Jonathan Shaw

     This was a little organ piece I wrote in preparation for playing the organ for my first ever morning service at my local church on 26th October 2014. As I was not entirely adept at improvising on the organ, I wrote a composition that I could learn and build off of instead. It was constructed to become the background ambience preceding a service, and as such, it has regular cadential points where the piece can be ended for when the service is ready to start. Otherwise, it can be repeated indefinitely until the vicar is ready. Thus, this is my first composition that served a purpose as opposed to simply existing.

 

     I was considering extending it to add more variation so the repeat of material is not so obvious, but I have not yet done so. I do, however, still intend to extend the piece at some point, or perhaps compose another ambience. I did later write another ambience for when I was deputy organist at a church in Woking that required two ambience pieces, but I will discuss that piece later. I had started writing a third ambience piece in a minor key, but I never finished it.

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     The recording I attach below is a live performance of the piece that I gave on 25th October 2015 for a service. I unfortunately did not record the service where I premiered this work, but this one should suffice!