Hammond Organ Company “The Beginning”

Transcript (Download)

Once upon a time, around the turn of the century, Mr.

Hammond had a son, Lawrence.

And Lawrence was an inventor.

He invented all kinds of things.

A lot of them worked very well.

Some of them didn't.

One of those that did work well was a funny little thingamajig that looked like this.

Terrific, what? He found if he spun it next to a magnetized rod, it made an electric current, which, when amplified through a speaker, made a tone like this.

Hammond! We're trying to sleep down here! Beautiful, what? Anyway, he built a similar thingamajig and it sounded like this.

But when he put them together, they produced a third tone.

Hammond! You're going to get yours! There was no stopping him now.

He took a piano and threw everything away but the keyboard, which he used to turn them on.

Then he invented tone bars to control the thingamajigs.

These amazing little bars blended the tones together to produce all kinds of different sounds.

Lawrence figured he could produce about 253 million different tones.

Without ever going out of tune.

Lawrence had a damn reinvention but he didn't know what to call it.

Hammond, will you quit banging on that organ? So he called it an organ.

Good name, Lawrence.

The electronic organ industry was born and America was waiting with open arms.

Radio was first to pick up on the new sound.

Will Sergeant Prescott find true happiness with Roy the Wonder Dog? Will Little Nell outrun the choo -choo train? And what about Uncle Bill's ingrown toenail? Then along came Tico Tico and the Hammond organ became an international star.

Pretty soon it was Hammond music to skate by.

Hammond music to dance by.

And Hammond music to amaze your friends by thanks to the world's first spinnet organ.

For people with two left hands Hammond invented the chord organ.

Then came another crazy invention nobody thought would last, television.

Music Years later for those who couldn't reach the pedals or shouldn't Hammond introduced the auto chord.

The first non -organ organ with automatic rhythm accompaniment and no pedals.

All you had to do was follow the coloured numbers.

You didn't even have to know the names of the notes.

But every time Hammond added another feature it crowded the circuits.

It was getting so there just wasn't any more room.

And then something happened.

Five, four, three, two, one.

Shift off! Rockets to outer space had the same problem.

Not enough inner space for electrical circuits.

So they invented a new way to handle those circuits.

Much better and much tinier than the world had ever known.

They called it large scale integration, whatever that means.

To Hammond it meant opportunity.

The chance to design their own large scale system.

Which they did.

How do you do? At Hammond our large scale integration system starts with MDD.

Short for multiple derivative divider of course.

It's a mini computer set at a fixed frequency of about four million cycles.

Which it divides into the 12 tones of the top octave.

Each of these tones is fed into a 380 LSI chip.

Where it's divided into octave frequencies and grouped for filtering.

The T80 is activated by tone bar as same as before.

To give you the same control of loudness.

Same blend of many, many tones.

It also does the work of hundreds of electrical switches.

Not only turns the notes on and off, does it as slow or fast as you want.

To produce new effects.

LSI chips are much more reliable.

Foolproof actually so that nothing can possibly go wrong.

These advances made Mr Hammond's invention a lot more compact and easier to build.

Like putting blocks together.

But most important.

They opened up for the home organist a whole world of new musical effects.

Way beyond today's state of the art.

All the way to the instruments and sounds of tomorrow.

Identifier

F.2010-01-0186

Date Of Production

1972

Abstract

A comedic animation about the invention, or beginnings, of Hammond Organs. The film begins with American engineer and inventor Laurens Hammond as he tinkers with piano parts and electric currents. Hammond perfects his invention by conceiving and creating tone bars or sliding drawbars, which blend tones together and ultimately control the instrument. The film then goes on to describe the initial spread and popularity of Hammond's invention and introduces the evolution of Hammond's organ models and his innovative use of large scale integration. The film ends with a colorful montage of light and illustrations set to organ tones.

Run Time

0:08:44

Format

16mm

Extent

300 feet

Color

Color

Sound

Optical

Reel/Tape Number

1/1

Has Been Digitized?

Yes

Language Of Materials

English

Element

Print

Genre

Sponsored
Educational
Comedy

Form

Short
Animations

Subject

Musical instruments
History

Related Collections

SERIES I: Goldsholl Design & Film Associates Films

Related Places

North America ➜ United States

Sponsor/client

Hammond Organ Company

Main Credits

The Creative Works (is producer)

Additional Credits

Samler, Steven (music)

Goldsholl Design & Film Associates (is animator)

The Creative Works (is writer)

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