Re: Automatic Music Mailing List
By Doug Mauldin
Greetings to everyone on this new list. Thanks to Terry for remembering that I had expressed an interest in such a thing as this list, and to Jody for making it happen.
I've been fascinated by automatic instruments of all sorts, especially player pianos and band organs, for as long as I can remember. My wife Danell shares my enthusiasm for players and likes music boxes also. Nevertheless we are not too heavily invested yet. So far we have acquired two upright 88-note pumpers, one to play and one to work on, and we also have a MIDI sequencer program and a Gravis Ultrasound card (does that count?) We have been seriously considering the purchase of a band organ (my preference) or a reproducing grand piano (Danell's preference.)
In addition to our own collecting, we might be getting involved in a civic project or two. A preservation/restoration group in Little Rock owns the "Over the Jumps" carousel that has graced War Memorial Park for decades, and is now storing and gradually restoring it for eventual reinstallation under a proposed pavillion for it at the park. No one in that group I have talked to so far knows the whereabouts of its band organ, or even what a band organ is. "You mean a calliope, don't you?" We hope to get involved in this group and impart a little music education if we can. It would be a shame for a genuine antique carousel like this to have anything less than a genuine organ.
Not to dwell on carousels too long, but there is a new carousel in operation in a shopping mall in North Little Rock, which of course came equipped with a tape player. But the mall management won't let the carousel operators play it because they don't want their high-falooting mall to sound "like a carnival." Unbelievable. I used to scorn recorded band organ music on a carousel until I saw this one with _no_ music. So when we take the kids to ride the carousel, we let them wear Walkman tape players with recordings of a Wurlitzer 165. It beats nothing.
During 1994 we discovered AMICA, MBSI, and ATOS, and joined all three. We are big fans of theatre organ as well as automatic music. I guess what we really need is an automatic theatre organ. The nearest one of those that we know of is in Wichita Kansas at the Century II complex. They have the big Wurlitzer from New York's Times Square Paramount Theatre, and have added an electronic relay system that among other features allows sequence recording and playback. Nevertheless it remains primarily a manually-played instrument. The next show is on May 6, Lyn Larsen at the organ and the WSU "big band" with a program of WWII-era popular music.
> emulation of band and pipe organs using traditional
> MIDI synthesizers, etc.
I've thought about this in connection with the Little Rock carousel project. Until they get a real organ, a good synthesizer might beat a tape or CD and would offer some of us wanna-be amateur roll cutters an opportunity to try our hands at it, using computer technology.
BTW my career has been in electronics and computers. I completed a long-delayed B.S. in Physics and am working on an M.S. in applied science. Danell is an Occupational Therapist and likes woodworking and other crafts. The two of us might could build a computer-controlled pipe organ if we just had the time!
Here's looking forward to many interesting exchanges. Type to y'all later.
Regards,
Doug |
(Message sent Mon 17 Apr 1995, 22:52:26 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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