Playing the Solovox was also a hell of a lot easier than understanding how it worked. “The music sensation of 1941-42,” read an ad in the Saturday Evening Post, “the Solovox brings to your fingertips the vivid, colorful effects of almost every instrument in an orchestra! And playing your piano and Solovox together is easier than playing the piano alone!” Instead, the 36-key Solovox (plugged into its own radio-style tone cabinet) could be attached directly under the keyboard of a standard piano, allowing the performer to create sustained electronic tones with their right hand while performing traditional piano accompaniment with the left. The artifact in our museum collection, known as the Solovox, was an early Hammond product that functioned sort of like a set of training wheels for people curious about electronic music, but not yet willing or able to purchase a stand-alone tonewheel organ. But you didn’t necessarily have to give up your old piano to make room for Hammond’s strange new frequencies. Whether employed in churches or jazz bars, these relatively space-efficient machines represented both a simplified alternative to the acoustic keyboards of the past and a highly complex evolution of their capabilities. Invented in the heart of the Great Depression, the electric organ arguably made a more substantial, immediate impact on the culture than the first electrified guitars introduced a few years earlier. It’s hard to say how a musical instrument designed to imitate hundreds of others could also simultaneously be “distinctive” in its sound, but such was the case with the classic Hammond organs of the mid 20th century easily among Chicago’s most significant contributions to modern music technology. “Smaller than a piano, a midget in comparison with the vast pipe organs of traditional style, yet capable of 253 million different tones this is the electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond of Chicago.” - Popular Mechanics, April 1936 #Hammond organ serial number dating generatorMuseum Artifacts: Hammond Solovox Keyboard Model J, Series A (1940s) and Hammond Organ Generator Oil Can (c.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |