As an organist, I came late to hymns, playing in churches at which just a few hymns were sung over and over again. My organ teacher introduced me into hymn playing and The Parish Organist by Concordia Press, something that I recently revisited. More about that soon.
While working with The Parish Organist and having recently had a meeting in which helping pianists become organists was impressed upon me as clearly important, we've created, with some great assistance, a new book that will at first be available in a Catholic edition, The Catholic Organist's Book of Hymns.
Hymn are printed to be sung. Hymn books are singer's books, not books for organists.
Organists cannot play the organ from a hymn book with confidence and style without lessons that teach the traditions of playing hymns from hymn books.
It's really, really hard for a pianist, used to playing the notes on a page to face having to to learn how to ignore notes written for singers, convert them into notes that serve as organ accompaniments and also carry the rhythm and insert the breaks needed to adequately accompany hymns being sung on the organ which is being played.
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