Original appearance and functionality make this dance hall organ so amazing. It's hard to believe such an automated machine could be built in 1902, or that there were, in fact, places called dance halls where people met to eat, socialize and dance together. The good old days.
As an audio guy, I really appreciate the care you take in using good mics and recording techniques to record. So many on TH-cam just use camera mics and the result is less than stellar. Good sound maters! Thanks.
Some 30 years ago I had the privilege to be able to help run several Gavioli, Chiappa and Marenghi organs at steam fairs across the UK over the span of a decade. I will always have a soft spot for these magnificent beasts.
Somehow this type of music doesn't seem to be complete without one important instrument which makes it truly authentic for me; the sound of a guy shaking around a can of coins :) (atleast in the street organs).
Thank you for this series! I look forward to it each week. I've learned quite a lot, and I also really like both Joost Oehler and Lois Tonen, they are great guides. I'm enjoying the buildup and influences for Marble Machine X!
this channel is just so cool. I found it through the marble machine vid, I'm sure many others did too. I was working in Cambodia at the time and I sent it to my friends that were studying music and engineering at university here in the US, and they've all become fans too. Thank you for appealing to such a wide variety of nerds.
Just went out into the city centre (Groningen) and saw 2 automata street organs after a morning of binging Wintergatan videos :) Most underrated part of Dutch culture if you'd ask me!
Every time I see those organ books I wonder if they were interchangeable between different organs or if every organ book had to be punched specifically for one organ as every design seems to have different instruments and voices
That's a good question! I think the 65 key Gavioli scale was more or less standardized, and so most of the dozen or so 65 key Gavioli organs existing today should be able to interchange music. The 87 key Gaviolis were much more popular in their day (and were introduced several years earlier) and probably something like 25 to 50 or so still exist, although many were changed to play 89 key scales, with pipe ranks added. However, music is totally interchangeable between "pure" original unaltered 87 Gaviolis. Gavioli had several standardized scales they used: 46/48 key; 57 key (in at least two types: a fairly common scale, and a rare second scale with different playing notes that was only used on a few organs); 65-key; 87-key; 89-key in five or six sub-varieties known as G1, G2, G3, G4, and G5 (and rumors of a G6 scale), of which I think G4 was the most popular; and 110-key. They also built some rare scales like 50-key; 56-key; 84-key; 94-key; and 112-keyless; and to my knowledge a relatively few organs were ever built using these and a few other scales... so the instruments are really rare, and original music for these scales is super rare (although new music can be cut). Frankly, the 110-key scale is very rare today with I think only two original 110-key organs left, one of them altered to 98-key (a Marenghi scale) and the other all original. However, in the old days of the British Bioscope show the 110-key organs were popular and probably over a dozen were built, I would guess. Fewer 112-keyless organs (using a tracker bar to read the book instead of a keyframe) were known to have been built, I think less than 10, but of those, three still exist today, two playing different scales. Both the 110 key and 112 keyless organs were mammoth, gargantuan, titanic instruments and it's too bad more don't survive. I've heard recordings of the original 110 when it was playing full blast, and with the fully chromatic scale and half dozen registers, and realistic pipe voicing, sometimes it comes the closest of anything built to sounding like a real concert band! Certainly there were some unique variations from instrument to instrument, and probably at least a few custom organs built using totally unique scales, but as far as I know most of book organ production was to one of the more or less standardized scales. Many of the modifications in scales / registers found today, especially in small and medium sized organs, were done in the decades after the organ left the factory, by other parties. In fact, this is how some of the old Dutch street organs came about, by altering old organs of other makes / types, changing the scales and adding and removing pipe ranks, to keep an instrument "current" with then popular organ trends (this was usually done before they became museum pieces... back when they were working instruments that needed to keep working). I really invite other organ enthusiasts to chime in here, since some of my info might be slightly wrong.
Thank you very much for a great answer Andrew, that explains a lot. It is great to hear there was some standardisation so some old books are not completely useless if the organ they went with died, or if an old organ was found or restored there may already be some original books that can be used with it
Daft Cat Brewing That’s true! There are several instances I know where an organ was junked (usually back in the 1930s-1950s when organs had relatively little value among showpeople due to the advent of amplified sound recordings on the fairgrounds), but some books from the music library survive (this didn't always happen; far too many old books were thrown out when they wore out, and/or the popular tunes on them were considered outdated; so most early books for any instrument are rarer than most later ones). In many cases these can be played on other existing organs of the same scale, although again, certain instruments by certain makers have unique scales that don't interchange. But- even for the books for destroyed instruments, the music is frequently retrievable : since the 1990s a small but dedicated group of people around the world have designed and built roll and book scanners to optically scan paper rolls and cardboard book music. (Much more recently, they've also started scanning pinned cylinders for pianos and organs) If the scale for the lost instrument is known (due to the existence of an either a test/tuning book with the function marked for each channel, or a music arranger's "scale stick" showing the function for each channel), then it is fairly easy to make up a "gamma" file for that particular scale and play back the scanned music via the computer softwares samples for each variety / type of pipe register, sampled from another surviving instrument of that maker with the same types /varieties of pipes). If the scale ISN'T known for a surviving rare book or roll, then the detective work comes in and things get really interesting, since then the scale must be deduced from the hole patterns, in order to see what channels are playing notes, what channels are percussion, and what channels are registers and other functions. For organ scales, this is usually more complicated than piano and orchestrion scales, since few fair and street organ scales are totally chromatic; many of them are missing notes here and there in the bass, accompaniment, countermelody and sometimes even melody sections, due to the original maker's intent of getting as wide a bass / treble range in the organ as possible, while still keeping the organ's size manageable. Also, some of the early popular and dance music these organs played was harmonically simple enough that they could "get away with" leaving out a few accidentals here and there, kind of the same idea as some hand played folk instruments that are largely diatonic. Generally, the larger the organ, the more chromatic it is, although there are exceptions to this rule. Many of the larger dance organs, though (over 90 keys) ARE completely or mostly chromatic which helps figure out the playing notes. A few scales, mainly for some German fair organs and a few German orchestrions, are "scrambled" scales, meaning in the case of the organs, the notes and functions are not laid out with the low notes on one side and the high notes on the other, but usually laid out in the order of the pallet valves on the main windchest, so as to make the tubing runs from the keyframe look neat and orderly, and also to stave off music piracy. As far as I know, the scrambled orchestrion scales (like Weber, and Imhof & Mukle) were done that way ONLY to avoid both music piracy and also rival makers from learning some mechanical details of the instruments. Fortunately, scale sticks (and actual instruments) exist for most of these scrambled scales, or else there's a real possibility that their music couldn't be deciphered.
