In this video Daniel Moult explains the basics of hymn playing, from learning the notes, touch, registration, articulation, through to building up to performance. 

Develop your skills on the ‘big course with the personal touch’ – the RCO’s flagship summer course which lasts for six days and is based in the heart of the historic City of London. This film provides insight into the course, which caters for organists of all levels and aspirations.

The organists and choir-trainers who founded the College of Organists created a new kind of singing voice, which has had a tremendous influence right up to the present day.  Just before the Second World War, music critics from around Europe remarked that the outstanding contribution of England to the music of the world was the […]

The interest in church music in mid- to late-nineteenth-century Britain was considerable, with the musical press regularly carrying correspondence on a wide range of topics – the training of clergy and musicians, repertoire, organ music and the ordering of churches.   A glance at any modern British hymnal reveals our indebtedness to the authors, translators, editors, […]

Playing hymns is an essential part of the musical lives of most organists, and in this download Ian Curror considers the practical skills required.  It is primarily designed for candidates who are preparing for CRCO, but it is hoped that it may prove valuable to others too. Hymn playing for organists  

Most advanced organists need to transpose at sight, whether it is accompanying soloists, changing the keys of hymns to fit a prelude or postlude, or when improvising on a given theme.  Hymn transposition is part of the keyboard skills tests for both CertRCO and ARCO diplomas.  The typical student approaches transposition with great fear, as […]

This download from the RCO Academy suggests ways of preparing a student for a church post, and providing support for the amateur student who is already a church organist.  Even if students think they will never want to play in church, there are still important skills to be acquired in learning to play hymns and […]

The Church Music Society (CMS) was founded in 1906 ‘to facilitate the selection and performance of the music which is most suitable for different occasions of Divine worship, and for different kinds of choir’. Richard Lyne reviews the history of the Society’s publications from the early twenty-first century, and notes how the publishing policy and […]

Attitudes towards the use of organs to accompany the congregational singing of hymns and metrical psalms varied dramatically across the centuries and from place to place. Religious zealots denounced them as vainglorious ornaments, whilst musical reformers advocated their use to impose order on undisciplined singing. This makes an account of the subject problematic since almost […]