What kind of nightmares do organists have?

I have a recurring dream that I am sitting down to play a recital on an organ that I’ve never seen before—and I’m seeing the music for the first time as well! I’m a good sightreader, but I don’t have the nerve to do it in front of a paying audience.

But the thought of playing a concert on a strange organ would really make me nervous. You see, every pipe organ supposedly is built for the room it is housed in, which makes every instrument unique and different. There are basically four types of stops: principals, flutes, strings and reeds (and they may have names in at least four languages: German, French, Latin and English) — but the organist always needs to check the stop names with how they sound in the room, making the prep time at an organ before a service or concert mandatory. The organ is not like a piano, with just black and white keys! Too many variables, including the fact that something may be dead or broken!

Years ago I had a nightmare which I will NEVER ever forget. I dreamt that I was playing continuo organ for a Bach cantata my husband Carl was conducting. I couldn’t believe that he had placed the entire organ on a 45-degree angle sloped board which was causing not only my body to slide off the bench, but all the music to fall off the rack! I remember screaming at him, “I CAN’T DO THIS! CARL, I WON’T DO THIS!”

I woke up, and when I opened my eyes, everything was a 45-degree angle! That was when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor (2008).

Yesterday I got to the church to teach an organ lesson, and we found that the gear on the organ bench was broken, causing the bench to be not level—the right side is definitely higher than the left.

Granted it’s not as bad as in my dreams, which was at 45-degrees, but uneven enough to make playing difficult and warrant cancellation of my organ lessons.

Hope someone can fix it soon!