Andrew has been quite comprehensive in his reply. I just want to point out that there are differences between "brands" - if you want - different manufacturers usually had their own scales in their books; there is also to some extend a very modern idea behind it: proprietary systems In essence that the customer has to come back to you - the manufacturer - for the supply of music. For Player Pianos on the other hand there are a very few limited standard systems (most notably the 88note system, that QRS also still supplies) which can be interchanged between differently manufactured player pianos. For the larger organs in the Netherlands, France & the UK, there is various scales that have been more successful and "preferred" - the G4-scale that Andrew mentioned being one of them - they are mostly based on a scale used by Limonaire, Paris, and then further extended by the famous Carl Frei (sen.) into larger scales. The 52/56 and 72/76 as well as 90 key scales are the most common; However, specifically the keys for different ranks/stops can dramatically be different between the individual organs; so the book might be interchangeable, but with a different sound-result overall. There is for example a video on TH-cam of the "Lekkerkerker" playing in Dijon using a book that they've "borrowed" from the "Ruisdael" and you will find the operator (Adrie Vergeer) manually reaching into the switchbox of the stops/ranks to counteract eventual automatic stop-switches unsuitable for that organ. For smaller organs things look way different, as there is a whole world of small scales that are widely popular and readily interchangeable (albeit that some roll-operated organs will require different spool-ends - again: proprietary!) While this might have thrown off organ owners in the old days to purchase music "somewhere else", these days all spindle-ends are readily available. For the larger organs, too, with the advent of computerized perforating of the books, it is easy to keep a specific file with the individual stop-information for all the different organs otherwise sharing the same scale. This leads to being able of having new/modern arrangements spread around to all (nope; make that "a lot" or "some") of the organs in a very short time frame. In Germany and in the US things are slightly different, with a different "breed" of larger organs prevailing; however, these too follow "some" standardization. In the US e.g. there are the 105, 145 and 165 style Wurlitzer Rolls that will work on most of the instruments that are "Still out there" (Even tho some of these instruments started out as totally different style European organs and were "force converted" to be able to locally source music instead from overseas)
@@DaftCatBrewing Yeah and as they said in the video, it's a lot like MIDI. So I don't see why one organ book could'nt be played from different organs. You could put a book into a machine and it'll sound a certain way, but then you could put the same book into another organ and it'll sound like something else probably. It's like music boxes. Put a cylinder into a music box and it'll sound like a typical music box, but put that same cylinder into another box of roughly the same size and it could sound like a drum kit:) The cylinder or organ book is only providing data to the machine, the sound you get depends on what instruments the holes correspond to. Same thing with MIDI.
There are two of these 65 key organs over here in England and one is still used in the centre of a fairground ride,dance organs were not known in Britain but as the showmen needed organs for their rides and shows organs like these were imported and made to fit inside the rides so a lot of them lost the original tops and side cases as only the actual organ is required,this particular organ is very heavy to turn,i know,i've tried it!
Man, i would love if you visted House on the Rock in Wisconsin. There's so many musical machines there that you would love. Some are better than others and others are more modern machine than musical machine, but you would LOVE that place. it's super up your alley.
btw, if (and when you come to U.S. on your tour) you visit this place (you should) please give the fans a meet and greet moment because i would love to tour this place with you if i could, or even just meet you there because its only a few hours from where i live and i would gladly make the trip just to shake your hand at such a place. anatomic music boxes
I want a pandora station that plays recordings of all these old organs and other mechanical instruments. I can't say it sounds better than an actual live performance of these pieces, but these mechanical music instruments have such a unique, catchy sound.
HighOnTacos There is a Facebook group called "Mechanical Organ Recordings on SoundCloud" where enthusiasts post links to SoundCloud files of various organs (mostly homemade; not professional commercial recordings except very old, rare and out of print ones; some recordings are posted by the organ owners themselves). I guess that should do for now. I'm working on TH-cam playlists of most of the larger band, dance, fair and street organs, although only have a little bit done so far. Some are posted on my TH-cam channel here.
Now, there finally IS a mechanical music internet radio station with recordings of fairground organs, player pianos, orchestrions, music boxes, etc. run by James Dundon of the UK. You can tune in here: mechanicalmusicradio.weebly.com
The famous organist Reginald Foort once had one of the largest theatre pipe organs built so it was transportable, Carried in 6 large trucks. And went on tour with a massive pipe organ with 32’ pipes. He later donated it to the BBC when their organ was destroyed in the blitz. Today it’s in a pizza parlor in Arizona, I think. Upgraded with modern electronics so performances can be recorded.
