music

Heres a toast to two of the legends of the Hammond Organ. Besides being innovative musicians with fantastic technique, they shared a deeply spiritual demeanor. And they were mostly self-invented. Not that there's anything wrong with that; it is a common thread throughout our cultural history, from Mark Twain to Madonna. You are who you say you are, and who's to argue? Being outrageous never hurts, either.

Our first case is a classic example of the American way of transforming yourself into something totally new, and making a career at it. Korla Pandit was a fascinating musician and entertainer. He suddenly appeared on American TV in the early fifties, and became an overnight success. He didn't speak, just stared into the camera and played dreamy music. There was something special about this exotic little man who was supposed to have descended from Indian princes and mystics. Read more »

Our friend Les Paul is lovingly reviewed on the Tank Riot podcast this week. Read more »

When Stravisky's The Rite of Spring premiered in 1913, the reaction from the crowd (according to many accounts) was one of astonishment and shock, resulting in a full scale riot. Now that's passion!

And passion is what defines great music, and the artists who create it. Great artists have no choice; they must create the music, not matter what the obstacles are. Not all artists, of course, are of the caliber of Stravisnsky's talents, but they may have some of the same passion, and become an unstoppable force. In our American culture, we differentiate between high and low art; the high artists get grants to write symphonies, and the low artists are considered "garage bands." Of course some of our greatest and most endearing music springs from garages, and sometimes the great concert halls feature music that nobody remembers.

One measure of great art is the amount of controversy it causes. The world in which The Rite of Spring emerged probably wasn't quite ready for what was considered at the time primitive (i.e. sexual) and marching to a different drummer than the late romnatic period that preceded it. But times don't change, and in 1969 the world wasn't quite ready for the ultimate garage/art band, and certainly one of the more, uh, distinctive groups of all times, The Shaggs! Read more »

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. Read more »

When told that mice don't make music, Groucho answered, "you've heard of the old maestro, haven't you?"

We don't know for certain which maestro he was referring to, but Spike Jones coulda been the guy; he was a master of music as the Marx Brothers were to their genre. The earliest memory I have of records were some old Spike Jones 78s my Dad loved. Somehow they became what I considered to be "normal" music, just like Mad Magazine was "normal" humor, and Ernie Kovacs was "normal" television. I'm sure the shrinks would have a blast analyzing my musical tastes. Read more »