How is a Hammond organ different than an electronic keyboard or synthesizer?

Question

Could a Hammond Organ be used for the song Take on Me by A-ha?

Answer 1

The traditional Hammond Tone-Wheel Organ is a 450 pound box full of vacuum tubes, mechanical bits and electric motors turning little wheels. It was designed in the 1930's to emulate the sound of a massive church/cathedral pipe organ in a package that a homeowner or small country church could use. The old electro-mechanical models were discontinued in the 1970's. Today the re-born Hammond-Suzuki company makes digital keyboards that use physical modelling to emulate the sound of the old models.



The Hammond Organ only makes organ sounds. You couldn't possibly use it to duplicate something that was one on a bunch of Yamaha DX-7's - a digital synthesizer that generates sound by manipulating zero's and one's on a computer chip. If you wanted to do a song like Take on Me on a Hammond you would best re-arrange it as say a Blues or Jazz number.



Period video of A-Ha "live" (lip-syncing)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG8rrnbAbe0



Earlier version played on analog instead of digital synthesizers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liq-seNVvrM



A few Hammond Organ videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SurQE3YEnX0&list=AL94UKMTqg-9DkUnbLmS0MaWkGgAMzCIw0&index=4



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCXG809vYpg&feature=related



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWNoelEfXZo



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLT3Cb96-Mk



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hopUp1qBbJ4



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG5-s_G2csM

Answer 2

In a musical context, an "electronic keyboard" (instrument) is simply a keyboard that produces musical sounds electronically (i.e. sounds are not produced mechanically as they were in a mellotron, clavinet, Fender and Wurlitzer electric pianos etc.). The original Hammond organ used moving parts (tone wheels) so was electric rather than electronic. A reed organ simply used electricity to produce wind which was blown over reeds - again this was an electric rather than an electronic instrument.



However, for many years Hammond organs have been electronic - sound is produced purely electronically, there are no internal moving parts. Therefore, Hammond organs and synthesisers are types of electronic keyboard.



Unfortunately, a lot of confusion exists that is the result, frankly, of ignorance: people now tend to use the term "keyboard" or "electronic keyboard" to mean a particular type of instrument (often a one intended for people who can't play and have no inclination to learn). I have even heard it suggested that these instruments are played differently to other keyboard instruments and that standard notation does not apply! Curiously, some particularly stupid people have started to refer to these instruments as "piano keyboards". No wonder you are confused!

Answer 3

Basically a real organ or piano actually generates sound using mechanical parts similar to how a guitar makes sound when you pluck its strings , and a synthesizer emulates this sound generation using Digital information to create a sound then outputs it to some form of speaker (the speaker is making the sound not the synthesizer). You can play w.e song you want with either physical instruments or digital (synthesized) instruments, it just depends how close to the recorded sound you are trying to get at and what they used when recording the song.