Questions for the B3'er's out there.

[SteeVtheRipper]

There's no denying that the Hammond Organ is a legend of music. If you had any doubts, you could check out that new Killer B3 documentary, or just take a trip to your local music store where, like any true idol, there are tons of copycats paying tribute.

 

But not everyone gravitates to being an organ player. Sure, a lot of folks play around with organ patches on their ROMplers, maybe even get a clone wheel, but very few really throw themselves into the world of Hammond, learning all the techniques and nuances, how to play the pedals, and owning a real beast and learning how it works.

 

My question to those guys, or anyone who wants to chime in, what made you decide to really get into organ? Was it a record, childhood experience, a show you went to? I also want to know how you learned how to play. Playing organ is very different than playing any other keyboard instrument. How did you get the techniques down, all the coordination, the foot pedals? Did you teach yourself from VHS recordings you made from prime time TV, that you watched til they were on their death bed? Or did you have someone teach you?

[CEB]

I got into organ because in the 70's stage pianos sucked and that includes that damn Yamaha portable grand monstrosity. Also. a ton of songs at the time called for organ.

 

When the Korg SG-1 ( i think that was the model) came out I gravitated back to play more and more live piano. My first electronic keyboard was a red Farfisa Compact. It is still at my Mom and Dad's house.

 

I studied the piano formally for a longtime. A good organ player that was local before he moved off to Nashville took pity on me and taught me organ technique. I would have probably got to where I am eventually but a teacher that knows their stuff cuts the learn curve tremendously.

 

Hammond pedals are kind of their own animal. I had a few classical lessons and when you play pedals you keep your knees together so you can maintain a reference and play without having to look down. But on a Hammond you are always on the swell pedal so you play pedals with only one foot. I never really played Hammond style pedal except for BSing around at home.

 

I'm not that good but I have had some really good teachers.

 

[drawback]

Billy Preston.

 

 

[MikeT156]

I took both piano and organ lessons when I was younger. I actually started on the accordion, hated it, and quit playing that God awful accordion. When some of the bands that came out in the mid sixties started using combo organs, I talked my parents into buying me one. For years I played in bands because I could sing lead and organ players were scarce. I didn't start taking formal lessons until later when I knew I stunk and had to improve. I started with piano lessons and stuck with that for several years. Later, I took organ lessons from the same teacher that played classical organ (with pedals) and played in local churches. He was a great jazz musician too. The first time I sat down at a real pipe organ, I was hooked. I stayed with organ lessons long enough to learn how to read and play some JS Bach, play pedals with 2 feet and played Fugue in D minor until my parents were going crazy.

 

I played both piano and organ with different groups I played in for years, depending on what music was popular at the time and what songs called for in instrumentation. I owned an old B2 that the band hauled around for gigs, and at one time owned a brand new B3 with a 122 Leslie in my music room. Great instrument, there's nothing like it.

 

Compared to most of the players on this site, I suck, but I had just as much fun playing music as you guys did all these years! I'm living proof that you don't have to be any good to enjoy music!

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

Mike T.

[mate stubb]

I played classical piano for 10 years before getting into my first band at 14. In 1967, if you played in a band, it was a combo organ.

 

By 1971 I had bought my first Hammond, and soaked up all the rock Hammond heros of the time, working my way back to Jimmy Smith.

 

Pedals are still my weak point, because although I learned them when I studied pipe organ, I haven't stayed in practice!

[MuzikTeechur]

My mother (Julliard '57) is/was/still is a Hammond player. She bought her first B3 back when they were still new. I woke up Saturday mornings listening to this stuff- I had no choice.

I'm very grateful for that early exposure, and I choose now to continue. All that early Errol Garner and Jimmy Smith kinda' rubbed off on me and here I am now: all educated and stuff and ready to teach a new generation!

[b_3guy]

The original Woodstock. Just about every band on the bill had a Hammond. Way cooler than piano.

[keyClicker]

First time I listened to it was JOS's Home Cookin.

And the main thing was: basslines... they got me.

