In MMD 990225, Robbie Rhodes asked:

> Is there a characteristic sound which differentiates a fair organ
> in England from a band organ in the US?  Is the strident brass
> trumpet and wood trombone unique to the American Band Organ?

First some qualifiers:

French organs seemed to have dominated on the British fairground,
so have been used as the basis for the following.  There is a healthy
European industry building new organs, and these have a wide range of
influences.  Those organs are not considered here.  Also, a wide range
of organs, which did not spend a working life on British fairgrounds,
have been imported by enthusiasts

My knowledge of U.S. organs comes from a number of recordings of one
particular Wurlitzer 165, and a small, but very loud, DeKleist that was
imported relatively recently as a barrel operated organ, but has since
been converted to 41-key book operation.  As such, I can not really
give a comparison between the organs found in the UK and those in
the U.S.

To answer the question above, trombones are very common on organs in
Britain, and will be found on all bar the smallest fairground organs.
Most organs with scales of 46 keys (or keylessnesses) and above include
these pipes as part of the organ, and some organs always have them in
play.

Brass trumpets are found less commonly.  It seems that most of the
organs that have brass trumpets as a main melodic line started life as
barrel operated instruments.  These are usually referred to as trumpet
barrel organs as opposed to military band organs.  Apart from trumpets,
the pipe makeup tends to consist of clarinet and piccolo.  The
different sections tend to be used interchangeably for melody and
counter melody as required.

There are not many barrel operated instruments playing now, and unfor-
tunately there still seems to be a tendency to convert the remaining
examples to book operated mechanisms.

Brass trumpets are found on some book operated instruments, although
wooden pipes would seem to dominate.  This is perhaps a reflection of
the instrumentation that was adopted when book operated organs were
introduced.  A number of organs have had brass trumpets added in more
recent years.

The first book-operated organs to arrive in quantity were the 87-key
Gaviolis.  These had a clarinet mixture as the main melody section, being
followed on up the scale by piccolos.  The counter melody consisted of
saxophones.  Trombones and piccolos were operated by their own keys, and
there are no automatic registers.  Such instrumentation is capable of a
very full, rich sound.

This 87-key scale then extended into the Gavioli G4 scale (presumably
via G1, G2 and G3) by the addition of various automatic registers.
Clarinet and violin were put on the melody, and saxophone remained on
the counter melody.  A 'forte' register added weight throughout the
organ, including, I believe, trumpets on the counter melody.

The G4 scale was further developed by Marenghi, and turned into the
89-key VB (or violin-baritone) scale.  This is note-for-note the same
as the 87- and 89-key G4 scales.  However, the registration is differ-
ent, with baritone being the melody register, the violins were moved
onto the counter melody to join the saxophones, and a glockenspiel
added to the piccolo section.  Again, such organs are capable of a very
full sound.  It is the VB scale which came to dominate on the English
fairgrounds, and most of the Gavioli G4 organs were converted to play
the VB music.

The basic 87-key scale was then further developed by Marenghi into
the 98-key scale by the addition of additional registers.  This scale
tended to be adopted as standard for large organs.  Other large organs,
such as 110-key Gaviolis, were cut down to play this music once stan-
dardisation of music came into vogue.

On characteristic of music played by all of these scales is the piccolo
section operated by their own keys.  This enables music arrangers to
have highly decorated piccolo passages playing over the main melody,
rather than simply playing in unison.  Some arrangements take these
piccolo parts to the extreme with a constant warbling throughout a
tune.

Other scales traditionally used on fairgrounds, such as the 65-key
Gavioli, also utilsed the saxophone/clarinet/violin/piccolo/trombone
registration.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I am under the impression that
many U.S. band organs use a reiterating snare drum mechanism.  These
are not found in Britain.  Most organs use two keys to operate the
drum, one for each beater.  Such an arrangement is still capable of
drum rolls of ample speed, but does not have the same kind of regu-
larity of sound of a reiterated one.

Incidentally, many German scales, and a number of other very small
scales, use one tracker bar hole to operate the drum, with the leading
edge of the hole triggering one beater, and the trailing edge the
other.  Obviously, this arrangement tends to produce drum beats in
pairs.  However, this is not readily noticeable when listening to an
organ playing.

Of course, what is really needed, so as to enable us all to perform
our own comparisons of the differences between organs of all types,
is for recordings to be placed in the MMD archives.

Regards,

Douglas Bush
UK.

 [ Jody says we have plenty of data storage for music files, and we
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 [ compilation copyright.  Please send to <editor@foxtail.com>.
 [ -- Robbie