When I got my first job, I remember purchasing a pretty basic Hohner organ. That was way back in 1977. It didn’t have many sounds, but I used to enjoy playing all my favourite hits of the day. Here are two that I would have played as soon as I bought it 😄.
There were from two albums that I purchased around that time:
I probably played all kinds of pop/rock music on it, but particularly new wave groups that featured keyboards, such as The Stranglers and Elvis Costello and the Attractions.
Then, around 1980, when I committed my life to Christ, I remember playing songs from Bob Dylan’s Christian albums. I never played outside of home until a friend was travelling to Limerick and asked me to come and play the organ in Limerick Baptist Church. That was back in the autumn of 1981. I even remember two of the hymns that I played on that day. Here they are:
Needless to say, these videos don’t feature my own church. The first one is an Indian congregation, the second is from the US, from Jimmy Carter’s funeral. I see Donald Trump and a few other ex-presidents in it.
In the interests of balance, I’d better include a Russian version 😄.
Anyway, I passed my organ onto a local Christian fellowship in Cork. I can’t remember when, but I think we got a better one at home, and I spent most of the early 1980s away from Cork. In later years, I purchased various keyboards. I never really spent much on them, and I don’t think that I was ever particularly gifted at playing. But for most of my life, I played in church. I had dreams of playing in a pop group, but I’m glad to have been able to use my talent for serving God. In evangelical churches, music is generally quite simple, but I do enjoy listening to organ music from cathedrals etc. Here are a couple of examples.
Nowadays, you can connect keyboards to computers or even phones and get all sorts of sounds and music production software. I just mess about. I’ve never really created anything special, but I never cease to enjoy playing music. I sometimes compare it to progression in holiness. You never progress all that far in this life, but the important thing is that you are trying, practicing, committing yourself.
Anyway, I love music, and I love the fact that music is such a dominant feature of worship, here on earth and in heaven.
Psalm 150
Praise the Lord.
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with timbrel and dancing,
praise him with the strings and pipe,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
Hibernia Gospel 