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.