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Originally Posted by Bop Head
There's that. Or pros will use a chopped tonewheel organ which are modded to be lighter and more suitable for moving and carrying. Or they will use a new digital organ. Hammond only makes digital organs now. The tonewheels are strictly vintage. I think Hammond should simply make both digital and tonewheel. Both are required. Tonewheel is the standard for sound quality. While you can't always be moving a 500lb beast and so digital is necessary. Originally Posted by Bop Head
Vintage chop:
New digital:
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07-02-2023 05:48 PM
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First post, and I apologize for expressing such a strong opinion, but the fact is that this sort of discussion really doesn’t reveal much of any worth. Simply put, there is (ultimately), no instrument that is easier or more difficult than another and the only thing that matters, is whether you can or cannot play sufficiently well enough to achieve your objective. As a famous pianist (Alfred Cortot), once said, “…to play (the piano) is either easy or impossible”.
It seems to me that to express any other position is simply to proclaim ones current level to be little more than a beginner. To a beginner, all seems to be difficult and perhaps somewhat impossible. As the beginner progresses in his abilities, the things that once seemed to be very difficult/impossible become less difficult. And, if the beginner is lucky enough to possess a reflective nature, he may wonder just what the fuss was all about.
Anyway, carry on.
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Are you playing a genuine B3/C3 at home? Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
There's that. Or pros will use a chopped tonewheel organ which are modded to be lighter and more suitable for moving and carrying. Or they will use a new digital organ. Hammond only makes digital organs now. The tonewheels are strictly vintage. I think Hammond should simply make both digital and tonewheel. Both are required. Tonewheel is the standard for sound quality. While you can't always be moving a 500lb beast and so digital is necessary.
Vintage chop:
New digital:
There is always the M3, the "baby hammond" assuming you don't 100% need a full array of bass pedals.
I had an early 60's L-102 that I wound up selling. The tech who I had service it initially offered to modify the organ to add key clicks and a hookup for a smaller Leslie. You can get the M3 and L series organs in working order for a few hundred bucks. I paid a hundred for mine and dumped a couple hundred into the servicing. A few months ago there was someone on Austin CL basically giving away an M3. Most people just want em' gone out of their living rooms. There are a bunch of other solid state models from the 70's you will see people trying to get money for, which is funny, because I would want money to haul that junk off because they aren't the good ones.
Sad truth is I could buy L series organs and make more money stripping all the tubes and components out of them rather than fixing and selling as they are usually all original and just quit working 30-40 years later and were never fixed. A lot of times just need the oil and some small component replaced.
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That sounds like a good deal to get a lil M3 and then have it serviced. I have an XK5 digital B3 rig. It doesn't sound as good as tonewheel, but I can move it or adjust the settings easily.
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Nice rig! Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
That sounds like a good deal to get a lil M3 and then have it serviced. I have an XK5 digital B3 rig. It doesn't sound as good as tonewheel, but I can move it or adjust the settings easily.
That is basically the same pedal array as the M3 and L series, with what appears to be a little better spacing for ease of use. If you are looking for a tube model I'd recommend an M3. You could probably get one in good working order for 300 or so and invest a few more bucks into mods if there is a good tech in your area. That's the issue, finding a good tech. I had mine in FL. My tech told me he and the "other" tech basically agreed that one would cover south FL and the other north FL, which left me thinking there aren't very many qualified guys left servicing them. He was old then, he might be dead now. Austin is a little different with all the touring acts and bands there are several techs who handle Hammonds, Rhodes, etc.
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Thanks! I'll seriously think about doing that because it's a lot less money. Full rigs that have been refurbished before sale start at around several thousand.
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Absolutely, you are welcome. The best deal I've seen on a full size, working, clean Hammond was a C3 in central Florida for about 3500 bucks, which I thought was a pretty good price at the time. That was about 7 years ago so I would imagine the pricing is quite a bit higher now. Scour craigslist, maybe ask around at some area churches. A lot of little churches still have them from the old days cause they just tossed it in the back or in the basement outta the way and bought a keyboard. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
Might pay to find out where the nearest tech in your area is before buying just so you got an idea how far you'll have to take it to get things handled. If you can't find an M3 the L-101/102 are also really good sounding organs just not the full classic Hammond B3 sound and no factory key clicks. I'm not sure the exacting differences in terms of the circuits and to what extent they can be modded so again it might pay to talk to a tech first. The beauty of the little organs is you can move them fairly easily with two people and a minivan, Or throw a wheeled wood platform under there and roll it where you need it
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The IK Hammond virtual instrument sounds pretty damn good.
If you have a computer/iPad already, you could set up a two manual rig with full pedals for about a grand.
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I have a friend that has a ridiculous ear (play a 10 note cluster on a piano within one octave and he tells you which 2 notes you didn't play! ). Anyway, He plays world class Jazz on piano as well as organ (has gigged with serious heavy weights etc). He has also played guitar for 25 years and has been in a separate band for just as long where he plays guitar. He says getting world class good on guitar is just too hard and is happy to just be "good". Originally Posted by vintagelove
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Lucas Brown – guitar and organ
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Indeed. Bandmates tell me it's my turn to blow on guitar and then I suck. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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ask me to play a particular single note line in P4 tuning, relatively easy. ask me to transition between 6/diminished chord grips quickly and smoothly, i'm finding it hard.
then in standard tuning, the chord grips become easier (relatively) and i get tripped up on the tuning break and fretboard visualization.
something is always easy and something is always hard - only thing to do is experiment and try to break past plateaus
i have heard guitar is pretty forgiving if you take a lot of breaks between periods of playing, i wouldnt know as i havent taken breaks that way. whereas for trumpet they say if you don't practice for three days your embochure is kaput, so, glad that's not the case for my instruments
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Frank Vignola discusses the issues
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Frank starts out with the right idea of "connecting the fingers to the pitches", but then falls away from that and gets tangled in the usual stuff. This happens when you lose sight of the parties in communication. From a technical perspective, the ultimate party with which a guitarist communicates when playing is his hand. The hand is non-verbal and knows nothing of numbers, but is capable of doing anything learned and subsequently requested, if you ask right. Originally Posted by Cunamara
Imagine two guitarists, a teacher and a student. The teacher has the student play back and forth between the A and C on the little E string. In provoking the student to do so the teacher may use some of many numbers in a verbal instruction or description like these...
