Tonight on "The Organ Loft"--

[KB7DQH]

 ;) A whole program featuring "barrel organs"...

Will write more after the program ends ;)

Eric
KB7DQH

[KB7DQH]

And a piece by Mozart, written for Barrel organ but played by Joan Lippincott on the C.B. Fisk organ at Boston's Old West Church... with that exception all of the music was "decadent popular music of our forebears" played by "automatic pipe organs"... 

Of interest is the fact that orchestral transcriptions could be arranged without thought given as to where the hands would need to be on the manuals to play the respective keys, as these organs are played by pegs set into a rotating cylinder or later, paper or hardboard cards with holes or slots punched in them appropriately... so they could be played precisely as the music was originally written ;)

Eric
KB7DQH

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

Barrel organs were common in smaller UK (mainly) Anglican churches in the mid-Victorian era, when there was a rush to equip churches with organs and disband the church bands.  A handful still survive and some are playable - others were either scrapped or converted to "finger organs" - and some were built as barrel & finger organs in the first place.  One wonders how Anglican chant was managed, with the varying length of the reciting note in each verse.

Fairground organs are another variation on a theme - and things are arguably coming full circle with the modern "digital hymnals" and MIDI sequencers - but is it really an advance?

Every Blessing

Tony

[David Pinnegar]

Hi!

One interesting aspect of barrel organs is that they were rarely altered, merely superceded. This means that where they are cone tuned rather than later tuned with sliders, they can provide evidence of the temperament used at a particular time and possibly even of pitch . . .

Best wishes

David P

[At the Sign of the Pipe]

One wonders how Anglican chant was managed, with the varying length of the reciting note in each verse.

With apologies for picking up this thread a bit late in the day (I have only just registered for this forum.....).

In view of the many aspects of ingenuity displayed in the manufacture of barrel organs one wonders why no-one ever thought to devise a clutch-like mechanism to temporariliy stop the barrel rotating and thus leave the chord playing for just as long as required to fit in the required number of syllables. On larger barrel organs which were foot-blown the barrel could simply be stopped on any desired chord. Whichever way this might have been done (and I can't recall seeing any mention of  the first option in the barrel organ literature) it would require that the "barrel organist" be prepared to accompany the chant in a musical fashion. This latter aspect may have been the real issue given the anecdotes about such people (if that is not too unkind a comment). There is a latterday version of this story which I will explore in a forthcoming BIOS Reporter editorial......

Best wishes,

David Shuker

[David Pinnegar]

Dear David

Firstly a warm welcome to the forum . . . and you make a most interesting point. . . . and looking forward to more such interesting thoughts!

Raising this topic reminds me that I should chase up on possibly revisiting an instrument again to make a proper recording . . . : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxVUQxMaNew

Best wishes

David P