I love my Hammond Organ!

I did the annual maintenance on my Hammond Organ over Thanksgiving, reminding me of what an incredibly cool instrument it is. I think it represents the highest evolution of one part of the tree of musical instruments.

For one thing, it was not ever considered to be an electronic instrument by its manufacturer. They always referred to it as an "electric organ." Why? Because the sounds, although amplified and processed by various analog circuits, was actually produced mechanically. Laurens Hammond was a successful inventor and tinkerer. He had developed the first synchronus electric clock in the 1920s, which used the steady frequency of the electric power system to ensure high accuracy. When the Depression hit, the demand for clocks dropped, so he was trying to think of other ways to use his motors. He remembered that a lot of churches couldn't afford an organ, and the crude electric and electronic models of the time had lots of problems, the most pressing one was how they couldn't stay in tune. He developed a system of rotating tonewheels, little wheels that passed through a magnetic field to create sine waves. There are 96 of these, with their rotation controlled by a series of gears, and running off one of his synchronous motors. Nothing to ever go out of tune!

The next trick was a way to combine these to create pleasing tones. By mixing the various harmonics of a tone through a series of drawbars (linear volume controls), very rich sounds can be created. This was the first successful additive synthesizer, way back in 1934!

A criticism of many electronic instruments is that their tone is too regular, making it dull. Since this is a mechanical system, very slight and subtle variations of the tones are created as the wheels go in and out of phase. Many early instruments used a master high octave, and dividers to create the lower octaves. When mixed together, they were always perfectly in phase, giving a lifeless sound. Not the Hammond Organ; the pricipal tones and harmonics all come from separate tonewheels.

I guess this is part of the appeal to me. When I was growing up, the transistor had arrived, but they were expensive and not very versatile, so my early experiments were all with tube technology. The various components were so large compared to the microelectronics of today, a common design technique was "breadboarding;" actually mounting everything on a large flat piece of wood. It was easy to visualize how the circuits were put together, and easy to change things around. I also remember the smells of things getting hot, and the pretty glow of the tubes.

Do I miss those days? Not a lot; it's quite incredible what can be done these days with a few small chips and some software. You can put together a very large and impressive instrument with a small number of parts. But... it will never sound exactly like a real Hammond. Oh you can come close, and even go beyond it, but there's something very organic about this older way of doing things that has never been beat.

Plus, it's so darned steampunk! I found it quite relaxing to pull out my old toolbox and soldering irons, and peruse the schematics of the beast.

There isn't a lot to the yearly maintenance; the main thing is oiling the tonewheel assembly (which only takes a few minutes to do). i also got around to replacing the 40 year-old power cord, that finally succumber to old age and cracking insulation. I checked and reseated the tubes, and sprayed solvent on some connectors that were making some cracking sounds. Other than that, there isn't much to it.

My organ is an H-112, the kind of funky French Provincial style that was in vogue at the time. built around 1969. The basic tone generating parts were made using the same templates as the model "A" from 1934. Over the years, new features were added. Many consider the B-3 (1954) to be the pinnacle of the organ's design, and it is still the gold standard for jazz, blues, rock, and gospel players. My H is a little further evolved, having 11 instead of 9 drawbars, and stereo channels for the sound. It also has really nice built-in speakers, with three channels for left, right, and bass. The only thing the B-3 has that I miss is its older and simpler "percussion" settings (these have to do with briefly adding an upper harmonic when a key is pressed, making a sort of clicking sound). I can get the same effects, but they have a different control mechanism.

I also picked up a couple of Leslie Speakers off craigslist, and cpbbled together an interface to use them with my organ, which normally would use a different model. They are also very classic, and very steampunk. They have a rotating baffle that uses the doppler effect to phase-shift the tones, making them move around the room at low speed, and have a unique shimmer at high speeds. I like to set them both on low and play JS Bach; it makes a sound like a very large stone church when I add a little reverb.

I wish I had more time to practice and be able to play more sophisticated tunes, but just the sound of a few very simple chords gives me great satisfaction. My tastes in music are quite varied; I absolutely love classic theatre organ music, and enjoy playing pop tunes from the last 80 or so years, as well as a little rock and soul. But it's always JS Bach that I come back to; to me he is the foundation of all western music.

Great players - Jimmy Smith invented the modern jazz organ, and always astounds me. Other great jazz artists include Joe DeFrancisco, Brother Jack McDuff, Barbara Dennerlein, Groove Holmes, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Ethel Smith, and Wild Bill Davis. Fats Waller and Count Basie also made some great organ recordings, but were more associated with pipe organs.

On the rock/pop side, we have Booker T. Jones, Duane Allman, Al Kooper, Billy Preston, Greg Rolie, and of course Matthew Fisher of Procul Harum.

The Hammond Organ isn't a taste that everyone agrees with (think of all those radio soap operas), but there is something about it when well played that gets right to the heart of American music. Who can listen to Al Kooper at the beginning of "Like a Rolling Stone" without getting shivers. Maybe its the gospel association the instrument has; there's just something earthy and comforting about it.