organist

Modern systems tend to control the wind supply through electronics which means no feedback for the organist.

As a data point, an organist may have to deal with latencies between few hundreds to seconds.

Some of the notes had stopped playing, or were the wrong pitch, so the organist had to work around them.

He was known as an organist until the 18th century when someone decided to lump him in with the greats.

So, with an investment like that, a church cannot afford to be without an organist.

Bach did get some widespread acclaim by the end of his life, but mostly as an organist, not as a composer.

You can also go all the way and get a set of organist foot pedals.

He's an organist at the local church and they've got TV's at the front showing everyone the words to the hymns.

My absolute personal favourite is Toccata and Fugue played by organist Hans-André Stamm on the Trost-Organ of the Stadtkirche in Waltershausen [1].

If you get a chance, you should watch an organist play from close up.

In this case it was played from sheet music by a professional organist.

Many are essentially freelancers and take gigs as they come-- choir accompanist, pit orchestra pianist, keyboardist in a band, resident organist in a church...

I should have said, one of my summer jobs during college was "church organist" -- at a small church with a lovely old pipe organ that had exactly these issues.

In any of France's great cathedrals, the foremost musical experience is to hear the "titulaire" (essentially the headline organist) improvising on whatever theme they've selected for the day - sometimes chant, sometimes a hymn tune, sometimes something entirely frivolous and inappropriate that takes on a life of its own.