Chord organ

Chord buttons on the chord organ (Optigan)

Chord organ is a kind of home organ that has a single short keyboard and a set of chord buttons, enabling the musician to play a melody or lead with one hand and accompanying chords with the other, like the accordion with a set of chord buttons which was originated from a patent by Cyrill Demian in 1829, etc.[1][2] (See Accordion#History[note 1])

Initially, the chord organ was invented as a kind of electronic home organ by Laurens Hammond in 1950.[3][4][5] This was followed by the reed chord organ (c. 1959) and Optigan (c. 1971). The sound of the reed chord organ is somewhat similar to the harmonium or the accordion.

  1. ^ "Demian's Accordion Patent". 2004-10-20 ~ 2009-01-19 version. (translated by Karl and Martin Weyde from archaic German). The Classical Free-Reed, Inc. Archived from the original on 19 June 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link) Or,
    "Das erste Akkordeon: Cyrill Demian und sein Accordion-Patent". Akkordeon-Online.de (in German). Archived from the original on 2018-06-24. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
    — A summary and pictures of Demian's patent in 1829.
  2. ^ Dyremose, Jeanette & Lars (2003). Det levende bælgspil : det kunstneriske harmonikaspils forudsætning (in Danish). Dyremose.com. p. 133. ISBN 87-988128-1-5. automatically coupled chords on the bass side
  3. ^ "Laurens Hammond". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2014. His later inventions included ... the chord organ (1950), on which chords are produced simply by touching a panel button.
  4. ^ US application 2645968, John M. Hanert, "Electrical musical instrument", published 1953-07-21, assigned to Hammond Instrument Company  (filed 1950-06-23)
  5. ^ US application 2845831, Laurens Hammond, "Keyboard and switching mechanism for electrical musical instruments", published 1958-08-05, assigned to Hammond Organ Company  (filed 1953-02-05, priority date:1950-06-23). "This application is a division of my copending application Serial No. 169,902, filed June 23, 1950, which was abandoned after this application was filed."


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