alexanderlyon wrote:
Oh, that would explain why pulling the second drawbar from the left all the way out eliminates the foldback effect!
Yes, but it's not a matter of first vs second drawbar per-se. Consider this: there is a fixed number of tonewheels in organ, usually 91. But the actual pitches needed to make all 9 drawbars sound the way they are formally intended to would exceed 91. So at the lower and upper end of the register the same wheels (from an octave above and below, respectively) are "recycled" again. For example, there is no 32' drawbar, so the 16' is used twice instead. If you only pull out the second drawbar, you are in fact making your sound come, for any of the given 61 key, an octave and a fifth
above the note that would sound if you had pulled out the 16'. This means that even if you press the lowest C on the manual, there's no need for foldback because the dedicated tonewheel is actually there. Not sure if my explanation was clear. The same thing happens in reverse at the higher end of the range by the way.
alexanderlyon wrote:
I've been slowly exploring some of those other settings, and have been amazed at how they all tie together; changing one seems to affect how I hear the others, and the possibilities make my head spin.
I feel like I've fallen down a rabbit hole with this stuff, but in an entirely good way. It's fun to have a new, healthy obsession; I really feel like I'm learning an entirely new instrument. (Well, I *think* it's healthy. But it could be expensive: I'm already fantasizing about getting a dual manual rig, some foot pedals...)
It's of course true that piano and organs are fundamentally different, yet there's also some crossover. There could be more difference in two styles of piano playing (or organ playing) than a certain style of piano playing and another style of organ playing. It depends on the genre too. You mention you play jazz. I do too (no, I suck but I have fun trying
). I think you'll find principles behind chord voicings change quite a bit between the two instruments... organ voicings tend to be less dense than piano's, given the inherently more muddy sound of the organ. But a "math" on this has yet to come. Rolling chords is another of those things that don't really work on the organ, because of the sudden stop of the sound as you release the key -- which, in my opinion, is an even more drastic difference than the mere fact that notes on the organ can be sustained indefinitely. But then as you noticed, the coolness of holding down a note, playing with swell and the Leslie and poking other notes is a feeling that the piano player can't enjoy either!
It would be interesting to hear a more coherent and systematic "cross study" to see in which way jazz principles are applied to the two, but unfortunately, while jazz piano studying is fairly structured, there seems to exists a mystic aura around jazz organ that doesn't really make things simple in this respect. There aren't many teachers either.
And the ones who do exist, tend to place emphasis to an aspect of jazz organ playing that I personally have never felt much affinity with, that is the "traditional" jazz organ way of playing the bassline with the left hand and NOT having a real bass player. "Can" the organ play bass? Sure, but it's a compromise to me. If you play organ as a solo then sure, but in a band it can't and it doesn't beat the sound of a double bass, in jazz at least. Many bass-less jazz "organ trios" are composed of organ, guitar and drums, and I must admit, I can somewhat live with the guitar but I'd really like to see a real double bass in there with a real bass player. There's not comparison between that woody sound of plucked strings, slightly out of tune, and the somewhat colder, always in pitch, even sounding bass of the organ. Yet, a huge amount of Hammond jazz teaching revolves around the building and playing of left hand basslines -- already implying that your left hand IS supposed to be the bass player. I don't know, I just think there's a different/better instrument in there, waiting to be discovered by someone, though I am the first admitting I would be the last person on Earth with the required skill to put this thought into practice.
alexanderlyon wrote:
Never having played a semi-weighted keyboard before, I'm also having to modify my technique. Is that a common experience?
If you mean the "finger kinetics" aspect of it, it of course requires less weight in terms of key pressure, which could ease your forearms a bit, but then it perhaps takes more fingers stretchability to reach other notes while you keep pressing others, which might explain your discomfort.
Keep us posted!
), then the wheel/pickups leakage phenomenon... which all make the instrument unique in its own imperfect nature.