score you linked wants you to switch fingers, like I described earlier.

Finger 4 switches to 5 on B, thumb switches to 2 on the E. And so on.

Practise that slowly, preferably one line at a time, if you haven't tried finger substitution before. It's a skill all pianists aspiring to advance need to master.

Of course it is a pianistic skill as well, but not required at the frequency as on the organ as there is the sustain pedal. I don’t see finger substitution need for the piano in the example provided

If you use the sustain pedal, you don't.

But when finger substitution has been mastered and becomes second nature (like legato pedalling), it's amazing how often one uses it automatically without thinking about it, in preference to (over-)reliance on the sustain pedal. For example, in Bach's Goldberg Aria (in which I used my own fingerings), I switched fingers no less than seven times. (I never use the sustain pedal in Bach).

Finger substitution also allows you to produce effects that the sustain pedal would mask, like a bass line moving up (e.g. in Freddy's Minute Waltz).