The Hammond organ is an electric organ which was invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the pipe organ, it became the de facto standard for jazz, blues, and rock music (in the 1960s and 1970s) and gospel music. Although the last electromechanical Hammond organ came off the assembly line in the mid-1970s, thousands are still in daily use.

History

American engineer and inventor Laurens Hammond filed a US patent (number 1,956,350) for a new type of 'electrical musical instrument' that recreated a pipe organ-type sound. The invention was unveiled to the public in April 1935 and the first model, the Model A, was made available that year in June.

The organ was first used for popular music by Milt Herth, who played it live on WIND (AM) soon after it was invented.^{[1] [2]} The Hammond organ was widely used in United States military chapels and post theatres during the Second World War, and returning soldiers' familiarity with the instrument may have helped contribute to its popularity in the post-war period.^[3]. Hammond intended his invention to be a substitute for pipe organs, a replacement for the piano in middle-class homes, and for use by radio stations. However by the 1950s, jazz musicians such as Jimmy Smith began to use the organ's distinctive sound. By the 1960s, the Hammond became popular with pop groups and was used on the British pirate station Radio 390. In Britain the organ became associated with elevator music and ice rinks music. However, the overdriven sound of the Hammond gained a new image when it became part of 1960's and 1970s rock with artists like Dave "Baby" Cortez, Booker T Jones, Al Kooper, Jon Lord, Rick Wright, Billy Preston, Steve Winwood, Ian McLagan, Keith Emerson, and Rick Wakeman.

Hammond tonewheel organs are preferred among most enthusiasts, the most popular models also having tube amplifiers. Some of the later Hammond models combine tonewheel generation with solid state amplifiers, with the latest models of that era being fully solid state. Hammond is now owned by Suzuki Company. Hammond-Suzuki makes digital organs that very closely replicate the tonewheel organ sound. (See "Clones" below)

Tone generation

Additive synthesis

The original Hammond organ imitated the function of a pipe organ's ranks of pipes in multiple registers by using additive synthesis of waveforms from harmonic series to generate its sounds. The Hammond organ's individual waveforms are made by mechanical tonewheels which rotate in front of electromagnetic pickups. Although they are generally included in the category of electronic organs, original Hammond organs are, strictly speaking, electric or electromechanical rather than electronic organs because the waveforms are produced by mechanical tonewheels rather than electronic oscillators. Hammond organs use 96 tonewheels. Five of these are blanks, only present in order to balance out the rotating mechanical sub-assemblies. Thus the tonewheel assembly generates 91 frequencies, which are all that are required for the entire organ. The appropriate frequency outputs, nine per key, are routed to the key contacts for each note on the keyboards.

Drawbars

The component waveform ratios are mixed by sliding drawbars mounted above the two keyboards, which operate like the faders on an audio mixing board. When a drawbar is incrementally pulled out, it increases the volume of its component waveform. When pushed all the way in, the specified component wave form becomes absent from the mix. The labelling of the drawbar is derived from the stop system in pipe organs where the physical length of the pipe corresponds to the pitch produced. Hammond drawbars are set up in groups of nine arranged as follows:

16'	1 octave below fundamental
5 1⁄3'	a fifth above fundamental
8'	fundamental
4'	1 octave above fundamental
2 2⁄3'	1 octave and a fifth above fundamental
2'	2 octaves above fundamental
1 3⁄5'	2 octaves and a major third above fundamental
1 1⁄3'	2 octaves and a fifth above fundamental
1'	3 octaves above fundamental

Each of the drawbars has a range of 0 (off) to 8 (full on) and can be modified in real-time, allowing changes to be made while a song is being played. A given combination of drawbar settings creates a unique timbre, and is referred to as a registration. Registrations are notated using a 9-digit sequence where each digit corresponds to the level of its respective drawbar.

Presets

In addition to drawbars, many Hammond tonewheel organ models also include presets, which allow defined drawbar combinations to be made available at the press of a button. Full Console organs such as the famous B-3 and C-3 models have a number of reverse coloured keys (naturals are black, sharps/flats are white) to the left of each manual, with each key activating a preset. The two right-most preset keys (B and Bb) activate the corresponding left or right set of drawbars for that manual, while the other preset keys produce pre selected drawbar settings that are internally wired. The far left key (C), also known as the cancel key, de-activates all presets, and results in no sound coming from that manual.

