I have five children, the three oldest of whom are taking piano lessons. My husband and I desire our children learn to play the organ as well. We are Lutheran, and are well aware of the shortage of organists.

Recently someone offered us an organ for free. I am not sure if it would be appropriate for practice at home if the goal is to play a church organ or not. It is a Hammond, but the manuals are parallel with one another and it has 25 pedals. It is old and doesn't have a good tone, but it is free, and if it would save a daily trip to town so that they could practice at the church, would it be worth it?

I should mention, the model number is E112, the serial number is 2293. I have no idea how old it is. It has been sitting in a Senior Citizen Center, covered and untouched for years, and they want to get rid of it.

If it's in a good condition, you might as well take it. The 25 pedal range will probably be sufficient for now. I assume you'll be playing mainly hymns? Their bass lines usually don't go very high, and when they do, they can usually be taken down an octave without much trouble. Apart from that, most baroque repertoire could be played on it as they didn't have the full pedal range back then, and a lot of it is for manuals only anyway (most English and French baroque music). Bach requires the occasional high D or even higher notes, as does most later music. But I guess it'll be a while until you'll be tackling those difficult pieces and until then, the Hammond might serve you just fine.

That said, I'd still recommend the occasional practice session at the church. Not just to try out registrations but also to get familiar with the feel of the action. The Hammond will of course have an electric action, but your church organ might have a tracker action which will feel very different and might require getting used to.

i love practicing on my organ. it's so helpful and even a small pedalboard will enable one to do footwork.

There are some used church organs on the market.. very reasonable with AGO pedalboards if you are really serious. you might enquire if there is one of those lying around... maybe a local piano or organ dealership.

I always say free is the best price around!

Those hammonds are fairly good organs. Not a B3 or a good CV. But still very nice. Internal speakers is good too!

32 pedal organs are usually priced a lot higher than 25 pedal organs. It took me about a year and a half to find a cheap enough 32 pedal organ that was decent. that was a 1968 Rodgers 22b. I got it for $1,400.

Now if you do happen to find a conn model 640, 641 in 25 pedals and for 32- 643, 650 to 53, Id say go for it! Those are fantastic organs! They may be theatre organs but for their size and age they are just wonderful!

I did a search over on organforum.

I gather that the E's are fairly well regarded. They were the entry level line, about $2500 new in the 70's, now generally selling for $100 or so used. Or often free.

But they seem to play okay and are still repairable.

I'm a Lutheran substitute organist myself, and I started learning on a Hammond E111 (I think was the model number). It will be a fine instrument to start learning organ on, and will play almost all of the pieces, especially hymns that you'll want to play for Church use. Once they get the hang of the Hammond they will want to get over to Church and play on the Church's organ there is some adjustment between the 25 note pedal board and the 32 note AGO pedal board because the spacing of the pedals isn't identical. It is a small adjustment and it can be done, many Church Organists have these in their homes for home practice. There are some differences to playing on a piano and an organ keyboard, some lessons on the Organ itself would be helpful to get them started. You don't have a damper pedal on an organ and learning to play legato connected lines is a skill that is best taught by a proficient organist.

Go for it! The hammond "E" series organ was a good practice organ. The organ is probably half electronic and hald tone generator. These organs were built to last and in my area in Pennsylvania, mant churches used the hammond b, bv, c, and H models also. This organ nis a good organ and should be aquired!Probably the organ has to have the contacts cleaned and the generator oiled, get a service tech to service it and you will be the owner of a great instrument!