The North Suburban Home Organ Society
Eastern
Massachusetts Premier Group for Those
Who Love the
HAMMOND
ORGAN and OTHER
HAMMOND
ORGAN and OTHER
ELECTRONIC KEYBOARDS
Welcome to our new 2010 Concert Season.
Conveniently
located in the main auditorium of the WOBURN, MA, SENIOR CENTER
144 School Street, Woburn, MA
144 School Street, Woburn, MA
Our
most recent meeting and concert were held on Sunday, January 24th and
featured Tim Holloran. Tim has years
of playing experience. He is, among other things, a very accomplished
Hammond/Leslie technician. Musical instrument techs are invariably good
musicians, probably because their intimate knowledge of the inner workings
of these instruments gives them an advantage in knowing how to set up
interesting registrations and in general how to get the most out of
a particular Hammond or other electronic musical instrument. Anyhow,
Tim started off by playing the famous Mickey
Mouse March, and it was a fast and lively arrangement that was
a great way to begin the program and generate enthusiasm in the audience.
He followed that up with numerous show tunes including several from
My Fair Lady; Wouldn't It Be Loverly was a particularly outstanding
example. He also played several Latin numbers and many ballads.
Of particular note is Tim's playing of Danny Boy. Perhaps it is his partly Irish ancestry that gives him a special feeling for this melody, but it was very tasefully done. After Tim finished his program to very enthusiastic applause, I insisted that he should return for an encore, which he did. For his encore he chose the song, That's All, which is a nice slow ballad and a very fitting conclusion to a great afternoon of music. [Or an afternoon of great music] If you were not able to attend this program, you'll get a chance to hear Tim again as we're going to bring him back quite soon.
Of particular note is Tim's playing of Danny Boy. Perhaps it is his partly Irish ancestry that gives him a special feeling for this melody, but it was very tasefully done. After Tim finished his program to very enthusiastic applause, I insisted that he should return for an encore, which he did. For his encore he chose the song, That's All, which is a nice slow ballad and a very fitting conclusion to a great afternoon of music. [Or an afternoon of great music] If you were not able to attend this program, you'll get a chance to hear Tim again as we're going to bring him back quite soon.
New Feature!
If you'd like to join the NSHOS, you can Sign
Up Here! This will take you to a handy form that you can fill out
and pay for a membership via your credit card. If you are an existing
NSHOS member, you can pay your membership renewal dues here as well.
Next meeting, February 28th.
featuring GARY PHILLIPS
Gary's
first love is the theater pipe organ. Gary is also a pipe organ technician.
Need I say more? With those two qualifications, we already know that
his playing is going to be special. Gary is very adept at changing
key while playing. In the course of a typical concert, between his
own key changes and the frequent key changes that composers write
into their songs for the bridge sections, he will, by the time he
is done, have played something in all twelve keys. The infamous (to
keyboard players) sharp keys like A, E, B and F# do not stop him.
Actually, under some conditions, playing in sharp keys makes some
scales and arpeggios surprisingly easy, because the fingering with
some white and black keys just seems to "fit" a human hand
very well. It's pretty obvious why Zez Confrey's Dizzy
Fingers is written in A. Anyhow, be sure to attend Gary's program.
With a little imagination as you listen to his playing, you can picture
yourself listening to a large and elaborate Wurlitzer or Morton or
Kilgen theater organ. Gary also owns two X66s and his intimate knowledge
of the Hammond X along with his pipe organ background make for an
afternoon of great playing. See you on Feb 28.
Below are pictures from our most recent
event and several previous concerts as well.
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Left top,
Tim Holloran plays our January program. Top Right,
Elizabeth Larson relaxing between solos at our Christmas concert. Remaining
pictures, some of the extra equipment that we use with certain programs.
Roll cursor over the pictures to see titles of items in the pictures.
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Right. Don Sansom presides
at a MIDI keyboard at the November concert.
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Right. NSHOS VP Jim Gregory
is simultaneously using an Elegante Hammond which he brought in specifically
for his program, and also a keyboard.
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Left. Bill Lambert plays
the Hammond A100 for our special Christmas/Ken Griffin meeting.
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Left. Closeup of Wurlitzer
4600 series electro-static instrument. We used this at our previous Ken Griffin
Celebration for imitations of those selections which Ken played on a similar
instrument. Its operating technology is entirely different from that of any
other electronic organ, but its appearance looks fairly conventional. Although
it has a 12-inch coaxial speaker in the console, we bypassed the console speaker
and routed the signal through a mixer with two different digital signal processors
in the effects loop and then sent the result through the X66 main tone cabinet
as this gives a vastly superior result compared with using the console speaker.
Learn more about the Wurlitzer Electro-static
Organ.
Our
monthly meetings/concerts are normally held on the fourth Sunday of every
month in the auditorium of the Woburn, MA Senior Center on 144 School
Street in Woburn, MA. Once in a while, we may schedule for the third
Sunday if a special event or holiday falls on or close to the fourth Sunday.
NSHOS
2010 concert season began 9 27 09
To
visit us, get on 128 South and take the Washington Street exit, which is the
first exit going south after Route 93. Go to the traffic light at the bottom
of a slight hill and turn left. Continue about half a mile, look for Ryan
Street on the left. Turn left on Ryan street, proceed about 0.2 mi to School
Street. Turn Right onto School street and drive about 0.5 Mi. You will see
the Senior Center, which was a former school, on the right. There are two
wings to the building. As you drive into the parking lot, you will find the
auditorium in the right wing of the building. Park anywhere in the parking
lot and enter via the double doors. We look forward to meeting you. Share
the joy of music, invite a friend!
