You can answer many questions about Wurlitzer and what they did if
you keep the following in mind while you are musing. Wurlitzer was
a business that was intent on, and proficient at, making money.
Their customers were the same.
Operators may have liked their machines and their music, but the
primary thing was grabbing nickels out of pockets or selling tickets
to a rink or ride. Organs needed to be loud and their music constant.
The music was not "piped" around the park or throughout the rink, as it
may be in your day.
Hardwood skate wheels on maple flooring thundered and the machinery
of a merry-go-round clattered and whined and groaned. None of this
background noise is masked or enhanced by solo pipe arrangements --
such subtleties would be drowned out, skaters might lose their rhythm,
and riders and people around the merry-go-round wouldn't hear the solos.
Our perspective as band organ enthusiasts a century later is very
different. Try to fit your questions into the situations which existed
in the early days and some things will be easier to understand.
Doug Hershberger
Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum
North Tonawanda, New York
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