HAMMOND ORGAN

Southland Times, Issue 23379, 10 December 1937, Page 9

HAMMOND ORGAN

MR CHARLES MARTIN TO GIVE RECITAL The many people who have visited Charles Begg and Company’s premises in Esk street to hear the Hammond organ being played will be looking forward to the recital on this organ to be given by Mr Charles Martin in the First Presbyterian Church tonight. Those who have not heard this instrument played have a musical treat in store for them.

The Hammond organ is an entirely new instrument in the field of contemporary music. Its physical characteristics are similar to those of the conventional pipe organ, for it has manuals, stops, clavier and swell pedal as does the traditional pipe organ and therefore a similar technique is employed in playing. In tone and tonal possibilities, too, the instruments are essentially the same. The creation and delivery of these tones, however, are wholly dissimilar. The tones of the pipe organ are made by applying air pressure to pipes, reeds, or other vibrating devices. The tones of the Hammond are created by electrical impulses. For this reason, the huge bulk usually associated with the organ has been eliminated in the Hammond. It occupies no more space than the modem spinet piano and is almost as easy to install, thereby, for the first time, making organ music possible in the average home. It consists only of a console unit or keyboard and a tone cabinet, the console weighing barely 300 pounds and the tone cabinet being somewhat smaller than the average cabinet radio. Installation of the Hammond requires no special accommodation. It may be placed on any. floor surface, in small room or large; inside or out of doors. The only equipment required is a single electric outlet, into which the Hammond connection may be plugged. It is then ready for operation. Its size, however, has no effect upon its capabilities. The dynamic range of its swell pedal for example is approximately three times that of any pipe organ and conversely, its voice can be reduced to a barely audible whisperfar softer than any pipe organ. Its tone range is practically limitless and far exceeds that of any other organ. Its volume is dependent only upon the tone cabinet equipment. For instance, 90 tone cabinets were used to create the tremendous volume necessary for out of door concerts at the Ford Bowl at the San Diego Exposition. Ordinary installations, however, seldom require more than two tone cabinets; average homes but one. Although it makes use of a tone cabinet with speaker and amplifying tubes somewhat similar to a radio, the Hammond is not a. reproducing mechanism in any sense. It is possible, however, to create on it the tones of other instruments such as the flute, French horn, oboe, trumpet, and so on, as well as the familiar pipe organ tones.

Since the entire process is electrical, the response to the depression of a key is instantaneous—the speed of electricity. This differs from the traditional organ in which there is a certain “lag” of tone behind key depression—the space in time necessary for the wind released by the key to affect the pipe or reed through which it creates the tone. For this reason, fast-moving music, formerly not practical for the organ, can be played on the Hammond as readily as on a piano. Everyone is invited to hear the special recital by Mr Martin and there will be no collection or charge.