Other Hammond models such as the M-100 and L-100 series have flip tabs for presets, situated across the top of the organ. The left hand flip tab reverts to the tone set by the drawbars. Some models such as the M, M-2 and M-3 spinet organs have only drawbars, and no presets, but after market products such as the Duet Sixteen, manufactured by the now defunct Electro Tone Corporation can be added to give preset functions.

Percussion

Another facet of the distinctive sound of the Hammond is the harmonic percussion effect. The term "percussion" does not refer to a drum-type sound effect; instead, it refers to the addition of the second and third harmonic overtones, which can be added to the attack envelope of a note. Those harmonics then quickly fade out leaving the tones which the player has selected using the drawbars. Older Hammond models produced before the 3 series organs (such as the B-2 and C-2) do not have the harmonic percussion feature. Aftermarket percussion effects can be added using devices from Trek II and from the Electro Tone Corporation.

Key click

Hammond organs have a distinctive percussive key click, which is the attack transient that occurs when all nine key contacts close, causing an audible pop or click. Originally, key click was considered to be a design defect and Hammond worked to eliminate or at least reduce it by using equalization filters. However, many performers liked the percussive effect, and it has become part of the classic sound that modern imitators of the Hammond organ have tried to reproduce.

Speakers

Main article: Leslie speaker

Although Hammond designed its own set of speakers, many players prefer to play the Hammond through a rotating speaker cabinet, which after several name changes became known as the Leslie speaker, after its inventor Donald J. Leslie (1913-2004). The Leslie system is an integrated speaker/amplifier combination, where the sound is emitted by a rotating horn over a stationary treble driver and a rotating baffle beneath a stationary bass woofer. This creates a characteristic sound due to the constantly changing pitch shifts that result from the Doppler effect created by the moving sound sources. It was originally designed to mimic the complex tones and constantly shifting sources of sound among a large group of pipe organ ranks. The effect varies depending on the speed of the rotors, which can be toggled by a console-based or pedal switch between fast (tremolo) or slow (chorale) effect.

Keyboards and pedalboard

The manuals of the Hammond organ have a lightweight construction, which allows for very rapid passages to be executed with more ease than on a weighted keyboard, such as a piano or pipe organ. Additionally, "waterfall" style keys of early Hammond models make effects such as palm glissandos possible. Later models, starting with the M-100 and L-100 series were produced with keys colloquially known as "springboard" keys.

Hammond organs come with a wooden bass pedalboard for the feet, so that the organist can play basslines. Hammond organ bass pedalboards do not usually have a full, 32-note American Guild of Organists (AGO) pedalboard going up to a G (3rd leger line of the bass clef) as the top note (see AGO pedalboard). Instead, a 25-note (with a C on the 1st leger line of the bass clef as the top note) or 30-note (with an F on the 2nd leger line of the bass clef as the top note) bass pedalboards are often used.

Several Hammond "concert" models, the RT-2, RT-3 and D-100 had 32-note AGO pedalboards. As well, they also contained a "Solo Pedal Unit" which provided several 32', 16', 8', and 4' voices for the pedal. The solo pedal unit used oscillators, similar to those used in Hammond's "Solovox."

Tonewheel organ models

Hammond tonewheel organs can be divided into two main groups: the 'Console' models such as the A, B, C, D, and R series which have two 61 note manuals and the smaller 'Spinet' models that have two 44 note manuals such as the M, L, and T series. The production of tonewheel organs stopped in the mid 1970s. Hammond organs made after this time use electronic tone generation. Examples of these organs are the J/K/N series, the Hammond Aurora, and the Hammond Concorde.

The model B-3, the C-3 and the A-100 models all have the same internal components in different cabinets. In addition, the A-100 has built-in speakers. In categorizing Hammond organ types it is useful to divide them by the way their sound generation mechanisms; the three categories are electromechanical, electronic, or both. Tonewheel organs use a series of toothed wheels which spin near an electromagnetic pickup to generate sound. Electronic tone generation uses solid state oscillator circuits.

The "V" series such as the Hammond "Cadette" were designed for beginners, and as such, the organs had no drawbars. Hammond intended that beginner organists could learn on the instrument and buy a better organ once they had learned the basic techniques. Like a spinet organ, Cadette organs had two offset manuals with a one-octave bass pedal board and an expression pedal (for controlling the volume). The sound produced by these organs was different than the sound produced by most other Hammond models. The upper manual had three instruments (flute, reed, and strings) and the lower manual had two instruments (tibia and cello). The pedal also had an instrument tab (for bass and accent). There was no Leslie, only a reverberation knob.

