Electronic Organ

Playing electronic organ in a rock band has been a lot of fun for me. When I was spending all those years learning to play the piano, I thought it would be a dead loss. I didn't really want to be a classical musician, after all. I felt like a geek doing it, but my parents made made. I had to study all these extremely difficult works of classical music, music theory, and even modern jazz. At the time I hated it, but in retrospect I am glad that I had to do it. Playing the electronic organ is so easy now that I have that classic background. I just kick out rhythmic patterns of simple chords, and let the band try to keep up with me. The guitarist thinks he is being so cool wailing on a single note, while I'm kicking back and jamming out complex variations of chords like it was nothing. And for me, it is nothing.

I guess I should have known that I would be eventually destined for the electronic organ. In retrospect, It was fated for it from the beginning. I never liked going to church as a kid, but I always liked playing the church organ. When I volunteered to sit in one week when the organ player was out, the preacher thought I was just being altruistic. The truth was that I had always wanted to be a performer. Just getting to sit in front of my church and play for all those people felt like a golden opportunity.

Of course in some ways electronic organs don't compare to that church organ at all. This was a traditional church organ, and it took up a whole wall of the chapel. The pipes were truly massive, reaching up to the ceiling as if they were trying to call out for God himself. Electric organs can't do that even with an impressive array of speakers. What they lack in majesty, however, they make up in flexibility. Today's electronic synthesizers can do things you can not even dream about doing with a normal organ. The sounds that I can play are only limited by the many patches available, and the number of those is expanding every day. I can set my stops to basically any setting I want. A modern keyboard synthesizer may not have the old-school value of an electronic Hammond organ, but it can do everything a Hammond can do and more.

The best thing about playing electronic organ is finally being cool. Playing the piano is such a difficult, unstylish pursuit. Playing electronic organ in a rock band is much easier, and much cooler. I can really bring the music together, creating rich feel and texture with the notes I play.