They Didn’t Teach Me THAT in Music School: Reaching for the Cancel Button

You know how sometimes an organist finishes a piece, then you hear the tiniest smear of sound? They’re catching a note or two as they reach for the cancel button.

Maybe you don’t have that problem (maybe you just forget to press the cancel button altogether!).

But it was a problem for me until last year when I realized I could fix it.

Here’s how I stopped making that mistake:

I intentionally draw a semicircle with my right hand as I move it from the manual to the cancel button.

Like so:

Image is photograph of organ console with a semi circle draw on to show the movement of right hand from manual to cancel button.

Talk about obvious.

But I don’t think I’ve made that mistake since I started doing this. (And YES, I’ve waited to post this in fear that I’ll be jinxed and catch the keys on Sunday!)

On Gratitude and Gentle Hands

In prepping this post, I was talking with my friend Crawford Wiley (whom you might know from the Music and the Church podcast). He had the wisest perspective on this problem:

I think it happens from this weird habit of slamming the cancel button the second a piece is done, as if you have to stop the cassette tape from going on to Song Number Two?

Maybe it’s part of the very unconsciously bad way organists approach their instruments physically?

Anyhow, how have you eliminated this?

I’m hoping by just not frightenedly smashing CANCEL as soon as the last chord is done?

Like, dammit, people, take a second and breathe!

Not to go all Marie Kondo, but…… organists should thank their instrument when they touch it.

Do you have any tricks to stop making silly mistakes like this? Reminds me of when I finally put spiral binding in my scores so they’d stop falling off the music rack!

1 thought on “They Didn’t Teach Me THAT in Music School: Reaching for the Cancel Button”

  1. The organ I learned on didn’t have a Cancel button. I still forget it’s there when I play other instruments!

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