I am continually telling my organ students that when we play hymns, we are the ones taking charge … we are the leader. So it’s important to have a forward motion, like “pretending you are the Crucifer,” I sometimes say. We are the ones who lead the parade.

That was absolutely impossible for me this morning at Nuuanu Congregational Church, when in spite of having the volume pedal “to the max,” the dynamic level of the Rodgers organ was so very soft, it was just above a whisper. It was as though the congregation was singing “a cappella,” and believe me, that congregation is not used to singing unaccompanied!

Today nobody could complain that I was playing too loudly! On the contrary, you could barely hear it!

So, until the replacement instrument is delivered in several weeks, I think I will be forced into playing the piano. Dear me! In previous posts, I complained about not having any piano repertoire, much less being able to play it. I even texted my sister, Margo, a pianist, to see if she had any easy piano solos she could send me.

I’m afraid I’ll be reduced to playing organ music for manuals only — except I’ll be playing the music on the piano.

The thing that bothers me the most is having to play the hymns on the piano where I am unable to change stops on the different verses, as on the organ. As my late colleague John McCreary used to say, the whole reason he switched to the organ was that the piano only had one stop!

More bad news: the replacement organ which is coming out of a church upgrading to a newer model, has just been found to have termites, which means it will need to be treated before it is delivered. Sigh…I’m afraid it won’t be a long-term solution.

Hey, I just discovered an article about termites in a pump organ here in Hawaii!

Back in 1984, an Etsy-brand pump organ that was built in 1890 had been donated to the newly built Mission Chapel that was, and still is, located on the premises of the Polynesian Cultural Center in Honolulu. Although the pump organ was well cared for after it was donated, years of humidity and pests had rendered the instrument unplayable, and structurally compromised. The most recent, and only successful attempt at restoring the pump organ involved a piece-by-piece disassembly, and many portions of replacement wood. The restoration effort lasted for an entire year, and termite damage beneath the organ’s keys nearly made the instrument a total loss. Each of the sixty one keys had to be replaced as they were all damaged by termites. After many prayers, the restoration attempt proved to be a success, and the refurbished pump organ can now be heard in all of its glory by tourists visiting the Polynesian Cultural Center.

(Correction: The Polynesian Cultural is not in Honolulu, it’s in Laie.)