[JeffLearman]

If it hadn't been for the CP70, I'd probably have wound up with a Hammond. But hauling the CP70, Rhodes, and synth or two, rig, and often plus acoustic & electric, git amp ... NO WAY did I need a Hammond/Leslie to haul around too!

 

By the time there were playable clones, I was married. So, I never did do the real deal. I did have a housemate with an M3 or M100, but no Leslie and the swell pedal didn't work, so what was the point? I helped him cart it to the COGIC church two doors down and THEY appreciated it! (They eventually got a Leslie, too.)

[Craig MacDonald]

In the early 60's my Mom sent my Dad out to by a piano.. he came back with a Hammond M3 instead (he never was good at taking instructions).. As I was growing up I was hearing all kinds of great hammond organ in the late 60's to early 70's classic rock and I had one at home and I started playing around with it.. then I heard Gregg Rolie and Santana and that was it, I was hooked, and I had to have a B3.. when I finished high school in 1973, I started working and saved enough to buy my own Hammond B3 and 122 Leslie.. Been playing ever since.

[NewImprov]

My sister was a classical organist, and we had a big, non-Hammond (Baldwin, IIRC) console in our living room. I was listening to a ton of ELP, Yes, Zeppelin, Purple, etc, and I used to try to work out the organ parts on that old beast.

 

Eventually went to college, studied jazz piano, picked up a bass along the way and gigged as a bass player for like 25 years. Always loved the organ though, and started listening to Larry Young, Medeski Martin & Wood, Dr. Lonnie Smith, etc.

 

About 5 years ago, I started practicing organ for real, originally using B4 and a laptop, then VB3, and finally picked up an XK-1 from a forumite. Around the time I was getting heavily into this, I started a spin-off group from my main band at the time, it was a trio with a sax player and a drummer, and it seemed to me that it'd make sense if I played Hammond in this group instead of bass, started really shedding on my LH bass playing.

 

Now, that band has expanded to a 6-piece, adding a rapper, a guitarist and a percussionist, and I'm still playing LH bass, and it's kind of become my main gig. I'm also playing Hammond in several other bands, and even though there are better players in my area, I still get asked to do gigs.

 

My latest project is a Bob Marley tribute, and I'm playing mostly organ bubble all night. Our first gigs are this weekend. Have barely touched my bass for the last couple of years, and I'm ok with that.

[PianoManinSoCal]

Inspirations for organ? Great church organists. Santana. Deep Purple. Boston. Too many others to count.

 

I feel what you're asking is how to truly feel what's inside an instrument, so that it may inspire you to greater levels of creativity... and perhaps vice-versa. Sometimes, I've felt hindered by the limitations of particular instruments. Once I can understand the "beast", as you put it, I know how it "breathes" and "lives", so I can then best play with it symbiotically.

 

I've owned organs from a Yamaha, a Hammond B3 & M3 (boy was THAT fun to move around!), played on many more by Roland, Nord, Wurlitzer, and many others in churches, pipe organs, etc. I've even played the old antique pedal organs. I never really got into developing my skills with the bass pedals, but have a great level of appreciation for those organists proficient in performing dramatic and quick foot bass movements while playing difficult upper and lower register fingerings simultaneously.

 

While I had played on some organs before college, it was there that I was introduced to something quite fantastic, this Moog synthesizer, which I believe was a model 3P. I had these massive panels of segmented waveform generators, envelope filters, low frequency oscillators, with switches and dials all over the place, and 1/4" patch cords to connect whatever you wanted to generate different sounds. All of this could be seen optically through an oscilloscope.

 

Essentially, I learned to construct sounds by understanding what it looked like on an o-scope. What's cool about learning this way is that I could replicate pretty much any sound I wanted, natural or unnatural, intended or non. This translated well to the synthesizers that came out afterwards, like the Fairlight CMI (where I could use the lightpen to form my sounds, and it's available again... recently resurrected!). I remember when the MiniMoog's came out, Oberheim's OB-1, ARP and many others. Understanding beyond the basics on waveforms and filters, etc. made a huge difference.

