Organ in Classical and Rock Music

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Scott Smith with Expert Village. Right now we're going to talk about the organ. During the 1950's at the beginning of Rock n' Roll there were only two keyboards that were primarily used. One was piano because pianos were everywhere, and organ. Especially the Hammond B-3 organ. In Bach's day, Beethoven's day the organ was not like it sounds today. This is a pipe organ primarily driven by air and big baffles. This is what it sounded like. Beautiful sound, but not really rock n' roll. Later on somebody invented something called the B-3, which used rotors and brushes and each sound had it's own little rotor. It was a very analog machine, but it sounded pretty good. It also had a Leslie speaker which spun around, slowed down and went faster and faster. This is what a Hammond organ sounds like. Now with a Leslie speaker. You'd hear it spinning around, and slowing down. So when you do a big chord like this, that's a modern organ today. Still being used, still one of the most sought after keyboards on the planet."