Pipes, Reeds and Synthezisers

Image: James Smith Pixabay

[I haven't taken their permission but this piece would look suspect without the names of real people.  One hopes that these remembrances will stand as respect to the people named here. Some of these people are no longer with us, may their souls rest in peace.  Please message me or leave a comment in the post.]

This year I missed Iris Castillo's alto solo that celebrates O Little Town of Bethlehem. I missed Richard D'Souza, Peter Remedios and David Etto enacting We Three Kings of Orient Are in voice.  I missed Florence Gonsalves handing out the lyric sheets every rehearsal.  I missed Maria and the soup, Paula and the snacks and Romayne's facial expression.  We all missed choirmaster Dion Francis swinging his arms valiantly to bring tempo and expression to the choir at St Xavier's Chapel - a choir which is affectionately and permanently known as Fr Boris' Choir, after Fr Boris D'Santos who ran it for several years.  As a 'noob' organist, inducted a few years ago, I had to imbibe the cultural ethos of the choir over Easter, Christmas and a few special days in between.  This got me thinking about my journey in music that began with the church. 

Gospel Music

If you are looking through YouTube for advice on how to play a keyboard or guitar, you will surely come across a plethora of videos that advertise "play church music instantly".  Why is church music such a popular place to start?  Perhaps it goes back to the roots of music which invariably began in religious chants and worship.  Or perhaps it's just easier to teach music through well-known, dog-eared hymns and traditional music that are ingrained in one's soul?

My earliest encounter with the 'choirmaster' concept was in St Xavier's, in Class 4A, under the baton of Ms Pauline Peterson! Under the baton was preferable to being under the swinging four-finger salute for which she was known (and eventually loved)!  Training the choir was her passion.  The song was "Bless this House".  We were going to perform on stage for the Annual Concert - rouge, lipstick et al.  Practice was going well till I hit a note that was so far off the music sheet that I had to face the one-eyebrow-lifted stare for a good twenty seconds.  After that, whenever the dreaded note came around, one eye on the choirmaster, I soundlessly opened my mouth and faked it.

Reeds and Reedy Voices

But this post is about various kinds of church organs that I had come across in my days of singing and playing for various choirs.  The first was when, as a young lad, I was packed off to join the choir at the newly opened St Mary's Church Ripon Street.  We were taught our paces by Fr Eric Conquo - he had a trusty violin with which we were taught the notes.  My memory plays tricks here, but I believe his brother was the organist for awhile.

The first organ I got to play was a little more than a sophisticated Harmonium on steroids.  It had reeds driving the sound and two pedals to keep the bellows from gasping.  There were secrets we had to learn.  For example, no matter what the tempo, your feet kept moving at the same pace pumping air into the bellows.  The only way you could control volume was with your knee.  You pressed outwards on a lever to increase the volume, which was a simple flap that opened and expelled more air!  We quickly learnt that if you played more than three or four notes, the bellows starved and your crescendo descended to a whimper.  And the sound? Well, sophisticated harmonium, if you're generous. 

Knowing the Score

My mum and dad took over the administration, and a bit of the singing, of the St Mary's Senior Choir.  That intimidating name housed some of the most beautiful laps I have ever sat upon. Well, not literally.  But I learnt to read music -- or at best follow the ups and downs on a score sheet -- and I learnt to be the official page-turner for my cousin, Allen Fernandes, the organist. I also learnt, by observation, how to play one of those devices with two separate registers, bass pedals, and a volume control on the right foot.  Our conductor, the now world-famous Clarence Barlow, had ears that could pick out a "flat E flat" from a healthy E flat in a group of choristers trying their best.  It was here I first heard of SATB and realized that my dad's vinyls of Barber Shop Favourites was nothing by Soprano Alto Tenor and Bass, and that too a capella.

My voice broke -- somewhere between the altos and tenors, it started alternating.  But I was such a good choir boy (I used to pick up and stack all the music after hours) that they never let me go.  A brace of congas on a tripod appeared and we evolved into what was disparagingly called the "beat mass" by the traditionalists.  I did some time keeping time but I never really made it back into the singing fraternity, S, A, T or B.  I did get the special advantage of being allowed to play the Lowrey organ described earlier.  I filled in.  Whenever an organist was required at some inopportune moment, a message arrived at Southwind Mansions, "Send Leslie to play for a wedding on Saturday" or something similar.  That Lowrey organ was my addiction. It functioned on tubes or valves, needed regular care by Mr Manuk on Free School Street, and eventually gave up the ghost.  In all those years, I found ways to play it and make it sing.

Clarence left for Germany to pursue composing and conducting music.  The beat mass stayed.  Allen passed away very unfortunately.  The SATB gave way to voices who now sang "seconds" usually hitting high thirds and sevenths in tenors that would make a soprano blush. 

The Children's Choir sang the morning 7:15 mass on Sundays, rehearsed on Thursdays (school holidays in those days), and regularly went on picnics and house-to-house carol singing.  I ran that choir for many years as many readers will remember.  I was also playing the bass guitar on Saturday nights at the Calcutta Swimming Club, walking home after midnight and splashing cold water on my face to wake up for mass on Sunday.  For awhile I did two back-to-back masses a day.  7:15 was followed by 8:30 with the Senior Choir where I played the congas!  And then Debbie Saldanha took over the Children's Choir. 

Pipes, Bells and Whistles

The first time I ever played a pipe organ was for the wedding of my good friends Charles and Jacquie Mantosh at the Catholic Cathedral at Baithakhana.  They had asked for John Denver's Sunshine on my shoulder to be played after communion.  The challenges, as I recall, were many.  For one thing, it's not easy to play anything while looking over your shoulder, sunshine or not.  These pipe organs faced away from the altar, so to see what was going on, one had to have a large mirror installed.  Then you needed to watch the priests in lateral inversion while playing from a music book perched a yard away (there were 2 or 3 keyboards and multiple knobs and handles in between).  Learning the names of those knobs (called Stops) and handles (called Couplers) was the least of the problem.  They had stuff written on them in Latin!   It's probably the only time that I pulled the "piano" stop to find the sound drop.  Pianissimo I was told meant "soft".  I do recall playing the pipe organ at Sacred Heart Church Dharamtala (when it wasn't sliced in two horizontally).  That organ had an interesting extra -- there was a guy whose job it was to 'pump' the bellows using something suspiciously like a chappakol or handpump. He had to start before breakfast so that there was enough air in the bellows before the organists arrived to let it out.  And occasional holes in the bellows produced an interesting orchestration of wheezes and whistles to accompany the pipes.

Pianissimo, our Forté

Then one day, at a funeral in St Xavier's Chapel, I was commandeered from the congregation to accompany the choir.  After the funeral I was propositioned by the choir to play for them for Easter. And then by the Rector to play for the First Vows of some young priests. By now I had "degenerated" to a Yamaha electronic keyboard where I safely used the Piano button and played very pianissimo - no beats, no congas, and often it was free time.  Our forté in Fr Boris' choir is, I believe, the ability to keep things soft, meaningful, traditional and solemn.  And this is what I missed most while attending online mass at midnight this Christmas. 

[As published in Calcutta Connect Around the World on Facebook on December 28, 2020]