The posting from Dave Bowers (MMD 110506) was a pleasure to read.
He cites some examples of our hobby being passed on to our offspring.
In his comments, he makes reference to the "direct" continuance of
collecting and restoring these objects.  In my instance, the "lineage"
is more indirect.  But, it is still there.

My two sons have always seen reproducing pianos in my home.  They take
them for granted.  In my workshop, they have seen some of the finest
examples, now distributed as far as Japan and Europe.  Likewise, they
have met collectors from these far away places.  They take them for
granted, too.  Growing up in the Chicago area, they got to see important
collections containing a wide variety of instruments.  So how did this
influence them?

My younger son, Mark, thinks the major collectors are cool.  He loves
attending meetings at those collections.  He loves band organ rallies.
In fact, it was a cassette tape of band organs from Harvey Roehl that
he used as bedtime music when he was of pre-school age.  I have firm
instructions from my son to never sell my Mason & Hamlin Ampico B,
Louis XV art case, as he wants it someday.

My older son, Matt, didn't attend all the meetings and rallies that his
younger brother did.  Yet, he seems to be more in tune with the music.
Matt has always loved musical performance.  He collected LP recordings
at an early age.  He always had some form of playback -- a cassette,
CD, or LP -- during his growing up.

And with his younger brother, they enjoyed the opportunity to play
in the storage barn at Jasper Sanfilippo's collection before the house
addition which now forms the grand "Place de la Musique" music room
housing the enormous pipe organ.  The two boys played among the stored
Mills Violanos and other machines, and would come back to report to
me just how many of each style they had found.  They even discovered
a Victor Orthophonic machine there that I once owned.  How did they
identify it?  From the dog claw scratches on the lid!  (Before I sold
it, they had put our dog on top of it one night!)  Those are very
special memories.

Both sons are now married and are living far from my home.  But, the
older son is now making a living in the music industry.  He is an
art director and designs CD album covers.  He is a noted designer of
special boxed sets.  And yes, his early years around mechanical music
have influenced his work.  His latest big project is a huge music box
that celebrates the 25 year collaboration of Tim Burton and Danny
Elfman (Tim Burton, director of many movies, and Danny Elfman who
scores the music for those movies).  The modern music box movement
plays Elfman tunes and the lid of the big box flips over to form a
Zoetrop (one of the earliest forms of moving pictures).  The entire
concept and design of the music box originated with my son.

Not to give the older guy all the credit, the younger son helped in the
restoration of my Aeolian Duo Art organ.  He became a pouch setter of
some excellence.  With over 2,500 pouches and 2,500 valves, Mark spent
his week-ends during his college days in my shop, greatly assisting me
in bringing Aeolian Opus 1280 back to life.  He also built all the pipe
trays and helped with the removal of the organ in New Jersey in 1998.

Yes, this is a very indirect lineage.  But still, something of my
interest survives with these two sons.  [The relationship] is not a
Bud and B Bronson, or a Dave Ramey, Sr. and Jr., or many others, but
they might become more directly involved in the future.  Matt wants
a Wurlitzer 950 for his studio.

Mark can be seen in this video when we removed Aeolian Opus 1280
(which is now ended abruptly by YouTube):

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysQKYOWJDt4 

Matt's work can be seen here (studio name: MattVarnish of Varnish
Studio):

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5GSDwT0Yjw 

Now, if I could just get them to understand Ampico coding...!

Bob Taylor
http://www.aeolianorgan.com/