 

This translated well into a deeper understanding and comprehension of the tones of a B3 organ, the nuances of a Leslie in transition, with pulses, with 4 of them positioned around a room during performances.

 

Sometimes, if one takes the time to study the "beast" and its prowess as the "king" of rock organs, with all its nuances, the way it breathes can move within you, and react through your fingers as a more natural extension of yourself. This way you just might discover a new sound, feel or texture to your compositions, the likes of which have never been heard before.

 

My invitation to you: Don't try to copy, innovate. It's good to study what others have used, and don't be afraid to try something different. Be yourself.

[PianoManinSoCal]

"Some people like cupcakes, while I, for one, care less for them."

- The Muffin Man, Frank Zappa

[Jim Alfredson]

I was into prog rock as a kid thanks to my older sister. Listening to Genesis, ELP, Yes, and Pink Floyd. I loved the sustained organ chords through the Leslie on chorale that Richard Wright played on the Wish You Were Here LP, although I really didn't know what was making the sound at the time. I knew it was an organ but I didn't know what kind, I didn't know about the Leslie, etc.

 

My dad had a B3 when I was very young and sold it by the time I was four. I do remember sitting at it and playing with the drawbars. He had two Yamaha "Leslies" for it. Somewhere in the family are recordings of him playing it. I should find those.

 

Anyway, I finally asked my dad what the sound was and he told me. I then did my best to make organ patches on the DX7. I could never get it to sound like a Leslie, though.

 

We eventually upgraded to a Yamaha SY77 (that I still have) when I was 13 or 14. I was able to program much better organ sounds with that and decent Leslie sims using the onboard FX (chorus and symphonic effects mainly).

 

Then when I was around 15 or 16, my dad, who had taken a hiatus from playing guitar for several years, decided to get back into guitar playing and wanted some backing tracks to practice with. He asked me to do them since I was better at programming drums on the SY77. He asked me to make some organ blues. I had no idea what he was talking about. He laid a Jimmy Smith LP on me. This one, in fact:

 

http://tosca.homeip.net/temp/tosca/J/20110510062.jpg

 

I could not believe my ears. I simply could not believe it. That was the start.

 

I finally got a real Hammond when I was a junior in highschool, a little M3. My dad even traded a friend some piano tunings for a Leslie 147. I was hooked. It sounded so cool! But I still didn't really know what to do with it besides playing Santana tunes or using the SY77 for leads and the organ for chords and learning Tony Banks solos. I had no idea how Jimmy Smith was doing what he did, but my dad encouraged me.

 

We formed a trio. My dad on guitar, me on organ, and my best friend's girlfriend's dad on drums. Two old dudes and this young kid. I used the SY77 on top of the M3 for bass lines, set-up with a patch that matched the Jimmy Smith sound as close as I could, not really knowing about shadowing on the bass pedals and all that.

 

There was a local guy named Doug Decker that I started to talk to and he showed me some tricks. But the idea of jazz bass lines and how to integrate the pedals didn't really click until I saw Jimmy McGriff at the Detroit Jazz Festival. I saw him doing "the tap" and realized I needed a B3.

 

Doug continued to mentor me and show me things. I just saw him the other week for the first time in years. He still plays his ASS off. The only guy I know who can do the Chester Thompson thing. A bad dude.

 

Anyway, my dad and I found a BCV in an old church and refinished it (well, he refinished it) and got it working. I practiced pedals on that. I still didn't really understand the concept. I finally saw Dr. Lonnie Smith play in Ann Arbor and asked him after the gigs about the pedals and he really illuminated the jazz organist technique. From there it was just a matter of practicing my butt off.

 

From basically 1996 to 2008, I lived, ate, and breathed Hammond. I didn't care about synths anymore (I lusted after them as a kid) or any other keys, though I wisely came across good deals on a Wurli and Rhodes and got those. I still kick myself for passing up a Prophet 10 in 2001 for $1000. D'oh! But I honestly didn't give a shit about synths. It was all organ. I bought every organ record I could find on cassette, CD, LP, whatever. Studied the recordings like crazy. Started making my own recordings in 2003 with organissimo.