Close but no cigar. The famous Reginald Foort “Mammoth Moller” touring portable organ, of 5 manuals and 27 or 28 ranks I think, which toured from theatre to theatre in the UK and then was installed in a radio station there to help keep up morale during the Blitz, is now more or less permanently installed in Pasadena Civic Auditorium, in Pasadena, California. This installation was done I *think* by the late Dave Junchen and crew in the 1980s, although before that this organ did indeed spend time in a pizza restaurant in I *think* Solana Beach, California, in the 1970s (maybe Organ Power Pizza run by the late Preston “Sandy” Fleet?). That was during the height of the “pipe organ pizza parlor” fad that lasted approx 1960s-1980s. Today I am only aware of three such remaining installations: Organ Stop Pizza in Mesa, Arizona, is the largest one of over 80 ranks of pipes (mostly, but not all, Wurlitzer; and from a variety of sources); next is Organ Piper Pizza in Milwaukee (with a Kimball/Wurlitzer organ) and finally Beggars Pizza in Lansing, Illinois (with a Barton organ). Readers, please do visit these places if you can so they can stay open for years to come! Anyway yes I think all these organs mentioned now have computer relay systems on them, BUT the original 1930s relay for the Reginald Foort Moller organ (which was also portable- with a crane!) is currently controlling the 15+ rank Robert-Morton theatre organ in Grace Baptist Church in San Jose, CA. I was so happy to see this relay still extant and in use somewhere (and not junked like far too many of them have been), that I posed for a number of photos with it when I picked up some Smith theatre organ parts stored at that church a few years ago! Those pics are on one of the theatre organ groups on Facebook, somewhere.
Yes exactly. And later on for continuous play, some people realized that if you mount the keyframe on the side of the case (or at least projecting from the rear) you can play continuous or endless books on them, meaning the ride operator doesn’t need to change the music as often. If you go to the Technik-Museum in Sinsheim, Germany, you can see Belgian Decap dance organs from the mid century era (1940s-1960s) playing continuous music books mounted on a “book wheel” or hopper, which is a big metal frame that rotates on a little fixed “trolley” on the floor and plays a continuous book of music. That allows them to make their dance organs coin-operated. I think DerOrgelFan has some videos of these on his channel.
What is hard to capture on a video is how incredibly loud this thing is in the museum. You/Joost must input quite a few watts of manual power for that :-)
I have seen videos of it. Its a big old beast like the church organs, but the largest organ I have ever seen in my entire life is the organ in Rochester Cathedral. If you wanted to see Rochester Cathedral and just how massive the organ is then you have to go on a SUNDAY because the organ there only plays on Sunday at 3:00PM's.
If you want to see more weird, self playing old musical things in one place than you ever knew existed, go to the House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin. It is insane. Room after room filled with these things!
Molly Grisham House on the Rock has a nice Gebruder Bruder 80-keyless fairground organ there in the Transportation building that's fully restored with MIDI added (can also play book music). I hope they've trained the docents to operate it since I visited in 2006, since I would really like to hear it play! They also have a Hupfeld Phonoliszt-Violina in a music-salon room upstairs between the Heritage of the Sea and Transportation buildings. You also need to find a docent and ask them to play it. They also have several pianos and orchestrions you can play with tokens they sell there: a Seeburg KT; a 1970s Aeolian with piano, accordion and drums; a Mortier orchestrion "The Peacock" with 4 real accordions and 2 fake saxophones added; several cylinder piano orchestrions; a Welte orchestrion; Cremona 2 coin piano, and of course the room filling "Fantasy Music Machines" for which they're famous.
I think this was built in 1902? According to Fred Dahlinger's scholarly article on 65-key Gavioli organs published in the COAA (Carousel Organ Association of America) Journal several years ago, he believes the 65-key type was introduced by Gavioli in 1902... before this they built other key sizes / scales but not this size, which is notable for its many automatic pipe registers. I think this might also be the oldest 65-key Gavi known to exist, although Mr. Silcock's and Mr. Forrests's (both in the UK, the latter touring with a working carousel / gallopers) run a close second and third (they were built in 1903). Regardless of the date it's one of the very finest mechanical organs in the world, and one of the greatest sounding Gavioli organs, mainly due to its originality (the pipework was never messed around with by amateur "organbuilders"). I think all the paintings on the facade panels are original too! Thanks for posting this!!!
* Edit: they do say 1902 several times in the video, so spot on, of course! I'm just questioning the "120 years" in the video title... I guess in 5 years it will certainly turn 120.
Since I mentioned Mr. Forrest's organ which tours with the gallopers in the UK, I should post this link to someone else's video of it from several years ago, playing the "Choo Choo Samba". Very nice! : th-cam.com/video/AarrZL3k2Pc/w-d-xo.html You can tell this one is built to be a carousel organ, because although the main chassis pipework is nearly the same in type and layout, the facade top and side panels are much smaller, so as to fit in the center of the carousel. I *think* this organ plays the same 65-key scale as the organ at Speelklok museum but I might be off by a key or two. If you're wondering about the difference of dance vs fairground organs, with regards to Gavioli: As best as I understand it, their dance organs typically had large, flowing facades with giant panels so that they would fill the entire opening at the end of the dance hall and present an impressive appearance; by contrast, their fair organs were either built compact, to fit in the center of a set of gallopers or a switchback ride, or else they too had giant facades, even larger than the dance organs, to form the entire front to what was called a "bioscope show" or traveling silent movie tent theatre, complete with entrance and exit doors built into the organ facade! Also the dance vs fairground musical arrangements were often a bit different in styling and length with, (as a generalization) the dance arrangements frequently having a thinner texture, more solos, more contrasting register changes etc; with the fairground arrangements often having a thicker musical texture and generally arranged to make more sound / more noise to carry on the fairgrounds and cover up mechanical noises from the rides. Most obviously, the dance organs usually had the pipes voiced for indoor use, and the fair organs for outdoor use i. e. louder. However some huge dance halls had rather loudly voiced organs, so that they could be heard better, in the days before amplification.
