Re: Fairground Organs
By Dan Wilson
Robbie Rhodes <rrhodes@foxtail.com> said:
> Mr. Bicknell, thank you for sharing your article, "Orchestrions and
> Fairground Organs", appearing in Mechanical Music Digest 96.11.06.
>
> Your description of the fair organs, Belgian popular culture, and the
> British viewpoint, is outrageously wonderful! I enjoyed every word!
Also from a British viewpoint, fairground organs have their drawbacks. To quote Mr Bicknell:
+ ... + These beasts have no exact US equivalent. + The nearest are the Wurlitzer band organs. I have a recording of a + Wurly model 164, claimed to be one of the 'world's largest'. I tell + you, you guys ain't seen nothing. + ... + A big fairground organ is the size of semi-trailer, on wheels, and is + driven by a belt off a steam engine or by current generated by one. + ... + The fluework is largely wood, based on ranks of bearded viols + of extraordinary power and transverse blown flutes, open and stopped, + running up into piercingly loud trebles. In really large instruments + there are many ranks of viols side by side, clearly intended as a + potently throbbing celeste. + ...
When we (the Friends of the Pianola Institute) took a push-up with a Clavinova along to the Ffestiniog Railway Gala in 1990, there was one such organ quarter of a mile (400m) away and we had to play in their intermissions.
The railway agreed to move us away for the next Gala in 1992, but this turned out to be at their upper terminus 11 miles (17.5 km) away from all the main Gala action. So we played in magnificent isolation.
Fairground organs are to announce a fair over a radius of a mile or more. You might say they are specialised instruments.
:-)
Dan Wilson
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