The "V" series organs came with Auto Rhythm, which had seven different rhythms (a "cancel" button was located at the far left), Synchro Start, and a volume and tempo knob. There were two tabs for vibrato (Light and Full). This series was built by Yamaha for Hammond.

Console organs

A / AB

Production years: Jun 1935 to Oct '38^[4]

A100

Production years: Apr 1959 to Dec '65^[5]

Internally identical to the B-3/C-3, but also included a built-in speaker and reverb for home use. Many players bypass the internal speakers and run the A100 through a Leslie. The Hammond company essentially took the same organ and put it in three cases:

- The A100 was marketed as a "home" console, since it had a built in speaker.

- The C-3 marketed for church use, because of its "privacy" panels that hid the organist's legs since they were often women.

- The B-3 was marketed for musicians who wanted to use a separate tone cabinet.

B-2 / C-2

Production years: Dec 1949 to Dec '54^[6]

B-3 / C-3

The Hammond B-3 organ (often referred to simply as "the B-3" or "the/a B") is the most well-known of the Hammond organs. It was produced from Jan 1955-74^[7]. It was originally produced to be a portable alternative to permanently-installed types of church organs, and was very popular in black churches. The "B-3" was also widely used in non-church settings. In the first decades after its introduction, the B-3 was heavily used in the Gospel, Jazz and Blues genres and was also used as a theatre organ to provide live music between feature films or perform music at ice rinks. Between the B-3 and C-3 for rock band use, in the US, the B-3 was more widely used, and in Europe, it was the C-3.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the B-3 was used in jazz bands (Walter Wanderley) and in organ trios, such as Jimmy Smith's organ trio. In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the B-3 and C-3 were widely used in rock bands ranging from Latin-rock groups such as Santana to progressive rock groups such as Procol Harum, Yes (C-3), Styx, Kansas, Emerson, Lake & Palmer (C-3), Boston and Pink Floyd, German Prog Rock band Eloy, to blues-rock groups such as The Allman Brothers Band (B-3), Deep Purple (C-3), the transcendant B-3 sound of "Gimme Some Lovin'" by Spencer Davis Group, and Elbernita Twinkie Clark of The Clark Sisters is dubbed as the "Queen of the Hammond B3" organ.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the B-3 continued to be used by many churches and also bands from a range of styles, including gospel, rock, hard rock, jazz, blues, and "jam" bands. This organ was also a favorite of renowned Grateful Dead keyboard player Brent Mydland as well as Page McConnell of Phish, Danny Federici of The E Street Band, and Tom Scholz of Boston. In the 1980s and 1990s, lightweight "clone" organs that imitated the sound were increasingly used to digitally recreate the B3's sound as a more portable (and less back-breaking) substitute, especially in live touring settings. Nevertheless, in the 2000s, some organ trios such as the Ken Clark organ trio still perform with vintage B-3 organs.

New B-3

In 2002, the Hammond company (now known as Hammond-Suzuki) relaunched the B-3 as the 'New B-3', a recreation of the original electromechanical instrument using modern-day electronics and a modern sound generator system. The New B-3 is constructed to appear like the original B-3, and the designers attempted to retain the subtle nuances of the familiar B-3 sound. Hammond Suzuki argues that it would be difficult for even an experienced B-3 player to distinguish between the old and new B-3 organs. Hugh Robjohns' review^[8] in the recording magazine Sound on Sound'' called the New B-3 "a true replica of an original B-3...in terms of the look and layout, and the actual sound."

The New B-3 was used by well-known B-3 players such as Jimmy Smith and Joey DeFrancesco, who both played a New B-3 on the collaborative album 'Legacy' released in 2005 shortly before Jimmy's death. Additionally, Evanescence used the new B-3 organ in almost every song of their album The Open Door, released in October 2006.^[9]. Hammond-Suzuki went on to release a portable version of the New B-3 as well as a new version of the C-3 model.

RT-3

Production years: Jan 1955 to '73^[10]

Spinet organs

Two 44-note offset manuals, built-in pedals, internal speakers and amplification.