P. S. I'm strictly an armchair enthusiast / amateur historian. I always defer to the REAL experts on these matters. Maybe someday I'll be able to afford a fair or dance organ.
Please show us the machine that makes the organ books!!! How does the musical note on a piece of paper get transferred to "machine code" and what machine punches the holes in the organ book. And the organ books could only be used on one type of organ, right?
Here is a video explaining a traditional non-computer way that books were arranged and punched. This man is doing it by ear, but most people use a sheet music score, either the original published sheet music (with transpositions / omissions and changes in the arrangement done in their head before committing to paper), or making a special arrangement on manuscript paper and then punching that out: th-cam.com/video/iTZLUTqOLqo/w-d-xo.html
After seeing this I kinda wish I could find a public archive of all the songs recordings played via this machine. And if there isn't one. Then someone should really do a history video and record all the songs they still have preserved for future generations to see and hear.
After many months this great video randomly came back onto my TH-cam feed and so it occurred to me to look at the comments again. I’m glad I did. There is now a 24/7 streaming internet radio station exclusively of recordings of automatic musical instruments, hosted by Mr. James Dundon in the UK but available (generally) worldwide. It is called “Mechanical Music Radio” and can easily be found via a search. Many many recordings of fairground organs, dance organs, street organs, player pianos, orchestrions, music boxes, and more! Also he does a live broadcast where he takes requests, I think once a week? Hope you can find it and enjoy!
I will try to make a playlist of all the videos and recordings of this organ I can find on TH-cam. In the meantime some other great organs, including many other Gaviolis, can be heard on the TH-cam channel “Tom Gavioli” run by an ardent enthusiast. I think over 2,000 recordings and counting!
@@jonathanfalix2875 I'm sure it would certainly be possible to program an organ book to play that piece. I saw a youtube video of a mechanical organ playing Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" and it sounded quite awesome honestly. So if a mechanical organ can play that song, I'm sure it could play the Phantom of the Opera.
Did anyone else want to see what would happen if he put the organ book in upside down? I know it would produce an undesired effect as that was not the way the different instruments and notes were programmed into it, but I definitely wanted to see what weird song it would produce if the book would work upside down!
Theotil Mortier had a lot to answer for. Gavioli went bankrupt because of having to make organs for Mortier free of charge. That's why this organ bears both names. Gavioli was not the most business savvy, and Mortier claimed that Gavioli was copying his ideas. Mortier took it to court, and Gavioli lost. The result was that Gavioli organs were built for Mortier, thus ending the Gavioli business. Mortier then went on to use Gavioli's ideas and patents in developing his organ business. Mortier organs are very good, but the tactics he used to build his business are dubious. Mortier were eventually merged with Gaudin.
Oh boy, this rumor about Mortier (who was a Gavioli dealer since at least the 1890s, and who definitely sold this organ which is why his name is also on it) being forbiddden by Gavioli from building his own organs, and then doing it anyway (*well, hiring staff to form a shop and do it) and running away with Gavioli’s business, is at best a half truth. Supposedly there was some major lawsuit but the researchers who wrote “The Mortier Story” book, published in 2019, were not able to find actual evidence for this supposed lawsuit in court records.I think they searched both Belgium and France historical court cases. Anyway, what IS true is that the foundations of the Gavioli factory in Paris were found to be unsound in the early 1900s, and quite a lot of the operating liquid capital of the firm had to be spent on their professional reconstruction/repair, so the building would be safe. This depleted some of the money they had to pay employees, with the result that some people like factory foreman Charles Marenghi left, to form their own rival companies, which certainly hurt Gavioli’s business. Mortier starting to built organs in... (we’re not sure what year; definitely by 1906, but they may have built a very few much earlier- like 1895), certainly didn’t help Gavioli’s sales to dance halls in Belgium, as they represented a competitor. Finally, the Gavioli factory (as well as the generator building for the Paris Metro located next door) was inundated in a major flood in Paris in 1910. This ruined their seasoned lumber stock and quite a number of unfinished organs in progress on the shop floors. This was the last straw and the company totally folded in 1912. Mortier, of course, lasted until 1952 although there wasn’t much business at the very end. Rene van der Bosch then bought the rights to the Mortier name and made a limited number of electronic dance organs of that name in the 1950s-70s.
I have never read anywhere else about any connection between Mortier and Gaudin, although they were both active building dance organs in the 1920s (with Mortier building many more than Gaudin ever did, and Mortier’s existing organs influencing the design and tonal plan of some Gaudin organs, although more through popular music/organ trends than actual designs). The Gaudin Bros took over the Marenghi factory in Paris after Charles Marenghi died in 1919, so that’s a direct connection. They may have bought one or more other French organbuilders after the smaller firm went out of business.
