Piano World Home Page Forums Other Keyboard Instruments Organs - Electronic (B3 etc.), Pipe, Theatre, & Reed Drawbar Organ

I just built a new church. (what can i say? I'm an engineer. Ahem. A government engineer. )

But i let the chaplain spec the organ.

Today it was installed and I sat down to play it, hit a few stops and ran a few familiar hymns.

A more experienced player ran over and sat down to show me what I was doing wrong. He canceled all my stops (he called them presets!) and started moving drawbars.

Yeah, drawbars. In my haste, I didn't notice they were there. I'm used to looking at swell and great stops and trying to set a registration.

Wow! This guy was really really good at gospel organ, a genre I have zero background in, being Episcopalian.

Uh, there's something called a Leslie, too. Not sure what that's for, I would have put it in the dumpster myself. <g>

But he did all his work with drawbars, and I haven't the slightest clue what they do.

Can anybody point me in the right direction?

In "The American Organist" (the journal of the American Guild of Organists), October 2009 issue, is an article, "How to Make Friends with a Hammond" by Jonathan B. Hall. It's a nice one-page intro to Hammond registration.

Briefly on a Hammond the drawbars are for the fundamental pitch (8') and the overtones (4', 2', etc.). The article lists them as:
I brown 16'
II brown 5-1/3'
III white 8'
IV white 4'
V black 2-2/3'
VI white 2'
VII black 1-3/5'
VIII black 1-1/3'
IX white 1'

So the white drawbars are the unison and octave pitches, and the black and the 5-1/2' brown are "mutations". Pulling a drawbar out more lets that pitch sound louder.

Wikipedia has a nice article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammond_organ

which links to an old Hammond owner's manual with example "registrations":
http://www.manualnguide.com/dl/12641/

Enjoy!

And that Leslie will give you a great tremolo effect.

Ken

Hi there,
I realize this is an older post but I just came across it. I wrote a whole article awhile back called "Hammond B-3 Drawbar Tips For Piano Players" I hope this helps you. Keep us updated on your progress and good luck!

http://www.stevenixonmusic.net/blog.cfm?feature=255281&postid=237083