The Hammond Organ - Test 3

C2 Proficiency · Gapped Text · Proficiency Testbuilder, 4th Edition, Mark Harrison, Macmillan

You are going to read an extract from an autobiography. Seven paragraphs have been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs A–H the one which fits each gap (1–7). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.

The Hammond Organ

This meant that there was now enough room. Very carefully, they wheeled in a brand new Hammond organ and matching bench with the Playing Guide and connecting cables tucked inside the lid, and a brand new Leslie 147 speaker cabinet, which filled up the entire room. My face must have been a picture. This was the gear!

I found all that out by fiddling around with it for hours that day until I got some results. Basically, I just taught myself. The wonderful thing about the Hammond is it sounds good without too much effort. It's not like the bagpipes or the violin, where even after a lot of work it can still sound bad!

However, I never had any ambition as a kid to play the piano, let alone the organ. It was all my mum's fault. She'd had a dream of playing the piano since she was a kid, but growing up in the little town of Mountrath in the centre of Ireland, as one of 11 kids, there was hardly money for shoes let alone piano lessons. And as she hadn't been able to afford them when she was young, I was going to get them whether I wanted them or not.

'What's a Hammond organ?' 'It's free. I've got it for two weeks, then they'll come and take it away and no charge whatsoever.' 'Where is it then?' 'It's in the back room, it's fantastic and it's not costing a penny.'

Then, thumbing through the back pages of the Melody Maker, I noticed an ad for Boosey and Hawkes, in Regent Street, who were offering to let me: 'Try a Hammond Organ in your own home on two weeks' free approval.' 'Yeah, right,' I thought. 'Pull the other one.' I tried to figure out what the catch could be, because I couldn't believe they'd let me get my sweaty hands on a genuine Hammond without money changing hands or at least making a promise to buy.

Somehow I knew that meant it was going to be all right. The men in white coats came to take it away two weeks later and my new mahogany Hammond organ and matching Leslie cabinet arrived the following week.

Sometimes, a smell can trigger a memory so strong and true it unravels years in an instant, like the smell of oil paint, which takes me straight back to my art school days. So, as they unbolt the container, even before I get to see how beautiful the instrument is, the combination of furniture polish and Hammond oil wafts up my nose and I get a flashback to 1964, when I caught that odd mixture for the first time.

Now I had to figure out how to play the beast and get the same sound as that. Carefully listening to sustained notes on the record, I pushed and pulled the drawer bars in and out until I got the same sound. Then, if I played the part right, the sound would change – just like the record.

It's September 1995 and I'm on my way home to Austin, Texas from Bangkok. Breaking the journey in Los Angeles, I spot an ad for an organ in the classifieds. It's a 1954 Hammond B2. I can't resist this little gem, so I buy it – sight unseen – and arrange to have it collected, crated and trucked to Texas.

Ever since I heard Green Onions by Booker T. and the MG's on the radio, the sound of a Hammond organ has moved me. Although at the time I didn't know exactly what Booker T. was playing, I knew I wanted to make that noise. I didn't even know how to play an organ, but the way it swirled and swam and bit your ears off, I knew somehow I had to have one. So I did my research in the music shops, and found out that the coolest-sounding organs were all Hammonds, but that the L100, while it still had that special sound, was lighter and cheaper than the other models. Not that any of them were cheap, which didn't much matter, because I had no money.

But when I called them up, they were very helpful. There was no drawback. The only thing I could not do was move it, once they'd set it up. That wasn't going to be a problem. The problem would be explaining the arrival of this beautiful monster to Mum and Dad. But I wasn't thinking that far ahead. I wasn't really thinking at all, apart from wondering – when could it be delivered? 'Tomorrow.' 'Okay.' And that was it. The next morning at about 10am there was a knock at the door and two men in white coats were standing on the doorstep. After I'd signed papers and promised not to move it, we pushed the dining table and chairs back against the wall.

It was all polished and shiny and made our dining-room suite look quite tatty. They showed me how to start it up and we shook hands. It couldn't have been simpler. 'See you in two weeks then.' 'Yes, okay, bye.' Slam. 'Aarrgh!' I screamed and ran upstairs to get the record player from the bedroom, set it up on top of the bookcase, plonked Green Onions on the turntable and cranked it up! Yes, yes, yes, nothing could stop me now. I had lost my mind and I'd never find it again.

The next thing to master was the Leslie cabinet. This was where the sound came out. The Leslie is a combined amplifier and speaker cabinet, but it has two speakers which point up and down. The sound travels through revolving rotors, which throws the music out in waves. It's what makes the sound of every Hammond bite and swim in your ears. You can regulate the speed it rotates and it's very powerful.

When Dad came whistling his way up the path after work, I went to the door to head him off. 'Hello Dad.' 'What's up?' 'Nothing much. Well, I've got something to tell you.' 'Yes.' 'Er, Dad, you'll never guess what I've got.' 'What have you got?' 'A Hammond organ.'

He was down the hall and peering round the door suspiciously before I could stop him. 'Blimey,' he said. 'Well, I'm blowed. Where's the dining-room table gone?' He was in the doorway, trying to squeeze past the monster organ and the Leslie. 'It's great, isn't it?' 'Well, it's big … how are we going to eat with this thing in here, and why didn't you ask me or your mum?' 'Sorry, but it'll only be here for a couple of weeks, listen to this.' I played the first part of Green Onions on it. 'Not bad, eh?' 'I dunno.' He was thinking. 'Here, don't say a word, let me break it to your mum.'

I bought it on the 'never never'. Dad co-signed the hire purchase forms for me because I was under age.

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