Another issue (one for which we future generations are very grateful, regarding the surviving instruments!) is that Gavioli did not do anything by half measures. Indeed, they built some of the finest mechanical organs of all time, not only in terms of the awe-inspiring beauty of their facades and figures, but in terms of their good design, quality physical construction, and above all, generously scaled and beautifully voiced pipework, so exemplified in this wonderful instrument (and also in the 87-key Gavioli “Troubadour” which can be heard elsewhere on TH-cam). Gavioli organs are works of art; even their cases are not just painted white for protection on the outside (like many makers did), but are actually double-veneered inside and outside, with handsome wood, so that the case is not only strong but handsome. Further, Gavioli were very non-standardized in terms of organ facades (by about 1905, they were up to over 700 facade style numbers! The final total of different organ facades “styles” was likely over 800, many of the designs probably only being built once or twice.) Gavioli loved doing custom work and giving the customer what they wanted, although the organ chassis themselves were slightly more standardized, and so were most of the scales. This whole “giving the customer whatever they want” including custom lavish, exquisitely carved facades, we *think* (don’t know for sure) also helped put the company in the poorhouse since we don’t *think* they had a lot of “overhead” to work with build into the organ’s final sale price, so as to remain competitive. But anyway this Gavioli build quality pays dividends today both in terms of restore-ability and overall longevity. There was a period when UK owners of organs were calling most of them “Gavioli” (painting it on the front) despite some being perfectly good Mortiers, Lemoine-Dusseauxs, etc. This was due to Gavioli’s known high quality and great reputation among mechanical organ enthusiasts.
"stealing" the idea from the Jacquard loom is only true in the sense that even back then not always folks would credit the people on which their own work was based. So, Gavioli has not mentioned Jacquard when he presented organ books to the world, but clearly it isn't so much of a "steal" as a "re-adaptation"; and not an easy one at that... he couldn't transplant a Jacquard loom right into a barrel organ; weaving and pneumatics are two totally different beasts...
Adaptation is the word i would use as well. Jacquard didn't even "invent" the idea of punched cards to control a mechanism, there were multiple people before him that had the idea, he just perfected parts of the mechanism and popularized the idea. "Great Man" history is never accurate, and it does a disservice to the designers and engineers who came before these "Inventors". Most of what we think of as invention is actually adaptation.
The fundamental difference between Jacquard and Gavioli is that the latter uses card that travels at a constant speed whereas jacquard uses card that moved in discrete jumps between each setting of the needles. Gavioli was obviously influenced by Jacquard but he made that 'leap of invention' and realised that using a constant speed music book would allow him to punch slots of different length for the notes and transversly different notes across the book.
The Jacquard system reads each card in one go, or each relevant part of each card, to set up the needles. The Jacquard cards are driven by sprocket holes. Gavioli used a continuously moving card driven by rubber rollers, a system still used today for card operated organs. Gavioli probably got his idea from Jacquard but made a number of significant changes relevant to the technology he was operating with it. Gavioli's invention certainly deserves credit as an invention. Remember what Isaac Newton said when asked why he was so clever. He said he was standing on the shoulders of giants, ie, Robert Hooke et al.
It doesn't matter how many changes you bring to an existing idea - it's still not "yours" to lock up. Which is why patents need to die - nobody lives in a vacuum, ALL IDEAS ARE DERIVATIVE, full stop.
2:09. By hand?? It would take away from the original nature of this beast, but couldn't they hook this up to a stationary bike and use pedal power?? 2:32. Also, why don't they replace that with a straight wheel? They could put the damaged wheel out front on display.
Original appearance and functionality make this dance hall organ so amazing. It's hard to believe such an automated machine could be built in 1902, or that there were, in fact, places called dance halls where people met to eat, socialize and dance together. The good old days.
I could watch Joost explain how grass grows. He's lovely.
120 years old and it's still in a amazing state
it just shows how high quality the instrument is! i would love to hear it :)
SonicPL1997 Yeah, and the organ is pretty cool too.
Not without maintenance, I assure you.
Oh, that takes a lot of effort to maintain it like that, as +Alvatore DiMarco pointed out.
It goes to show how good care the museum takes if its instruments.
As an audio guy, I really appreciate the care you take in using good mics and recording techniques to record. So many on TH-cam just use camera mics and the result is less than stellar. Good sound maters! Thanks.
*everything about this machine is simply beautiful...*
120 years old and it looks amazing. I need that paint in my life.
Some 30 years ago I had the privilege to be able to help run several Gavioli, Chiappa and Marenghi organs at steam fairs across the UK over the span of a decade. I will always have a soft spot for these magnificent beasts.
Ok next holiday is going to be in the Netherlands. I'm going nuts just seeing these videos.
Somehow this type of music doesn't seem to be complete without one important instrument which makes it truly authentic for me; the sound of a guy shaking around a can of coins :) (atleast in the street organs).
+
Sander vd Donk homeless
The arrangement and the tone are really lovely. I love the harmonies.
Everyone crushing over Joost and I'm still crushing on Martin and also looking at that crazy instrument lol
Martin's an amazing dude isn't he?
Even more nice is the fact, that I share the name with him. lol
MrMarci878 yes he is! haha
Joost is cute though :P
@@MrMarci878 so it has A Drum a Organ a Bass A Flute a Banjo Snare a Pipe
Thank you for this series! I look forward to it each week. I've learned quite a lot, and I also really like both Joost Oehler and Lois Tonen, they are great guides. I'm enjoying the buildup and influences for Marble Machine X!
this channel is just so cool. I found it through the marble machine vid, I'm sure many others did too. I was working in Cambodia at the time and I sent it to my friends that were studying music and engineering at university here in the US, and they've all become fans too. Thank you for appealing to such a wide variety of nerds.