M

Production years: 1948 to '51

M-2

Production years: 1951 to '55

M-3

Production years: 1955 to '64

As used by Booker T Jones on the 1962 recording Green Onions.

M-100 series

Production years: 1961 to '68
An M-102 was used by Matthew Fisher of Procol Harum on the 1967 recording A Whiter Shade of Pale. An M-100 was used by Tom Currie of Au Revoir Borealis on their 2008 album.

L-100 series

Production years: 1961 to '72.

Keith Emerson of Emerson Lake & Palmer played an L-100 on stage, using knives between the keys to hold them down.

T series

Production years: 1968 to '75
The first all solid-state, transistor powered Hammond. A T-102 was used by Tony Banks of Genesis from 1974 to 1980

Performance techniques

Manuals, drawbars, and effects

Pianists and synthesizer players who begin playing the Hammond soon realize that authentic performance practice involves a lot more than playing the notes on the keyboard. Hammond players vary the timbre of both manuals in real time through a combination of changing drawbar settings, engaging or disengaging the vibrato and chorus effects or percussion settings, and changing the rotating Leslie speaker system's speed setting. As well, performers obtain other effects by setting the Leslie's amplifier to maximum output (and controlling the effective volume using only the organ's volume pedal) to add overdriven distortion or growl for certain passages, or by briefly switching off the organ's synchronous run motor, which produces a wobbly pitch-bend effect.

There are playing styles that are specific to the Hammond organ, such as palm glissandos, rapid repetition of a single note, tremolo between two notes a third apart (typically the 5th and 7th scale degree of the current chord), percussive drumming of the keyboard, and playing a chord on the upper manual, then sliding the hand down to duplicate the chord on the lower manual. Artistic use of the foot-controlled volume pedal is an important facet of performing on the Hammond.

Bass pedalboard

Tom Vickers notes that after Jimmy Smith popularized the Hammond organ in jazz, many jazz pianists “...who thought that getting organ-ized would be a snap...” realized that the “... B-3 required not only a strong left hand, but killer coordination on those bass foot pedals to really get the bass groove percolating."^[11] In the 1950s, the organist Wild Bill Davis told the then-aspiring organist Smith that it could take over a decade just to learn the bass pedals. Jazz organists such as Jimmy Smith developed the ability to perform fluent walking-bass lines on the bass pedals, mostly on ballad tempo tunes. He played up-tempo bass lines with his left hand, augmented by occasional taps in the bass pedalboard. Currently, jazz organists such as Ken Clark and Barbara Dennerlein are able to perform fast-moving basslines on the bass pedalboard.

Many jazz organists from the 1950s/1960s era and from more recent decades perform the bassline for uptempo songs with their left hand on the lower manual. Organists who play the bassline on the lower manual may do short taps on the bass pedals-often on the tonic of a tune's key-to simulate the low, resonant sound of a plucked upright bass string. Playing basslines on the manuals may make the bass lines more light and fluid than if they are played on the bass pedals, especially for uptempo tunes. As well, playing basslines on the lower manual makes it easier to perform grace notes.

"Clones" and emulation devices

Due to the difficulties of transporting the heavy Hammond organ, bass pedalboard (a B-3 organ, bench and pedalboard weighs 425 pounds/193 kg) and Leslie speaker cabinets to performance venues, and due to the risk of technical problems that are associated with any vintage electromechanical instrument, musicians sought out a more portable, reliable way of obtaining the Hammond sound.

Electronic and digital keyboards which imitate the sound of the Hammond are often referred to as "clonewheel organs". Some early emulation devices were criticized for their unrealistic imitation of the Hammond sound, particularly in the way the upper harmonics were voiced, and in the simulation of the rotary speaker effect. Refinements to Hammond emulations eventually led to the development of relatively lightweight electronic keyboard instruments such as the Roland VK-7 and the Korg BX-3 and CX-3 (and even Hammond-Suzuki's own XB-2/XB-5 models) that produce a fairly realistic recreation of the original Hammond tone.

By the 1990s and 2000s digital signal processing and sampling technologies allowed for better imitation of the original Hammond sound, and a variety of electronic organs, emulator devices, and synthesizers provided a reproduction of the Hammond tone, such as the Clavia Nord Electro keyboard. Hammond Suzuki USA currently markets numerous home, church, and professional models that digitally reproduce the sound of vintage Hammond tonewheel organs. Some sophisticated emulation devices have algorithms that recreate some of the characteristics of the vintage Hammonds, such as the "crosstalk" or "leakage" between the tonewheels, and digital simulations of the rotating Leslie speaker cabinet's sound.

