Shalom (Norman Warren) - more Mayhew mistakes

I dread the early months of each new year, when all the church organists within driving distance of St Oswald's depart en masse for their annual recover-from-Christmas and get-ready-for-Lent jollies, for you can guarantee that while they're away some poor soul will snuff it and the grieving relatives will want the organ played at the funeral.  Muggins  once owned a piano, and can play three notes on the treble recorder (all different!), which naturally means that he can play the organ, doesn't it? At least as far as the Vicar and the PCC are concerned.

Now I think that anyone who has lost a relative has already suffered enough, and the last thing he (or she) needs at the funeral is me trying to play the organ, which I had to do three times in a fortnight this time last year.

So it certainly doesn't help when the book of Easy Pieces For Beginners On The Organ Who Get Lumbered With a Funeral is riddled with misprints, as is Rest Eternal, from Kevin Mayhew, publishers of the not-yet-fully-edited hymnal, the Orange Brick.

I thought, at the first funeral I had to play at last year, that it was me getting the wrong notes in Norman Warren's moody little piece called Shalom, but I took the book home and checked, and no, it wasn't me.  I was playing the notes on the page, and in the right order, but it sounded horrible.

Anyway, by the time I had to play for the second funeral, I'd more or less worked out what the notes should have been, and our church copy of Rest Eternal now has the four corrected bars tipped in.

But it should NOT have been necessary.  Rest Eternal will set your church back £17.00, and you shouldn't have to do the music editor's job yourself.

Hence this little rant from one of the Choirstalls columns in the mag early last year:

After writing this column I had occasion to use a volume of organ music from the Kevin Mayhew stable - and it, too, was riddled with howlers and misprints. So perhaps it is just incompetence after all.  But if you’re reading this, Kevin, and you suddenly find yourself needing a decent proof-reader, apply c/o the Vicarage.  I’m not cheap, but at least I can read music.

So, for the benefit of all the church organists who don't bother playing this little piece because it sounds horrible, the following post is a jpg of the original KM notation and my corrections.  With a bit of tweaking you'll be able to trim and size it in a graphics program to produce a print that you can tip in to your well-thumbed, tear-stained Rest Eternal.

And all completely free of charge.