The Harbour Totterdown

The Talk of Totterdown is a neighbourhood newspaper, full of local news stories and delivered free to houses in the area. I sent them a piece about Every Organ, and a few weeks later had a message from the pastor at the Harbour, a Vineyard church on Bushy Park, inviting me to come and play.

I had in fact just finished playing at St Mary’s in Fishponds (and was wishing I could’ve played a little more organ) when he texted and suggested meeting, so I cycled straight back south of the river to meet him.

The pastor is a keen musician and also a music psychotherapist who practises in the building. The hall is beautiful, and full of instruments: two pianos, including a grand, an electric piano, a cajon and a WG Vowles organ. He kindly set up a heater for me and left me to it, saying I could play as long as I liked!

The Harbour Totterdown

A beautiful space in the heart of Totterdown!

Being left to play when no-one is listening is a dream come true!

I had heard a couple of people talking about the practice of holding down keys with pens or chopsticks, to build big rootless chords with no tonal centre, and fortunately the console was full of old biros, so I tried it out. It was a lot of fun leaving the organ and wandering around the hall listening to the sound change.

I find the absence of tonal centre extremely hypnotic, and the mind feels like it’s floating in space as it attempts to interpret the sound, the sound of nothingness or everythingness at the same time.

You can hear an improvisation here. It was such a pleasure to get lost with this organ for an hour! Thank you to Adam for getting in touch, letting me in, setting up a heater and leaving me to it.