Any hammond players out there?

pclancy

Looking for a few lessons on hammond chops/licks/techniques/drawbar settings etc, does anyone play or know anyone that does? Rock/Blues/Jazz/Soul flavoured stuff is what i'm at and I'd like to learn from someone experianced.

Savman

What do you need to know?

pclancy

Cool hammond licks and riffs I guess. Any particular chops or playing styles that sound great on it?

jimi_t

pclancy wrote:

Cool hammond licks and riffs I guess. Any particular chops or playing styles that sound great on it?

Learn from blues/jazz piano books or listen to Yes, Deep Purple or even a bit of John Paul Jones Doubt you'll find much by way of lessons

Savman

It's a bit like a guitarist saying "show me something cool" - I'm not sure if Hammond is that kind of instrument, I find its best role is complementing other instruments as its not really a lead instrument unless you're extremely proficient...

I'd say just concentrate on filling that whole between the rhythm section (drum n bass) and the front line (guitars and vox etc). Use the leslie speed for true dynamics in a song and add a little bit of overdrive for that real Hammond crunch a la Jon Lord

Drawbars are nothing more than sound shapers, use at your own discretion. You can do a bit of web searching to find out the story on drawbars, its got to do with the pipes/reeds like in church organs and each drawbar adds a specific harmonic. Quite bizarre when you get into it really (its not all just octaves...)

When playing mellow stuff, one would tend to have the first 4 drawbars out for that jazzy smooth tone, start there and add different drawbars for different colorisation. There's something like 65 million drawbar combination possibilities on a standard 8 drawbar organ so go exploring

pclancy

Yeah I understand the question was a bit weird, I havnt found much in the way of good tutorial books etc but have spotted a hammond book just now online so I'll grab that and see what the craic is. Ive been listening to a ton of hammond stuff since I got it, Booker T, Yes, Genesis, Deep Purple, Jimi Smith to name a few, its just ive been learning out of books and my own ear for years, sometimes I wish I had someone I could spend an hour with and learn quicker each week yknow?

Cheers for the replies lads

fish-head

Jimmy Smith and Booker T are two of my favourite musicians, they're fantastic. Plus they're both backed by great guitar players.

pclancy

Yeah Im the same. Jimi completly opened my eyes to the hammond far as it being a fantastic solo instrument and one of the first keyboard based songs I ever heard was green onions so Booker's there as well in my hall of hammond gods!

Have a lot of catching up to do with deep purple, mate dropped over their anthology or best of a few weeks ago and I havnt listened to it since ripping it. Must!

magpie

What kind of Hammond / Leslie rig have you got? Where did you get it, and how much?