8:18 play #3062!!! =)
STAG162 That is what I was thinking.
Me too - we need more music from these beauties!
Yea, do it Wintergatan. Play #3062 next time. XP lol
Ha! You do the grinding maybe! ;-) I'm not turning that wheel for that long!
It was the thing on my head when I saw it HAHAHAHA FEELS LIKE FAM
Sous le ciel de Paris, what a great song to play with this kind of instrument. This is simply majestic
Just went out into the city centre (Groningen) and saw 2 automata street organs after a morning of binging Wintergatan videos :) Most underrated part of Dutch culture if you'd ask me!
I truly love these. wish we had these in this area from the past. amazing pieces of art.
Wow, that thing is a MONSTER.
Every time I see those organ books I wonder if they were interchangeable between different organs or if every organ book had to be punched specifically for one organ as every design seems to have different instruments and voices
That's a good question! I think the 65 key Gavioli scale was more or less standardized, and so most of the dozen or so 65 key Gavioli organs existing today should be able to interchange music.
The 87 key Gaviolis were much more popular in their day (and were introduced several years earlier) and probably something like 25 to 50 or so still exist, although many were changed to play 89 key scales, with pipe ranks added. However, music is totally interchangeable between "pure" original unaltered 87 Gaviolis.
Gavioli had several standardized scales they used:
46/48 key;
57 key (in at least two types: a fairly common scale, and a rare second scale with different playing notes that was only used on a few organs);
65-key;
87-key;
89-key in five or six sub-varieties known as G1, G2, G3, G4, and G5 (and rumors of a G6 scale), of which I think G4 was the most popular;
and 110-key.
They also built some rare scales like 50-key; 56-key; 84-key; 94-key; and 112-keyless; and to my knowledge a relatively few organs were ever built using these and a few other scales... so the instruments are really rare, and original music for these scales is super rare (although new music can be cut).
Frankly, the 110-key scale is very rare today with I think only two original 110-key organs left, one of them altered to 98-key (a Marenghi scale) and the other all original. However, in the old days of the British Bioscope show the 110-key organs were popular and probably over a dozen were built, I would guess.
Fewer 112-keyless organs (using a tracker bar to read the book instead of a keyframe) were known to have been built, I think less than 10, but of those, three still exist today, two playing different scales.
Both the 110 key and 112 keyless organs were mammoth, gargantuan, titanic instruments and it's too bad more don't survive. I've heard recordings of the original 110 when it was playing full blast, and with the fully chromatic scale and half dozen registers, and realistic pipe voicing, sometimes it comes the closest of anything built to sounding like a real concert band!
Certainly there were some unique variations from instrument to instrument, and probably at least a few custom organs built using totally unique scales, but as far as I know most of book organ production was to one of the more or less standardized scales.
Many of the modifications in scales / registers found today, especially in small and medium sized organs, were done in the decades after the organ left the factory, by other parties.
In fact, this is how some of the old Dutch street organs came about, by altering old organs of other makes / types, changing the scales and adding and removing pipe ranks, to keep an instrument "current" with then popular organ trends (this was usually done before they became museum pieces... back when they were working instruments that needed to keep working).
I really invite other organ enthusiasts to chime in here, since some of my info might be slightly wrong.
Thank you very much for a great answer Andrew, that explains a lot. It is great to hear there was some standardisation so some old books are not completely useless if the organ they went with died, or if an old organ was found or restored there may already be some original books that can be used with it
Daft Cat Brewing That’s true! There are several instances I know where an organ was junked (usually back in the 1930s-1950s when organs had relatively little value among showpeople due to the advent of amplified sound recordings on the fairgrounds), but some books from the music library survive (this didn't always happen; far too many old books were thrown out when they wore out, and/or the popular tunes on them were considered outdated; so most early books for any instrument are rarer than most later ones).
In many cases these can be played on other existing organs of the same scale, although again, certain instruments by certain makers have unique scales that don't interchange.
But- even for the books for destroyed instruments, the music is frequently retrievable : since the 1990s a small but dedicated group of people around the world have designed and built roll and book scanners to optically scan paper rolls and cardboard book music. (Much more recently, they've also started scanning pinned cylinders for pianos and organs)
If the scale for the lost instrument is known (due to the existence of an either a test/tuning book with the function marked for each channel, or a music arranger's "scale stick" showing the function for each channel), then it is fairly easy to make up a "gamma" file for that particular scale and play back the scanned music via the computer softwares samples for each variety / type of pipe register, sampled from another surviving instrument of that maker with the same types /varieties of pipes).
If the scale ISN'T known for a surviving rare book or roll, then the detective work comes in and things get really interesting, since then the scale must be deduced from the hole patterns, in order to see what channels are playing notes, what channels are percussion, and what channels are registers and other functions.
For organ scales, this is usually more complicated than piano and orchestrion scales, since few fair and street organ scales are totally chromatic; many of them are missing notes here and there in the bass, accompaniment, countermelody and sometimes even melody sections, due to the original maker's intent of getting as wide a bass / treble range in the organ as possible, while still keeping the organ's size manageable. Also, some of the early popular and dance music these organs played was harmonically simple enough that they could "get away with" leaving out a few accidentals here and there, kind of the same idea as some hand played folk instruments that are largely diatonic.
Generally, the larger the organ, the more chromatic it is, although there are exceptions to this rule.
