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Roland became interested in the organ as a junior in high school when he heard it at the Church of the Ascension on Washington Street. Soon after he began to take lessons from the organist there, Melvin Dickinson.

Roland Herzel

Roland Herzel, a 65-year-old organist at South Frankfort Presbyterian Church, has been sitting on the same bench for 40 years.

He uses three keyboards – two for his hands and one for his feet, which requires thin leather shoes – and a number of switches to manipulate 796 pipes behind an acoustic screen at the front of the sanctuary.

For Roland, music is therapeutic. The cantatas of Bach and the symphonies of Beethoven played in his head as he went through drills at Fort Knox in 1967 as he prepared to serve in Vietnam as a chaplain’s assistant for the Army.

“That’s what got me through,” Roland says. “It eased the pain.

“It was like taking a sedative for me, and it still is. Music relaxes me, speaks to me emotionally, and that’s the reason why it’s such a big part of my life.”

Roland first fell in love with the organ as a junior at Frankfort High School. He went to Church of the Ascension on Washington Street, and an organist there named Melvin Dickinson caught his ear.

“It was just a sound I was unaccustomed to,” Roland says. “He was playing Bach, and something just sparked me.”

Melvin had come to Frankfort after studying music in Germany for two years with the Fulbright Program.

That’s a federally funded international exchange program for students to study, teach, conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

-Roland took his first organ lessons with Melvin, but the seasoned organist left Frankfort to teach music at the University of Louisville.

Roland’s love of classical music began years before he’d put his fingers on a keyboard.

His parents exposed him to classical music around age 3. They would show Roland a record sleeve and play a record of a classical composer to test his ear.

Roland could tell if the sleeve’s illustration matched the music.

“They said I could tell from the picture what it should sound like. I got that sound in my ear at a young age.”

Roland studied music at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and the University of Louisville, where Melvin taught organ.

“It just happened to work out,” Roland said of reuniting with his first teacher.

Roland spent three years in Vietnam as a chaplain’s assistant and returned to Frankfort in 1970. He says he lost a lot of technique while at war.

“You’re used to practicing every day for so many hours, and then you’re away from it for several years … it’s really like starting over again. I was worried about that.”

Roland says he drifted for a bit after his stint in the Army, but eventually took a job with Investors Heritage Life Insurance on Capital Avenue and retired a few weeks ago.

He processed insurance claims with Investors Heritage and still works there part-time while transitioning toward retirement.

Roland says his ability to read music helps him read medical records with the same objective eye.

“How far apart could you have two things? Well, turns out that the part of your brain that is the creative part, it seems to go with insurance in that I can read medical records objectively like I would a piece of music and think objectively.

“It turns out to be good for making decisions in claims and dealing with people.”

After he took the job with Investors Heritage, divine intervention brought Roland to his dream gig. The organist at South Frankfort Presbyterian Church quit without notice.

“It was miraculous,” Roland said. “I wonder to this day … you know, the very year I got out of the Army, here this vacancy opened up. The organist had suddenly quit, and they had this opening. I don’t know if it was divine providence or not, but I’m not going to complain.”

Roland says the opening was especially amazing considering how engrained organists are in church communities. Most organists stick with a church for decades.

As an organist, Roland has lots to keep up with every Sunday. He has to pick hymns and pieces to play during services depending on the liturgical calendar.

During Lent, music is more conservative because the season is more introspective, Roland says. Easter will bring more openly joyous music during the celebratory season.

Although some organists can improvise easily, Roland likes to stick to the sheet music.

He doesn’t deviate much from tempo and style either, believing the composer wrote music for a certain purpose.

“Some hymns cannot be played fast; some hymns cannot be played slowly.

“I’ve had people ask, ‘Why do you play “Amazing Grace” so slowly?’ The writer of that hymn has already dictated the tempo based on the style it was written.”

Roland’s favorite composer is Johann Sebastian Bach, and he keeps nine volumes – Bach’s complete published works – stacked behind his organ bench, along with a number of other works and hymnals.

Although a big fan of the classical composer, Roland has never composed his own music.

“You know, I had a course of composition in college and I did not do well in it. It didn’t come easily to me, and it sounded like it. I had to write pieces for the class and I never felt at ease with it.

“Composers who are born composers, they can’t move the pen fast enough. These ideas just come in lightning bolts. That’s a different gift, but I just don’t have it.”

Roland respects the complexity of music. He practices about two or three hours a week now, but hopes to dedicate more time to music since he’s retired.

“This is something I love. The more you practice, the deeper you get in the music. You see through the first layer. You see more of the architecture and the form of the piece. You keep peeling it back and you see what’s really there and what’s driving the piece.”

“Frankfort Faces” is a series that highlights people from within the Frankfort and Franklin County community. Each feature follows one of the city’s most unique personalities and includes a story, photos and video.