This is an interesting premise and there is certainly merit in the
argument.  To my mind the biggest present threat to mechanical music is
not failure to attract or understand a modern audience but mediocrity.

Excellence will always draw a crowd.  A first rate military band
playing an old Sousa march will always draw a crowd.  A mediocre or
average performances will always leave 'em cold.  And so it is with
mechanical music.

In Europe there is indeed a large contingent of enthusiastic younger
enthusiasts in places like the excellent iMOD forum (join it and
participate -- don't just read it!).  But you are wrong to think they
only clamour for modern music.

The current hot topics show enthusiasm for rediscovering the past
masters of the art of music book arranging through all the old books
lurking around the scene on various organs: classical and very old
Victorian and Edwardian show medleys, original jazz-age books, factory
arrangements of Marenghi, Gavioli and Gaudin.  It is this which is
"new" and the stuff that has tried to be modern from the preservation
era which is "old".  The other reason this music is actively sought
out is it's excellence (and the frequent mediocrity of a lot of that
which followed it.)

There is a thought amongst aging people that in order to attract
youngsters one must play their music.  This is indeed true to a degree.
What is not understood is that by the time one gets around to it you
are actually playing last years' "hit" and your audience just finds
your efforts stale.

I'm all for modern music on old instruments but there is nothing wrong
with playing "old" music to a new generation.  Don't dismiss it out of
hand.  As the new generation have likely never experienced it, curiously,
the "old" music is novel and therefore, to their ears, entirely "new"
-- and strangely the crowds and new enthusiasts are drawn forward.

Baroque music is played on harpsichords and new generations discover it
for themselves; so too will be the fair organ genre.  Harpsichordists
know the best policy is to let the instrument and the music designed
for it to speak for themselves.  Organ owners also need to consider
this philosophy on occasion.

Fair organs should play excellent arrangements, fair organs should play
excellently, in tune, they should be a feast for the eyes and the ears.

Pastiche arrangements of old tunes should be left in the cupboard, poor
arranging work should not be played.  There are a myriad of absolute
shockers on YouTube.  Far from showing everything that mechanical music
can do, these show everything that turns people away.  Of course, there
are also a myriad of excellent instruments caught on camera producing
pure magic.

We need to be a little more honest and discerning at times perhaps.
Sometimes people try to show what an instrument can do by feeding in
modern music to, say, one of those American Wurlitzers with a musically
inadequate scale.  The instrument can't cope though it can play what it
was originally designed to play perfectly fine.  Instead of showing
what the instrument can do all this achieves is the opposite -- showing
instantly what it can't do.

As to "Phantom of the Opera" (and it's a nice video, excellent
arrangement and superb instrument though I care nothing for the
composition), this piece is 22 years old now.  That's older than
the people you are trying to enthuse -- they have no nostalgia for
"Phantom" either, it's just dead background noise in limbo.  Have you
actually ever stopped to see a typical Andrew Lloyd Weber audience
exiting a theater?  They aren't youngsters, I can tell you!

As another example, playing hits from "Grease" is also quite laughable
now.  Dating from 1972 it is 36 years old and thus more than twice the
age of the people it is being usually aimed at.

We also need to revisit why we play some music generally anyway.  Why
do we really play "12th Street Rag"?  Is it for nostalgia emanating
from the 1948 version recorded by Pee Wee Hunt, or the original
version?  Why do we apparently like James P. Johnson's "Charleston"?
Is it because it was the all-encompassing most widely played tune of
the 1920s?  (In fact, it wasn't anything of the sort!)  Or is it
because we came to love it during the 1920s revival during the 1960s?

I was recently with Julian Dyer at a mechanical music museum.  Trying
to "enthuse a younger generation by playing modern music" they played
us "Aquarius".  Julian smiled and made the wry observation, "It is
indeed the dawning of the _Age_ of Aquarius!"  Think that one over...

To conclude: excellence will always overcome mediocrity.  Modern music,
if desired, must be modern.  In 2008 this means 2008 music, not 1986
nor 1967.  Whatever path you take, make sure it's first-rate music!

Regards,
Adam Ramet
http://www.themodist.com