Many of the larger dance organs, though (over 90 keys) ARE completely or mostly chromatic which helps figure out the playing notes.
A few scales, mainly for some German fair organs and a few German orchestrions, are "scrambled" scales, meaning in the case of the organs, the notes and functions are not laid out with the low notes on one side and the high notes on the other, but usually laid out in the order of the pallet valves on the main windchest, so as to make the tubing runs from the keyframe look neat and orderly, and also to stave off music piracy. As far as I know, the scrambled orchestrion scales (like Weber, and Imhof & Mukle) were done that way ONLY to avoid both music piracy and also rival makers from learning some mechanical details of the instruments. Fortunately, scale sticks (and actual instruments) exist for most of these scrambled scales, or else there's a real possibility that their music couldn't be deciphered.
Andrew has been quite comprehensive in his reply. I just want to point out that there are differences between "brands" - if you want - different manufacturers usually had their own scales in their books; there is also to some extend a very modern idea behind it: proprietary systems
In essence that the customer has to come back to you - the manufacturer - for the supply of music.
For Player Pianos on the other hand there are a very few limited standard systems (most notably the 88note system, that QRS also still supplies) which can be interchanged between differently manufactured player pianos.
For the larger organs in the Netherlands, France & the UK, there is various scales that have been more successful and "preferred" - the G4-scale that Andrew mentioned being one of them -
they are mostly based on a scale used by Limonaire, Paris, and then further extended by the famous Carl Frei (sen.) into larger scales.
The 52/56 and 72/76 as well as 90 key scales are the most common;
However, specifically the keys for different ranks/stops can dramatically
be different between the individual organs; so the book might be interchangeable, but with a different sound-result overall.
There is for example a video on TH-cam of the "Lekkerkerker" playing in Dijon using a book that they've "borrowed" from the "Ruisdael" and you will find the operator (Adrie Vergeer) manually reaching into the switchbox of the stops/ranks to counteract eventual automatic stop-switches unsuitable for that organ.
For smaller organs things look way different, as there is a whole world of small scales that are widely popular and readily interchangeable (albeit that some roll-operated organs will require different spool-ends - again: proprietary!)
While this might have thrown off organ owners in the old days to purchase music "somewhere else", these days all spindle-ends are readily available.
For the larger organs, too, with the advent of computerized perforating of the books, it is easy to keep a specific file with the individual stop-information for all the different organs otherwise sharing the same scale. This leads to being able of having new/modern arrangements spread around to all (nope; make that "a lot" or "some") of the organs in a very short time frame.
In Germany and in the US things are slightly different, with a different "breed" of larger organs prevailing; however, these too follow "some" standardization.
In the US e.g. there are the 105, 145 and 165 style Wurlitzer Rolls that will work on most of the instruments that are "Still out there" (Even tho some of these instruments started out as totally different style European organs and were "force converted" to be able to locally source music instead from overseas)
@@DaftCatBrewing Yeah and as they said in the video, it's a lot like MIDI. So I don't see why one organ book could'nt be played from different organs. You could put a book into a machine and it'll sound a certain way, but then you could put the same book into another organ and it'll sound like something else probably. It's like music boxes. Put a cylinder into a music box and it'll sound like a typical music box, but put that same cylinder into another box of roughly the same size and it could sound like a drum kit:) The cylinder or organ book is only providing data to the machine, the sound you get depends on what instruments the holes correspond to. Same thing with MIDI.
It is always a treat when you come to visit on Mondays. Looking forward to Wednesday too.
There are two of these 65 key organs over here in England and one is still used in the centre of a fairground ride,dance organs were not known in Britain but as the showmen needed organs for their rides and shows organs like these were imported and made to fit inside the rides so a lot of them lost the original tops and side cases as only the actual organ is required,this particular organ is very heavy to turn,i know,i've tried it!
Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful musical history with us. :)
I remember when I went to a steam fair and I was amazed by these organs and I have been interested ever since.
nice sound........and looks amazing..........imagine listening to that 120 years ago it mustve blew your socks off LOL
It's amazing how good it sounds.
Man, i would love if you visted House on the Rock in Wisconsin. There's so many musical machines there that you would love. Some are better than others and others are more modern machine than musical machine, but you would LOVE that place. it's super up your alley.
btw, if (and when you come to U.S. on your tour) you visit this place (you should) please give the fans a meet and greet moment because i would love to tour this place with you if i could, or even just meet you there because its only a few hours from where i live and i would gladly make the trip just to shake your hand at such a place. anatomic music boxes
I would love to see one of these machines play the organ grinder music from Legend of Zelda Ocarina of time.
@Wintergatan
Thank you so much for showing us these wonderful instruments.
My family highly enjoys seeing each new item you post.
First from Germany. greetings!
that thing is just incredible.
sounds like something id hear in rollercoaster tycoon
Beautiful simply beautiful
I can see into the future, 20 years from now, you've built a machine this size and you have to have a military plane to fly it in 👀
Andrew Barrett Dude this was an awesome reply, sounds like yah did your research, can't wait for him to even tour with MMX
The arrangement is amazing
Your MMX is going to be so modular and easy to transport, even multidimensional and temporal tours will be viable
It's bigger on the inside!
it reminds me of my childhood playing roller coaster tycoon
I love the sound of the organ!
personally i prefer when its this guy who talk about the organ and instrument in general
Loving this series!
So huge and festive!