We
have recently added a lot of material to our technical pages, all of which
is relevant to equipment that we use for our concerts. We have two new articles,
one on MIDI and one on tape echo.
The MIDI article is somewhat of an overview as MIDI is a complex and evolving
subject however we have covered the essentials of MIDI as it applies to what
we do at the NSHOS. We also have an article about the Wurlitzer
electrostatic organ. After that, we have started an article about digital
signal processing, although of necessity it will be a rather brief outline
of the salient features of this very complex technology that is increasingly
important in many aspects of modern music production. We've also started an
article about the X66 Hammond organ. Not only is that the club's performance
instrument, but it is quite different in many ways from the more traditional
Hammonds.
There has been and continues to be a great deal of progress made in electronically produced music and we hope that these technical articles that we include here will be helpful to you in gaining an appreciation for this new technology. We have also begun to include a few sound clips in some of these articles. To hear them, just click on any of the play buttons that you see on the relevant web pages. We implement these sound clips by using Flash, which is a very widely used media application on virtually all computers. We also use Flash for some of the technical animations on our tech pages. If you have a very old computer that does not have Flash capability, you can download Flash player by clicking the link below. When you arrive at the page, you'll find an icon to click to begin installing Flash on your computer. Because of the huge amount of Flash based content on the web, it is absolutely essential that you should have this most useful feature not just for the NSHOS website, but for many, many others as well.
Download Flash player.
There has been and continues to be a great deal of progress made in electronically produced music and we hope that these technical articles that we include here will be helpful to you in gaining an appreciation for this new technology. We have also begun to include a few sound clips in some of these articles. To hear them, just click on any of the play buttons that you see on the relevant web pages. We implement these sound clips by using Flash, which is a very widely used media application on virtually all computers. We also use Flash for some of the technical animations on our tech pages. If you have a very old computer that does not have Flash capability, you can download Flash player by clicking the link below. When you arrive at the page, you'll find an icon to click to begin installing Flash on your computer. Because of the huge amount of Flash based content on the web, it is absolutely essential that you should have this most useful feature not just for the NSHOS website, but for many, many others as well.
Download Flash player.
©2010 NSHOS
We
are grateful to NSHOS member Kurt Armsden for the generous loan of his Wurlitzer
electrostatic 4600 series instrument. Kurt and his wife have recently moved
to a new condo, and he subsequently moved this instrument to his new place.
As you know, this instrument was very useful for our last Ken Griffin event,
as Ken had played such an instrument and by having access to this one, we
were able to reproduce a few of Ken's arrangements very accurately, complete
with getting exactly the right instrument sound.
Regarding technical matters, I spent some time doing more contact cleaning on the X66. The weeks of unuse between our meetings allow thin coatings of oxidation to form on some of the stop and key contacts, the results of which are either dead notes on the keyboards, or stop and percussion tabs that do not work the first time. Fortunately, a spray of contact cleaner and a little exercising of the offending stop or key are all that are needed to make everything work again. Our X should be played at least several times a week, but unfortunately, this doesn't happen. Unlike the earlier Hammonds with their palladium key contacts, the gold-filled small wire contact springs do not remain as oxide-free during long periods of unuse.
Hopefully as we attract more members and get a more ambitious program of concerts going, we may start having perhaps two events per month instead of one which would certainly give the instrument more use.
Unrelated to this, I am currently restoring the 3/9 Kilgen theater pipe organ from the former Embassy Theater in Waltham, MA. This instrument now resides at the Lakeview Congregational Church also in Waltham. I have also begun work on the 3/43 pipe organ at the First Church in Ipswich, MA. We will have some pictures of this work at a future date. Although we are primarily a Hammond club, we also have a strong interest in real pipe organs, several of our people have serious involvements with the pipe organ industry, and of course it is from the pipe organ that our Hammonds and other electronic instruments evolved.
Regarding technical matters, I spent some time doing more contact cleaning on the X66. The weeks of unuse between our meetings allow thin coatings of oxidation to form on some of the stop and key contacts, the results of which are either dead notes on the keyboards, or stop and percussion tabs that do not work the first time. Fortunately, a spray of contact cleaner and a little exercising of the offending stop or key are all that are needed to make everything work again. Our X should be played at least several times a week, but unfortunately, this doesn't happen. Unlike the earlier Hammonds with their palladium key contacts, the gold-filled small wire contact springs do not remain as oxide-free during long periods of unuse.
Hopefully as we attract more members and get a more ambitious program of concerts going, we may start having perhaps two events per month instead of one which would certainly give the instrument more use.
Unrelated to this, I am currently restoring the 3/9 Kilgen theater pipe organ from the former Embassy Theater in Waltham, MA. This instrument now resides at the Lakeview Congregational Church also in Waltham. I have also begun work on the 3/43 pipe organ at the First Church in Ipswich, MA. We will have some pictures of this work at a future date. Although we are primarily a Hammond club, we also have a strong interest in real pipe organs, several of our people have serious involvements with the pipe organ industry, and of course it is from the pipe organ that our Hammonds and other electronic instruments evolved.
— ECL
If you are a professional
keyboard musician or a skilled amateur, be sure to contact
us. We are always looking for new artists to feature for our programs.
We are very pleased
to see that we are getting new visitors to our programs and that many of those
who visit have joined our group. We're also getting some visitors via this
website. We welcome all to our monthly programs. If you would like to join
the North Suburban Home Organ Society, or receive more information about this
group, just click
here. NSHOS.
