A Deeper Dive into The Hammond Organ

Today, many people’s introduction to the Hammond Organ is in church, which is fitting because that is the setting for which it was invented 90 years ago. Laurens Hammond, an engineer by trade and a tinkerer by hobby, recognized the need for an inexpensive, portable alternative to pipe organs that didn’t sacrifice the instrument’s signature tone or power. To produce the wide range of notes and sounds that characterize the pipe organ – and in order to fill often-vast cathedrals with wind-produced sound – pipes were built into the walls of its building. This makes for an incredibly grand and beautiful instrument that can complement an ornate church, but at the end of the day, these organs were not much help for congregations reeling from the Great Depression in 1930s America.

Being portable and cheap, Laurens Hammond’s invention in 1934, the Hammond Organ, was a more feasible investment. Over 1,700 churches purchased Hammond Organs by 1938, and by 1966, an estimated 50,000 churches had installed the instrument.

The Hammond Organ is a tonewheel organ, an electromechanical instrument (as opposed to the pipe organ which was historically an acoustic wind instrument) that uses small rotating metal discs (the tonewheels) to induce voltages into pickups. The size of each wheel and its teeth determine the frequency (pitch) of that voltage. The tonewheels are constantly spinning, and they engage a pickup when a key is pressed, producing a sound which is then amplified.

There are two manuals, or keyboards, on Hammond Organs, one on top of the other. The double manual setup allows players to simultaneously access two different sounds, which are dictated by the drawbars above the manuals. There is a lot of intricacy to the drawbars, but, simply put, the fewer drawbars you have pulled out, the softer the tone is. Drawbars are relatives to pipe organs’ stops, which prevent air from flowing through specific pipes, making the sound lighter. When a player pulls out all of the stops, the air flows freely through all available pipes, producing the biggest possible sound. Likewise, when a player on the Hammond organ pulls each drawbar all the way out, the instrument produces its largest and grandest sound, known as full organ.

Before the Hammond Organ saw widespread use in commercial music, it played a supporting role in not also churches but also theaters. Though 1927’s The Jazz Singer introduced sound in film, it was commonplace for live musicians to soundtrack and sound design films in real time during silent screenings through the 1940s. The Hammond Organ was a fitting instrument for live accompaniment because of the variety of tones and dynamic range it could conjure, often mimicking an entire orchestra. Jesse Crawford, who amassed fame during this time, notably used the Hammond Organ in his performances for film and theater.

The Hammond Organ’s modest size and portability were central to it becoming such a widely-used instrument and opened the door to its use in jazz and popular music. There are many classical works written for the pipe organ, but in order for those to be heard live, a concert needs to take place in a cathedral that houses one of these mammoth instruments. Conversely, after hearing the Hammond Organ in church, Fats Waller was able to bring this novel instrument to jazz settings such as clubs, concert halls and dancehalls, and he was soon followed by Wild Bill Davis. Don’t get me wrong, transporting a Hammond Organ is not as easy as organ legend Larry Goldings makes it look in his Whatever It Takes album cover. But the fact that this instrument could move opened it up to a whole new set of possibilities.

In the late 1940s, jazz was one of the first popular styles that embraced the Hammond Organ, and keyboardists soon learned that using the Hammond was an economical way to play. The Hammond Organ, with its bass pedals and two manuals, allows a player to walk bass with the foot pedals, play harmonies on the lower manual, and cover the melody on the upper manual. That’s why REAL organ trios usually consist of organ, guitar, and drums. No bass and no horn. So you’re splitting the dough three ways at the end of the gig instead of five.

Here you can see Hammond Organ master Barbara Dennerlein in an organ duo (just organ and drums) showing that musicians are able to achieve an incredibly full sound with a small ensemble using the Hammond Organ. Watch as she walks bass with her left foot, accompanies with her left hand, and plays melody and solos on the top manual with her right hand. And she’s adjusting the drawbars the whole time.

Over the years, many pianists have converted to organ, circumventing the competitive, oft-overcrowded, scene of piano players. Jimmy Smith, who has earned his place on the Mount Rushmore of Hammond organists, started as a pianist but was able to discover a unique sound by switching to the organ. Playing the organ provided musicians in the 1950s an opportunity to leverage their existing keyboard skills, while differentiating themselves through new tones on the organ (though I’d argue that the only similarity between the organ and the piano is that they are played on keyboards).

What are the key features that define the Hammond Organ and what has attracted players to it for almost a century?

One reason to utilize the Hammond is because the sound is malleable. It can be sculpted by the player in real time by adjusting the drawbar settings, the expression pedal, and other subtler settings like percussion and vibrato. In this way, the Hammond Organ, but also organs in general, is a precursor to synthesizers in its ability for the player to use knobs and settings to mold the exact tone they want and drastically change the sound on the fly in a way that acoustic instruments can’t.

The Hammond Organ is a chameleon of sorts, deftly adapting to use in a variety of musical functions. Starting from the bottom, the instrument has access to a rich, deep tone through its pedals which is perfect for basslines. Chords can be held indefinitely (as opposed to pianos which have a short decay or wind instruments that are subject to a player’s lung capacity), and through drawbar manipulation, chord accompaniment can be dampened to allow a melody to shine through. The Hammond lends itself to melodic lines because the instrument has strong high notes. Whereas many other instruments become thin and weak the higher you go, the Hammond Organ retains its might. Finally, there are great ways to use the Organ rhythmically by slapping or hitting a group of notes (it almost sounds akin to a record scratch).

Look at how Jon Lord (Deep Purple) plays rhythmically in the intro of Hush:

The Hammond Organ carries essential rhythmic information in reggae, where the organ plays what’s known as the bubble, striking chords on the upbeats with accents right before and after.

If you listened to a Hammond Organ in its early days, it would sound different than the sound we’re familiar with now, not just because the instrument has evolved over time, but because it would have been missing a key ingredient. The Hammond Organ sound that we’ve come to know and love is almost always amplified through a Leslie speaker (sometimes even 3 or 4 Leslie speakers). What makes the Leslie special is how it uses the Doppler effect to create subtle tremolos in the tone of the instrument. Inside the speaker are two horns, upper and lower, that spin in opposite directions (see below). There are three settings – stop, slow, and fast – and depending on the tune and the context a player may be switching between these settings continuously.

During Cory Henry’s performance of his Revival Project, he deftly reaches to his left to switch the Leslie from slow to fast and it changes the whole texture of his tone.

From its roots in the American church to its ubiquity in popular music, the Hammond Organ is an often unsung hero of our sonic world. Keep an ear out for the organ next time you’re listening to music, and I promise you, once you start listening for the organ, you’ll hear it everywhere.