Currently, there are numerous B-3 "clones" on the market, from full-size, dual keyboard behemoths with real Leslie cabinets from Hammond/Suzuki, to inexpensive Casio WK series home keyboards that actually have a "tonewheel organ" function built in, to allow the user to simulate changing drawbars "on the fly." In between are numerous models from Hammond, Korg, Roland, Clavia (Nord Series), and virtual synths- notably the B4 by Native Instruments - computer simulations of every B-3 nuance down to key click, leakage of tonewheels, dirty contacts, type of tubes- virtually any variable can be accommodated, though many aficionados consider them inferior to a real Hammond. An article entitled "Clonewheel Heaven" in Keyboard Magazine that reviewed electronic simulations of the traditional Hammond sound claimed that some aspects of the vintage electromechanical Hammonds' sound are not accurately reproduced by clones and emulation devices.^[12]

Pop culture

The sound of the Hammond B-3 organ can be heard in 1960s surf music, where the spinning Leslie speaker created distinctive special effects. The Hammond sound was a key part of the mystical soundscape of the 1967 Procol Harum song, "A Whiter Shade of Pale" , in the Bach-like introductory measures played by organist Matthew Fisher (who actually played an M-102 ^[13]). Except for a few months in late 1976 and early 1977, Procol Harum has always (and still does after 40 years) appeared in concert with a Hammond. It was also popularized in Steve Winwood's soaring, animal-like "Gimme Some Lovin'" with Spencer Davis Group, in The Small Faces' mod anthems All or Nothing and Itchycoo Park by Ian McLagan, and in the instrumental song "Green Onions" by Booker T. Jones of Booker T. and the MGs.

Hammond organs are also widely used in 1970s progressive rock music bands such as Pink Floyd's Rick Wright (First on a Hammond M-100, and later on a C-3); Emerson, Lake and Palmer's Keith Emerson (L-100 and C-3); Genesis's Tony Banks (a Hammond L-122 and later a Hammond T-102); and Yes' Rick Wakeman (C-3). It also sparked the interest of the keyboard players in early heavy metal music bands such as Deep Purple's Jon Lord (C-3), Uriah Heep's Ken Hensley, and Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones.

In the 1990s, Rob Collins of The Charlatans integrated the Hammond organ back into British rock 'n' roll; the song Wierdo (1992, #19 UK charts) opened with a solo Hammond riff that returned at each chorus.

In several sketches by Monty Python's Flying Circus Terry Gilliam plays a nude organist who provides a fanfare on a Hammond L-100 in "Blackmail" and "Crackpot Religions Ltd" as well as Terry Jones for the opening scenes on the third season. The British adult comic Viz had (or has) an occasional strip featuring 'Captain Morgan and his Hammond organ'. The strip's plot usually revolves around the crew sighting a treasure ship or similar lucrative opportunity, which they then miss due to the eponymous captain insisting on first spending some time serenading them with a selection of tunes played on said organ.

The fictional character Arnold Rimmer (from the BBC TV science fiction-comedy series Red Dwarf) is a big fan of Hammond organ music. He is particularly fond of an artist by the name of Reggie Wilson (a satirical reference to Reginald Dixon), whose Hammond organ albums include "Lift Music Classics" (in British English, a "lift" is an elevator) and "Funking up Wagner". Rimmer has also taught the Skutters to play the Hammond organ, and on the series, every Wednesday night is "Amateur Hammond Organ Recital Night". None of the other crew of the Red Dwarf spaceship particularly enjoy Rimmer's taste in music.

See also

• List of jazz organists
• List of Hammond organ players
• Clonewheel organ
• Organ trio - a group of three musicians, typically consisting of a Hammond organ player, a drummer, and either a guitarist or a saxophone player.
• Hammond piano

References

External links

• Hammond Suzuki USA - Makers of Modern-day Hammond-branded clone organs
• Hammond Sweden
• Hammond/Leslie resource and home of the hammondzone user group
• Matthew Fisher's unusual 1968 Leslie setup for Procol Harum
• History of the Hammond B-3 organ

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Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "Hammond organ". Image Credit.

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