 

I still love the B3. There's nothing like leading a trio, kicking bass, going where you want to go. It's pure freedom. Driving the bus! I love it. It's a beautifully expressive instrument.

 

 

[ksoper]

I started on classical organ. My dad was a theater organ buff and had a friend who he helped install an old Wurlitzer pipe theater organ in his home. So I heard all kinds of organ...except Hammond. Neither of my parents could stand the sound of a Leslie. But the few times I got to play one it felt like home to me.

 

At the point where I went professional it was more important to have the classic Rhodes/Synth/Strings rig, so I didn't buy a Hammond. Never owned one until 10 years ago.

 

It's an amazing instrument. The consoles are laid out logically and ergonomically. The range of timbres is astounding. And you can out-sustain any guitar player, and therefore, win.

 

 

[SteeVtheRipper]

I was turned onto Hammond by a video on youtube by Big Organ Trio, the guy was playing the organ from behind, backwards, and then spun around to the proper position and played a nasty solo. I was hooked. I also fell in love with videos I saw of Leon Kuijpers on YTube as well. That really sent me on my way. Santana helps as well. The love for it shows up in unexpected places as well. Tori Amos is a big influence of mine and for a few years from '05-'10 she toured with an A100 and worked it into new arrangements of her songs, and it breathed new life into classics I loved and altered the whole mood and meaning of the songs for me. The Hammond has such an authority and confidence to it.

[Analogaddict]

I heard this cat back in 1995, that was a pivotal moment for me. At the time, I was totally absorbed with piano playing, I didn't even know what a B3 was... :-)

 

[video:youtube]

 

[video:youtube]

[To B3]

For me, 1995 was the key year... Being 17 at the time and living in Brazil, the B3 sound isn´t everywhere as the US... So I was kind of a late bloomer... Until I heard two albums released that year: The Rolling Stones Stripped and Bob Dylan´s Unplugged... Two mainly acoustic albums with plenty of space for the organ to show off... Both contained great versions of the Dylan classic, Like a Rolling Stone... That was it... I just couldn´t make my little keyboard to sound like that swirling growling thing and couldn´t understand why... Did not know about drawbars, leslies, things like that... Had some romplers on the mean time, but it wasn´t until my first real clone, a Tokai TX5 (Ventura TX5 in the US), released in 2005 in Brazil that I laid my hands on a closer-to-a-B3 experience. That was it... From there, I could´nt play a single rompler B3 patch anymore... I don´t consider myself a purist, but the B3 sound is on top of my sound food chain... I always have to have something that resembles it in anyway, in my case, a Nord Electro 2...

[nickd]

James Taylor Quartet was the first band that got me really excited about playing Hammond:

[video:youtube]vAdPFM3u5fM

 

Then that led to Billy Preston, Booker T and Jimmy Smith... and onwards from there.

[Ken Beaumont]

I first started appreciating the Hammond sound with Keith Emerson and later Greq Allman and Jon Lord. Also being originally from the Motown area Booker T especially on the song Green Onions! But really it was ELP where I first learned where that sound was coming from.

Always been a fan of great Hammond players, I suck at it!

 

Getting a real Hammond and learning to play it correctly is definitely on my bucket list!

[LX88]

Someone asked a question a little while back about what some of the great rock piano solos were and the members on this list had a hard time coming up with very many!

 

But there are many great rock recordings that happened with a Hammond B-3 being played ( or variations thereof) - particularly during the late 60's and early 70's. The Rascals, Booker T., Santana, Tower of Power,Sly Stone, Deep Purple, Vanilla Fudge, Spencer Davis Group,Spooky Tooth, Sugarloaf, Yes, Keith Emerson etc. etc. etc. Who did I forget?

 

Not to mention all the jazz that got played on B-3's.

 

The twinkly synth music of the 80's and 90's just didn't do it for me. I am glad we got back to the roots.

