Mechanical Organs

The development of the barrel organ enabled automated music to become a viable alternative to live musicians but the limited repertoire contained upon the barrel meant that little variation was available.

 

However the invention of the ‘keyframe’ system which reads holes punched in to zig zag folded cardboard ‘books’ enabled organs to have a considerably wider repertoire that could easily be kept up to date with the hit songs of the day.

This new technology led to great rivalry amongst organ builders and soon instruments were available which contained many hundreds of pipes and a wide selection of percussion instruments leading to some being advertised as ‘equal to a symphony orchestra of about 50 musicians!’

The majority of fair organ production took place around Paris and Waldkirch. Dance organ production centred on Antwerp and street organ production throughout Holland. Our collection contains fifteen of the finest surviving examples and covers the full range of types produced.