Organ-Related App

Are there any organists here? My son just built a mobile app designed to help novice organists figure out what stops to use for which hymns. I would call it a work in progress, but it's already on the App Store and Google Play. Would anyone be opposed to my posting the links here, or if so, just asking for feedback? Thanks.

A couple members of my family would be interested in seeing the app. Is it free?

I haven't seen objections when others have posted links to apps in the forum previously.

With the name of the app anyone should be able to find it at the appropriate store. No need for a link.

The app is free and contains no ads. My son basically did his mom a favor, creating the app over the summer break. He also wanted to develop a mobile app for his resume.

I agree with you @lajackson. I didn't want to make it seem like I'm trying to advertise it. The name of the app is "Organ Stops" on Google Play for Android, and "Organ-Stops" (with a hyphen) on the App Store for iPhone/iPad. If you can't find it, try adding "walking river" to the search. Or if you really want the link, you can PM me.

What he's really looking for is help figuring out the best settings for each hymn, and also whether or not he'll need to add support for multiple organ models, or whether the stops are standard enough to make the organ sound good enough.

Pops right up at Google Play (if you press the search button after you type in the name, duh!).

Nice little app.

Thanks. I just hope crowdsourcing the data will work and will actually be useful.

My musical skills don't include actual organ stop settings. As for whether the stops will work on another organ, most of them should have the basic set. If there is an easy way to add a note that "these stops are suggested based on the [brand name] organ" (perhaps in the About section), that may be helpful.

I did not go looking to see if there is a way to add hymns. I did note that you can tailor the stops for the hymns that are there. I think that's a nice feature, that you can personalize the app.

My recommendation to him is eventually to add Organ models, and be able to tag the stops for each model. Or tag the customizations. Yes, you can add songs, assuming you register with the app. Once you've customized a song or added it, it's visible to everyone running the app anywhere in the world. It has live updating, too, which I thought was kinda cool.

You might also try posting in "LDS Music Resources" or similar groups on Facebook – I'll bet you could get some good input there.

Coming a little late to the conversation, and I apologize. I'm a college-trained organist, and play at the Tabernacle on Temple Square on occasion. I just downloaded the app and took it for a spin. First reaction: I love the concept of crowd-sourcing registration ideas for our hymns, and apps like this are especially useful for those in callings for which we absolutely do not provide adequate training.

I also teach alongside the BYU organ faculty at some of the workshops they hold all over North America. I would love to be able to recommend an app like this to beginning organists. However, before I can hold up this app as authoritative, some issues would have to be addressed. They are:

• Use of the Tabernacle organ pipes in the app icon and a photo of the organ facade as the splash page would be frowned upon by the church, as both are registered trademarks. If your son hasn't already been contacted by the church about this, it's probably because the app name and description are just vague enough to probably not have made it on the intellectual property team's radar

• There are several user-suggested registrations throughout the list of hymns that we would never teach as being advisable, and in some cases are totally unadvisable. I absolutely understand this is commonly a result of our practice of taking pianists, anointing them as organists, thanking them for taking the calling and moving on. The result is well-meaning people doing the best they can. An app like this is an opportunity to rise beyond that and provide solidly useful information. Some kind of moderation or vetting would go a long way to making this app rise to that next level.

Huge kudos to your son for thinking of this, and thanks to you as well for surfacing it here for us all to see!

Thanks for the insightful reply. Your input is most appreciated. The application came about exactly as you describe. My wife was asked to play the organ, simply because she can play the piano, and provided with no instruction. She started by copying the stops from an organ in another meetinghouse that could play all the hymns on its own, and had the stops preset for each. She suggested that it would be more convenient as a mobile app, rather than a bunch of paper notes. If it were an app, she could get input from experienced organists all over the world. So this past summer, she pitched the idea to my son. He, a computer science major at BYU, was told by a potential employer that he should get some mobile development experience. So he decided to tackle the project. The app you saw was his 0.1 attempt.

He is aware that the icon could be an issue. It was cobbled together from another image and Photoshopped. The splash screen actually came from a stock photography website, but I admit it may also need to be changed.

Ultimately, I'm sure he would welcome any assistance and recommendations on making the app better. He has no desire to charge for it or earn any money whatsoever. He just wanted the experience, and he's still willing to make it better. He mentioned today that he'd like some sort of voting system, so that not only would the stops be crowdsourced, but also the "quality" of the submissions. For that to work, he'd obviously need more people to use the app.

Thanks again for your input. If you have other suggestions, we'd look forward to them.

Regards,
Mike

Hi Mike - I'd be glad to talk directly with your son about it, if he'd like. I've thought about it all day while hanging Christmas lights, and I do think the app has a LOT of potential!

I'm sure he'd welcome that. Does this forum have private messaging? Or do we trade contact info publicly?

Looks like we can send private messages. I sent you a PM with my and my son's email addresses. Thanks again.

@emckirdy, it's been about four years. My son has since graduated and has a full-time job. The app is still going strong and has so many songs/registrations that it's become unwieldy. I let my Apple developer subscription lapse, so the app is no longer available on the iPhone. It's still on Google Play, and I recently started converting it to a Progressive Web App with all the same features. You can see it here, with a new icon and splash screen: https://zealous-pond-074e3c90f.azurestaticapps.net/. This new version is both mobile- and desktop-browser friendly.

I'm sure Ben would still be open to your feedback on how to make the app better.

Regards,
Mike Callaghan

How exciting to find an app that solves the mystery of organ registration! I can't wait to find and use it. Thanks for sharing it!

The app is free and can still be found in the Google Play Store, but it's been removed from the Apple App Store. I finally got tired of paying Apple $99/year to publish free apps. My son and I turned it into a "Progressive Web App" that works equally well on desktop browsers, Android, and iOS. You can freely move from one platform to the other and all the data is still synced. We also removed the images that looked too much like the church's hymnal logo. That one is at https://organ-stops.web.app. Android Chrome should offer to install it as an app. iPhones can do the same by selecting Share -> Add to Home Screen.

FWIW, I just reenabled my Apple developer subscription, so it's available again on the App Store. As always, it's free and has no ads. We're working on updating it because Apple threatens to pull it if we don't. It also has a pretty lousy rating, I think because people don't understand what it's for.
https://apps.apple.com/br/app/organ-sto ... 32114?l=en

The problem I continue to have with apps like this is that they oversimplify what is not a simple concept. It's a bit irresponsible for me to suggest a registration based on what I use on the particular organ I play every Sunday. Just because two organs may each have an 8' Diapason on the Great, it's almost a guarantee they don't sound exactly alike. That's a function of how the organ is voiced, the shape of the room, and a whole lot of other variables that go into organs - including the digital organs in most of our buildings.

So while my suggested registration might be a starting point for someone else, it's doing our (already woefully untrained) ward organists a disservice to suggest that my registration entered into an app is going to work universally.

I get that. My son wrote this app as a school project at his mother's request. We put it on the Play Store to make it easier for her to install it. After that, new songs and registrations started to appear. The last time he looked in the database, there were entries from at least 1000 different people. Unfortunately, it's starting to fall over from the weight of all the data people have added.

There are obviously people that want the information. I got an email in Italian today asking me a question about it. I had to use Google Translate to understand the question.

My wife still uses it every week, mostly as a starting point, as she has no idea where to begin. I'm sure my son still be open to discussing what can be done to make the app more generally useful.