1 - first string
1 - A played with first finger
2 - C is two spaces from top of the staff
2 - A is two spaces from bottom of staff
3 - three frets up A to C
3 - three frets down C to A
3 - C interval a minor third referencing A
3 - A negative interval a minor third down from C
4 - span of four frets
4 - C played with fourth finger
4 - C is four spaces above bottom of staff
4 - A is four spaces below top of staff
5 - A "fifth" fret
6 - A interval a sixth referencing C
6 - A sixth fret counting the nut as first fret
7 - A seven frets below the string octave midpoint
8 - C "eighth" fret
9 - C ninth fret counting the nut as first fret
The student now has 18 numbers with verbal descriptions to help him... this kind of thing is why people think the guitar is so complicated. Yet the fingers don't know about numbers or words, and if they did, how would you know whether the A to C thing was interpreted by the fingers as "three frets up (or down)" or "a fret span of four frets"?
The fingers consider this A to C thing as trivial mechanically with respect to pitches, and without the numbers or words the fingers realize that this mechanics and the musical object are relative and usable for other instances (the same interval between other pitches, in reference to other scales, keys, etc). The fingers know this thing as a mechanical musical relative invarient which they learn to produce instantly, naturally, and effortlessly.
I think the "difficulty of the guitar" is just the big communication problem of insisting in using numbers and words to talk to the hand; the hand wants to learn the language of pitch production mechanics. It wants your musical requests in the form of sounds ("make it sound like this" where "this" is your mind's ear's aural qualia of what you want to hear). This is "The Think System" taught by Harold Hill in "The Music Man".Last edited by pauln; 07-10-2023 at 11:23 AM.
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Absolutely true. Advanced guitar playing is an endless challenge (and that’s a good thing). The guitar has got many possibilities for errors because we‘re so intimate with the strings and so close to the tone. And on the other hand so many possibilities for tonal dynamics like no other instrument. Originally Posted by Jazzjourney4Eva
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Of the instruments I've tried and been equally abysmal at are:
Drum Kit
Guitar
Bass Guitar
Piano
Trumpet
Violin
Double Bass
Singing is out of the question due to level of difficulty.
My vote - TRUMPET IS HARDEST
Breath and bebop with three valves. Very humbling.
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You think guitar is hard, try playing jazz on a lap steel.
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I'd say piano and sax are maybe uniquely well suited to getting good at jazz pretty quickly, and the rest are all kind of in the same boat. Each has different challenges that make its practitioners shake their heads when a kid who has been playing alto for a couple of years blows 10 choruses of Cherokee at 240 BPM. Some people take to one instrument more easily than another. Guitar has always seemed pretty easy and logical to me, pretty much from the get go, and I don't think there's anything about the instrument that poses any obstacle to learning jazz that it doesn't also pose to other forms of music. My playing might not reflect that, but that's a product of my own disorganization, not the instrument's. OTOH, I can't believe people manage to play the trumpet. Yet they do (or maybe they don't and trumpeters are no more real than birds).
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How in the world does a Trumpet even work? Piano has all of the theory laid out in a way that can be explained in a straight forward way, guitar is 6 parallel mini-pianos that can make sense but isn't as straight forward, trumpet is three valves and clearly some magic going on inside. Originally Posted by John A.
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On a trumpet, if you don't hold any valves down, you can blow the overtone series (like a bugle) by adjusting your embouchure (C, C, G, E, Bb, G .... ) Valves lower each of these pitches (valve 1 by a 1/2 step, valve 1 by a whole step, and valve 3 by 3 half steps). By using different combination of valves, you can play down chromatically a tritone from any of the bugle tones. At least that's what the interwebs say. In reality? No way a human being could possibly do anything that convoluted. I think it involves the illumnati and area 51 somehow. Every time I ask a "trumpet player" how the thing works he yells "squirrel!" and runs away. Originally Posted by AaronMColeman
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I suspect all the talk about 'theory' in this forum is a ruse to make guitar seem difficult to outsiders.
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As a person who is still fairly sure trumpets are magical, that's like describing guitar as 6 notes that can be raised by 1/2 step increments up to 22-24 half steps. Maybe that's how it works, but I have never in my life thought of guitar that way (even though that is what is happening)? Or maybe it just becomes so second nature that the description is more difficult than what is actually happening in the players head? Originally Posted by John A.
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The embouchure is way easier on a guitar ... Originally Posted by AaronMColeman
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I'm good with my hands and arms, so guitar and percussion come naturally. For the same reason, I don't get how some folks have difficulty knocking out a basic vamp on piano, like on the first day of playing one. OTOH, I hate blowing anything and cannot whistle for the life of me, so anything vaguely trumpet-y is a non-starter. I guess we all different after all.
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If that’s the case, the ruse is working very well with me. I’ve never felt more clueless or hopeless than I do here. Originally Posted by Litterick
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