Gary, Dan & Rex- Thank you for the comments on the songs… It is very hard to capture the actual tones and effects of the organ using an I phone - I have to get either a Roland digital recorder, or a real video camera…
Gary - Here is the story of how I started playing…. Back in 1971 when I was 5-years old, my father purchased one of the Hammond Piper organs for my mother to learn on… She Never did, try as she may….
The rule was we could not touch the organ because we were too little… When my grandmother was come to sit us, I would play using the numbered books… Before Long, I did not really need the books…
One day my father came home unexpectedly and started to walk into the room to tell my mother that she was getting very good… Only it was not my mother playing, it was me…
From That point on, they encouraged me to play… Then one day in September 1973, my mother took me up to the Hammond Organ store in North Plainfield, NJ to purchase some music books…
Three hours later, she was calling my father to tell him that he better come up, because she just spent $6300.00 on a new organ for me…
I lived in Georgia for 7-years from 1986 till about 1993… I played that thing almost every day from 1973-1993… Then I met my partner, and moved back to New Jersey in early 1994…
From that point on, things changed and now that I was with someone, I did not have the time to dedicate to it like I used to… I would play a few songs at Christmas, and that was about it…. I would say that if I was lucky I would play maybe 1-2 hours per year - Just enough to keep the Tone Generator from locking up…
Actually it is funny - The Vibrator scanner on the T-Series was belt driven off of the Main Run Motor by a rubber o-ring type belt… I would have to put a new one on every 6 months when I would finally go to play the thing because they would crack and snap from not being played...
So I really was telling the truth when I say that I only played one or twice per year in the last 20-years… I was just very lucky that I never really took lessons, and never forgot what I had learned… It always came very naturally for me… I taught myself to read music, and taught myself to play he Organ and Guitar as well...
I played the Guitar from the time I was 13, until I sold it when I moved to Georgia - At one time I headed up two different Folk Groups at my Church - That was something I also enjoyed…
(I regret selling it as it was a Ovation Custom Legend and was gorgeous) - I was in Sam ash music last week to get some sheet music, and asked to play one of the acoustic guitars that had on display, and was shocked that after all those years, I could still belt out stairway to heaven, with very few errors… I may have to ask Santa to bring me a guitar for Christmas this year!
So that is my story !!!
Dan
