This is a digital restoration of the original.
99 pages.
The Jesse Crawford Elementary Organ Course has
been unavailable for years and deserves to be used by today’s
teachers who desire the fastest path to imparting to their students solid
theory of music and organ performance in the popular style of the American
theatre organ tradition.
This book assume no previous music study, and Crawford writes that the
student will not play “by
ear” but learn to read music while playing on the organ!
Though written with special
emphasis for the Hammond organ (the only one available to most people in
1949), his course works well for any organ.
Size of original book was 9" x 12" but I cropped it to fit on the more
common 8.5" x 11" size. Some of the content barely fits into
this space, so if you use larger paper you will have a more realistic
margin. Free. It is available
here,
free for you, as a PDF, and this is the only way it is available. I hope
that you will enjoy looking at Crawford’s beginning organ method and consider
using it with beginners who want to play in this style.
Made
possible by the generous loan of Crawford’s personal copy by Jeff
Weiler.
Jesse Crawford (1895-1962) was
the organist who brought popular organ music to the people through the medium
of recordings, beginning with 78 rpm records. He was known for his playing
of the great IV/36 Wurlitzer in the Paramount Theatre, Times Square, New York
City. George Gershwin heard him there, and Crawford’s organ arrangement
of
Rhapsody in Blue was
the result. If you would enjoy a sample of several pages (in full resolution)
from the
Advanced Course, you may
get
it here, free for you, as a PDF. The bound copy of the Advanced
Course that you may buy restores the original full 9 x 12 inch paper with a coil binding that allows for easy display on the music rack.
It is my hope that these reissues will stimulate better playing in the theatre organ style and garner more of the respect that Crawford
richly deserves from all organists.