Hammond S-6 Chord Organ
The picture above is of an S-6, which generates tones using vacuum tubes
instead of tone wheels. As described in a Hammond catalog, "one finger of
your right hand plays the melody, one of your left hand presses a button to
play a harmonizing chord, and your wrist can depress the chord bar to
emphasize the chord tone." When you press a chord button, it selects the
root and fifth for bass notes, and you play them alternately on the two
pedals. There are 96 chord buttons, polyphonic String and Flute section and a
monophonic solo voice system.
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Your left wrist works the rhythm bar. When you press a chord button,
the rhythm bar can be used to "strum" the chord in time with the
pedals. When the "sustain cancel" table is on, the chord sounds
only when you press the rhythm bar.
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Lots of buttons here. 96 of 'em to be exact. Eight chords for each
note of the scale. Check out the details
of chord buttons for a breakdown of each chord.
Each note of the scale has one column of buttons, arranged in "circle
of fifths" order from left to right. That is, the tonic or root of
the next chord to the right is the fifth note of the scale of the current
chord. So the chord to the right of C is G (C-D-E-F-G), the chord to the
right of G is D (G-A-B-C-D), and the chord to the right of D is A (D-E-F#-G-A).
Going to the left, you get a "circle of fourths". So
F is the next chord to the right of C (C-D-E-F)...and so on.
All of this "circle" stuff makes great sense music
theory-wise. But it actually makes practical sense. If your song is the in
the key of C, the chords you'll most likely need to need will be flavors
of F and G, from the two columns nearest C.
Hammond incorporated this bit of applied music theory into its
simplified music system. There's a little plastic slide with numbers from
one to six on it that fits over the chord symbol bar. The two is circled,
and the idea is to place the two over the key your song is in. Both the
tablature and standard versions of chord organ music indicate the column
number along with the chord name.
Hammond also provided little numbered caps which fit over the chord
buttons. These indicated which row to press. For the key of C, your one
button would usually be F (major), your two button would be C (major), and
your three button would be G7. The four button would be D7.
Chord buttons, showing numbered chord slide in the "C
Major" position, and numbered key caps on the F major, C major, G
seventh, and D seventh chords.
Numbering the chords is a great concept, but it assumes you won't be
playing songs in "difficult" keys like F#, where chords one and
two would be in the rightmost two columns, but chords three and four would
be in the leftmost two columns.
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These are the big rocker-switch type items running all the way across
above the chord buttons and the keyboards. In general, the white tablets
select a sound (similar to selecting a rank of pipes on a pipe organ), and
the black tablets modify the sound in some way. A tablet is "on"
when the dot on the top edge is showing.
The exception to the black-white rule is the leftmost white tablet
"volume soft", which makes the whole instrument a little quieter
to avoid potentially interrupting people's conversations.
The next two white tablets control the "organ section" of
the keyboard. Your choices are strings and flutes. The organ section
voices sound for every key you press on the keyboard.
The remaining white tablets -- a group of three and a group of five --
control the sound of the "solo section".. These voices sound
only for the top key you press on the keyboard.
To engage the solo section, you need to select at least one tablet
from the group of three and one tablet from the group of five.
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Pedal Section Balancer:
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This knob control the relative volume of the bass pedals. Clockwise
for louder, CCW for softer.
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Organ Section Balancer:
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This knob control the relative volume of the organ section. Clockwise
for louder, CCW for softer. This control affects the loudness of every
note you press on the keyboard, as long as one or both of the organ
section tablets are engaged.
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Solo Section Balancer:
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This knob control the relative volume of the solo section. Clockwise
for louder, CCW for softer. This control affects only the top note you
play on the keyboard, and only if at least one tablet is engaged in both
groups of solo section tablets.
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You turn the organ on by rotating the "expression lever"
under the keyboard downward.
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Seems simple, but you must have a least one of the white tablets
engaged for it to make any sounds. And that white tablet can't be the
leftmost "volume soft" tablet. Hammond intended for at least three
white tablets to be engaged, one from the "organ section" group
of two tablets, and one each from the two "solo section" groups
of three and five tablets.
Without an organ section tablet selected, only the top key you press
on the keyboard will sound.
Without at least two solo section tablets selected, one from each
group, all the notes you press on the keyboard will sound the same.
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After swinging the lever down, moving it to the right increases the
volume.
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When a chord button is pressed, pressing the left bass pedal sounds a
bass note that is the root or tonic of that chord. So, C for a C chord, G
for a G chord, and so on.
Pressing the right pedal sounds a bass note that is the fifth of the
chord button you're pressing. So G for a C chord, D for a G chord and so
on. In other words, the right pedal plays the note indicated by the chord
button column to the right of the one you're pressing -- this is the
"circle of fifths" in action.
