Posted
on January 11, 2016
When
you think “engineer,” do you think trains? Or bridges, or
spaceships, or...?
You
probably do not think “MUSIC!”
And
yet, why not? An engineer is someone who uses knowledge of science
and math in order to come up with solutions to technical or
commercial or even social problems. An inventor is often considered
an engineer, and there are chemical engineers, electrical engineers,
mechanical engineers, people who work with civil engineering or
computer engineering, engineers who work on extracting metals or
developing new materials.
So
an inventor / innovator who creates new ways to make or record or
enjoy music might very well be an engineer.
Today
we celebrate an engineer who invented an electric organ and the world's first
polyphonic musical synthesizer.
Poly-what-ic?
In
music, sometimes there is just one simple melody, or perhaps a melody
accompanied by a few chords. Music with just one “voice” is
called monophony (one sound), and music with one melody plus
chords is called homophony (same sound). On the other hand, some
music has a “texture” with more than one simultaneous and
independent melody. This kind of music is called polyphony (many
sounds).
A
synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that creates sounds
by directly generating electric signals that can be converted to
sound through amplifiers or loudspeakers or headphones.
Non-electronic instruments create sounds by causing air to move, or
vibrate, usually by causing something ELSE to vibrate – strings, a
drum skin, a piece of wood or metal, and so on. Of course, we
typically covert these air vibrations to electric signals to be
played louder through amplifiers and loudspeakers and headphones.
So
a synthesizer basically cuts out the middle of the sound-making
process.
Back
to Hammond...
When
Hammond and another engineer first created their electric organ, in
1935, they wanted to copy the sounds made by a wind-driven pipe
organ. Their electric organ was a lower-cost way of creating organ or
piano music, and Hammond marketed his organ almost entirely to
churches.
However,
the organ really took off with professional jazz musicians. Jimmy
Smith used the Hammond B-3, for example, and many other organ players
were inspired by and influenced by the electric organ. Hammond organs
became even more widespread in the 1960s and 1970s, in rhythm and
blues, rock, and reggae.
However,
musicians began to switch to more electronic instruments during the
1970s, and in 1985 the Hammond Organ Company went out of business.
When Suzuki purchased the Hammond name, it released a new, electronic
version of the B-3.
Hammond
and a few others created their synthesizer, called the Novachord, in
1938. It was introduced at the 1939 World's Fair, in New York City
and the very first instrument produced was, in 1940, delivered to
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a birthday gift.
Apparently
the Novachord was better at making otherworldly sounds than it was
sounding like normal musical instruments, and it found its niche
years after it was first invented in making sounds for science
fiction movies and TV shows. I read that it actually shaped the sound
we associate with sci-fi!
Production
had to stop during the World War II, in 1942, and Hammond never went
back to manufacturing the Novachord. There were only 1,069 Novachords
built during the four years of production, and fewer than 200 are
still in existence!
Still,
the Novachord was important historically, and of course now
synthesizers are used for many different types of music and for sound
effects as well.
Hammond
was an engineer and an inventor, not a musician. He invented lots of
things other than his organ and synthesizer. For example, he invented
an automatic transmission for autos, a silent spring-driven clock and
a non-self-starting clock motor, a sort of 3-D shutter glasses, an
electric bridge table, guided missile controls, bomb guidance
systems, a camera shutter, and a new type of gyroscope. Altogether,
he held 110 patents in his life!
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