 

Keep the wheels spinning.

 

 

[Ken Beaumont]

[video:youtube]

[Adan]

I wouldn't say I'm a "B3'er." I'm a piano player who fools around on it. But regardless, a couple of tracks that played a big part in getting me excited about the organ were Misty as played by Richard Groove Holmes and More Today than Yesterday as played by Charles Earland. Both recordings are pretty well known. I was struck by how the Hammond, in the right hands, could, seemingly effortlessly, transform these gentle, demure pop tunes/standards into churning, grooving monsters. What other instrument can do that, I thought? There's lots of reasons to love the Hammond, but for me that was a big one.

 

Another was reggae, which I was very into around the age of 18. It's hard to imagine reggae existing without the Hammond.

[JeffLearman]

[video:youtube]

OK, that was fun!

[CEB]

Solos are neat but the instrument really shines in support roles. Some of my favorite organ work is found on the 2nd Blood Sweat and Tears album. ( self titled first one after Al Kooper left - 68 or 69 - the record the won album of the year ).

 

Joachim Young's organ work on 'Fly like an Eagle' totally makes the song work.

 

IMO that is some cool stuff.

 

My experience is that it is easier to find guy that can rip overdriven blues runs on a Hammond than it is to find guys that can play like this. But that is just me. [video:youtube]

[Skinny]

Joachim Young's organ work on 'Fly like an Eagle' totally makes the song work.

 

IMO that us some cool stuff.

 

+1

 

[LX88]

I would say that is the thing about Hammond....it IS fun, plus there is just something about the way it feels.

 

There are a lot of players that took piano lessons as children that may have had quite as much fun. I know several players that felt that the Hammond liberated them express their ( shall we say?) more "passionate" nature.

 

Just look at the expressions on their faces.

[ChrisE]

I never owned a Hammond organ but tried out an old B-3 years ago and was very impressed. My old Yamaha SK-20 had a decent Hammond preset for it's time. However, My first organ was a free '60's red Farfisa that had a short in it .

[zukskywalker]

While I cannot yet call myself a B3er, I can remember the day I discovered the B3 like it was yesterday. I was a kid in a band in the sixties and getting hit by a freight train would have had a lesser impact, except for the fact that I'd be dead.

Technically, I had taken piano lessons for a few years and when I rode up on a band(on my bike) and told them I played a bit of piano they let me in. As kids we couldn't afford anything so we played on what we could find and in my case that was a Montgomery Ward reed organ for starters, then a Farfisa, then a Vox, and so on.

Enter the freight train.

I had no idea what a B3 even was and some of the older guys in town liked what I was trying to do and took me down to a nightclub to show me "something". I walked in the club and they said "try it". Oh my lord sweet Jesus what have just got myself into? I remember sliding up onto this monstrous thing and being totally overwhelmed by what was in front of me, under me, all around me as I asked..."How do I turn this on?"

Click...whir, hum and...ALL THE ANGELS IN HEAVEN WERE RELEASED IN FRONT OF ME!!! I was sitting behind the most powerful machine on this good earth and my spine tingled as every hair on my body stood at full attention! Oh the glory of "that sound". I was stone cold hooked for life and nothing and I mean nothing has ever touched me like the Hammond. Not 18 foot grand pianos, not massive pipe organs that had cathedrals built around them(close though because those pipes can move bone marrow) not the Rhodes, Wurly, or the best of synthesizers.

Then, comes the lifelong total obsession which starts by listening, listening, listening to every organ note you can find. Then comes the dreaming, the practicing, and the hunt for the real thing. Afterwards you learn to be careful for what you ask for, or what you choose to pursue.

It's a love story for sure and some forty years later I am still in complete awe of this machine.

[Ken Beaumont]

I also heard an organ sound a couple of months ago that was so cool that I wish they would let me play it. It was an organ that used solenoids and hammers to play stalactites in Virginia's Luray Caverns. Standing in the middle of an immense cave the sound totally immerses you. It really is an almost religious experience!

 

I return you now to the original discourse "Hammond"!