The
Hammond organOne of the most important and well known of the electronic organs was the
Hammond organ, a sophisticated instrument having two manuals, or keyboards, and a set of pedals operated by the feet.
This organ, right from its inception and through its heyday, has had a very significant influence on most other electronic organs. Even modern varieties, including our Yamaha AR have a Hammond sound built in to their preset registrations.
Although they are included in the category of electronic organs, the majority of Hammond organs are, strictly speaking, electric or electromechanical rather than electronic organs, because the sound is produced by moving parts rather than electronic oscillators.
Unlike most other instruments of its type, it produced its sound through a complex set of rotary, motor-driven generators. By means of a series of controls affecting the harmonics, or component tones, of the sound, a great variety of timbres (tone colours) could be reproduced that to some degree imitate the sound of other instruments, such as the violin, the flute, the oboe, and the orchestral percussion instruments.
The Hammond organ was actually invented by Laurens Hammond (January 11, 1895 – July 1, 1973), and John Marshall Hanert (March 18, 1909 – June 23, 1962 {car accident}). On April 24, 1934, Hammond filed a patent for an "electrical musical instrument", which was personally delivered to the patent office by Hanert, explaining that they could start production immediately and it would be good for local employment in Chicago. The invention was unveiled to the public in April 1935, and the first model, the Model A, was made available in June of that year.
Laurens Hammond (on left) and John HanertOver 1,750 churches purchased a Hammond organ in the first three years of manufacturing, and by the end of the 1930s, over 200 instruments were being made each month.
Various models have been produced since, most of which used sliding drawbars to specify a variety of sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated sound by creating an electric current from rotating a metal tonewheel near an electromagnetic pickup, and then strengthening the signal with an amplifier so it could drive a speaker, housed in a cabinet. Around two million Hammond organs have been manufactured. The organ is commonly used with, and very closely associated with, the Leslie speaker. (More on that later.)
The organ was originally marketed and sold by the Hammond Organ Company to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, or instead of a piano. It quickly became popular with professional jazz musicians, especially in organ trios, where the Hammond organ was central. These trios were hired by jazz club owners, who found that organ trios were a much cheaper alternative to hiring a big band. Jimmy Smith's use of the Hammond B-3, with its additional harmonic percussion feature, inspired a generation of organ players, and its use became more widespread in the 1960s and 1970s in rhythm and blues, rock, and reggae, as well as being an important instrument in progressive rock.
The Hammond Organ Company struggled financially during the 1970s, as they abandoned tonewheel organs and switched to manufacturing instruments using integrated circuits. These instruments were not as popular with musicians as the tonewheels had been, and the company went out of business in 1985. The Hammond name was purchased by the Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation, which proceeded to manufacture digital simulations of the most popular tonewheel organs. This culminated in the production of the
New B-3 in 2002, which provided an accurate re-creation of the original B-3 organ using modern digital technology.
Hammond-Suzuki continues to manufacture a variety of organs for both professional players and churches.
In contrast to piano and pipe organ keys, Hammond keys have a flat-front profile, commonly referred to as "waterfall" style. Early Hammond console models had sharp edges, but starting with the B-2, these were rounded, as they were cheaper to manufacture. The M series of spinets also had waterfall keys (which has subsequently made them ideal for spares on B-3s and C-3s), but later spinet models had "diving board" style keys which resembled those found on a church organ. Modern Hammond-Suzuki models use waterfall keys.
Hammond console organs come with a wooden pedalboard. Most console Hammond pedalboards have 25 notes, with the bottom note a low C and the top note a middle C two octaves higher. Hammond used a 25-note pedalboard because he found that on traditional 32-note pedalboards used in church pipe organs, the top seven notes were seldom used
In the next Reply I'll define the difference between Waterfall and Diving Board Keys.
Peter