There was a complaint, today, on the American Guild of Organists Facebook page, about the extra amount of work it requires for an organist to play for a Zoom service compared to an in-person gathering.

After almost a year with zoom church services, I finally realized that I am doing three times the work of when we are live... I have to make individual recordings of the piano part, each individual voice part with the background accompaniment AND me singing and plunking out the melody, send it to the producer who puts it all together, keep all the files in a dropbox and send them to her individually—she doesn’t pay for more file storage, on top of the regular choose the music and send pdf files of it to choir members, plus just the lyrics in large print for my older members. PLUS it has been too much for my choir to sing an anthem every week so I sing a solo every other week. Lots of recordings and many takes. Whew, it’s a lot. (Catherine Pruett)

I was thinking of all this as I was recording the music this morning for my church job at Nuuanu Congregational. I was trying to compare the number of hours I would spend if I were to play for a service in person, versus recording the music for playback.

The first task is to choose what music I will playing, for the prelude, introit and postlude. Sometimes this is easy, and other times it may take awhile. Now it’s Lent, and I have in mind a bunch of pieces which would be appropriate for this season. I don’t have to wholly rely on my memory, as my selections were documented on the Lutheran Church of Honolulu website for some of the years I was organist. During those years, of course, I was much more conscious of the lectionary, the appointed lessons for the day, which sometimes called for certain organ pieces: Bach’s “Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam” on the Baptism of Christ Sunday, for example.

Many times I tried to coordinate the style of the choral music to my organ music selections. If, for example, the choir was singing Bach, I’d play Bach too. Or if they were singing Mendelssohn, I’d pick something by Mendelssohn, or something else German Romantic. You get the idea.

Then it’s time for recording. If I were playing in person, I might have a small mistake or two—but not so if the experience is going to be etched into stone with a recording. Therefore, it might take 3-4 “takes” before I am satisfied that the performance is relatively free of errors.

In many cases, I’ve played the music before and a brief run-through is all the practice I need. However, I also play new music, requiring me to figure out the registration (what stops to pull) and practice the piece all the way through. I consider myself a good sightreader, but still there are those passages which require a little more time.

I next perform and record the two hymns which are chosen by the pastor. These I can usually do on one “take.”

All in all, by the time I drive to the church, choose the music and record, drive back home and type up the titles, composers and copyright information for the church bulletin—takes about two hours out of my week. Bear in mind, though, that I have YEARS of experience, plus I have always paid for my own sheet music, the costs of attending church music conventions, dues to professional organizations, and other costs of being a musician, like organ shoes.

When the church returns to in-person worship services, I figure it will take this time plus an extra trip to the church to set the organ registrations, at least another hour.

Although I don’t do all the extra recording and singing that Catherine Pruett does, her question further led to a discussion about church organists’ salaries. She wanted to know if she would be justified in asking for a pay raise due to the extra hours it was taking her.

Here are some of the reactions:

Kenneth R. Davis These discussions have come up many times. Factors to consider are the size of the congregation, in which part of the country it is located, what denomination (if any) it is, urban or rural. Pay seems to range between $50 per week & $60,000+ per year.

Chuck Peery Anyone who hasn’t done this for Zoom probably doesn’t get what you mean. I have, from March until I retired in August, and it wore me out. I made videos of hymns, special music, standard sung Propers. Looked for pics and vid clips in the public domain, chose them, ordered them, made iMovies of them. I know I spent three times the amount of time it would have taken me to just go to church and do my job. Hymns entered into Finale, then split up into screen shots which were exported as jpg’s and scrolled as you sang. Lots of steps, none of them apparent. Yes, I could have cut corners. But once you ask me to do something and I figure out the tools, it has to be the way I envision. This is what musicians do, I’m just not sure it transfers easily to Zoom without a lot of work. 

William Eagle-Harris You’re lucky to be working. On the other hand, they’re lucky to have you. Ask for what you think is reasonable for you. It can’t hurt.

Tim Peterson You might be thankful that you are still getting a paycheck! It’s been a long year though, THAT’S for sure!

Sarah Kirsch I’m lucky my church still pays me. Money offerings are down because of the pandemic and besides the pastor, I’m the only paid person at the church.