I want a pandora station that plays recordings of all these old organs and other mechanical instruments. I can't say it sounds better than an actual live performance of these pieces, but these mechanical music instruments have such a unique, catchy sound.
HighOnTacos There is a Facebook group called "Mechanical Organ Recordings on SoundCloud" where enthusiasts post links to SoundCloud files of various organs (mostly homemade; not professional commercial recordings except very old, rare and out of print ones; some recordings are posted by the organ owners themselves). I guess that should do for now. I'm working on TH-cam playlists of most of the larger band, dance, fair and street organs, although only have a little bit done so far. Some are posted on my TH-cam channel here.
Now, there finally IS a mechanical music internet radio station with recordings of fairground organs, player pianos, orchestrions, music boxes, etc. run by James Dundon of the UK. You can tune in here:
mechanicalmusicradio.weebly.com
I can see Marble Machine X will be as awesome as this masterpiece in the future
I hope I look THAT good when I am 120.
KiddsockTV sadly I don't think most of us here would last that long
The famous organist Reginald Foort once had one of the largest theatre pipe organs built so it was transportable, Carried in 6 large trucks. And went on tour with a massive pipe organ with 32’ pipes. He later donated it to the BBC when their organ was destroyed in the blitz. Today it’s in a pizza parlor in Arizona, I think. Upgraded with modern electronics so performances can be recorded.
Close but no cigar.
The famous Reginald Foort “Mammoth Moller” touring portable organ, of 5 manuals and 27 or 28 ranks I think, which toured from theatre to theatre in the UK and then was installed in a radio station there to help keep up morale during the Blitz, is now more or less permanently installed in Pasadena Civic Auditorium, in Pasadena, California.
This installation was done I *think* by the late Dave Junchen and crew in the 1980s, although before that this organ did indeed spend time in a pizza restaurant in I *think* Solana Beach, California, in the 1970s (maybe Organ Power Pizza run by the late Preston “Sandy” Fleet?).
That was during the height of the “pipe organ pizza parlor” fad that lasted approx 1960s-1980s.
Today I am only aware of three such remaining installations: Organ Stop Pizza in Mesa, Arizona, is the largest one of over 80 ranks of pipes (mostly, but not all, Wurlitzer; and from a variety of sources); next is Organ Piper Pizza in Milwaukee (with a Kimball/Wurlitzer organ) and finally Beggars Pizza in Lansing, Illinois (with a Barton organ).
Readers, please do visit these places if you can so they can stay open for years to come!
Anyway yes I think all these organs mentioned now have computer relay systems on them, BUT the original 1930s relay for the Reginald Foort Moller organ (which was also portable- with a crane!) is currently controlling the 15+ rank Robert-Morton theatre organ in Grace Baptist Church in San Jose, CA. I was so happy to see this relay still extant and in use somewhere (and not junked like far too many of them have been), that I posed for a number of photos with it when I picked up some Smith theatre organ parts stored at that church a few years ago! Those pics are on one of the theatre organ groups on Facebook, somewhere.
I LOVE this series!!! It makes Monday's awesome!!!
Awesome, the book was too short tho I wish to hear more
Well get out, you have to pay to hear another song :P
Keep up this wonderful series!
Yep, early programmable automation. Used on looms to weave and make fabric
This arrangement needs to be orchestrated!
Built to last
What a beautiful machine.
Very neat. Using a book form, there is no need for rewind.
Yes exactly. And later on for continuous play, some people realized that if you mount the keyframe on the side of the case (or at least projecting from the rear) you can play continuous or endless books on them, meaning the ride operator doesn’t need to change the music as often. If you go to the Technik-Museum in Sinsheim, Germany, you can see Belgian Decap dance organs from the mid century era (1940s-1960s) playing continuous music books mounted on a “book wheel” or hopper, which is a big metal frame that rotates on a little fixed “trolley” on the floor and plays a continuous book of music. That allows them to make their dance organs coin-operated. I think DerOrgelFan has some videos of these on his channel.
lemme guess: Next week, we will be looking at another mechanical masterpiece.
Great recording! Thanks
What is hard to capture on a video is how incredibly loud this thing is in the museum. You/Joost must input quite a few watts of manual power for that :-)
I have seen videos of it. Its a big old beast like the church organs, but the largest organ I have ever seen in my entire life is the organ in Rochester Cathedral. If you wanted to see Rochester Cathedral and just how massive the organ is then you have to go on a SUNDAY because the organ there only plays on Sunday at 3:00PM's.
Wow, that was really impressive. Thanks for the upload!
If you want to see more weird, self playing old musical things in one place than you ever knew existed, go to the House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin. It is insane. Room after room filled with these things!
Molly Grisham House on the Rock has a nice Gebruder Bruder 80-keyless fairground organ there in the Transportation building that's fully restored with MIDI added (can also play book music). I hope they've trained the docents to operate it since I visited in 2006, since I would really like to hear it play! They also have a Hupfeld Phonoliszt-Violina in a music-salon room upstairs between the Heritage of the Sea and Transportation buildings. You also need to find a docent and ask them to play it. They also have several pianos and orchestrions you can play with tokens they sell there: a Seeburg KT; a 1970s Aeolian with piano, accordion and drums; a Mortier orchestrion "The Peacock" with 4 real accordions and 2 fake saxophones added; several cylinder piano orchestrions; a Welte orchestrion; Cremona 2 coin piano, and of course the room filling "Fantasy Music Machines" for which they're famous.
This is the best one!
8:18 How often do they play 3062?
The organ grinder would pass out before it finished! Lol! :-)
Maybe 3062 would require multiple organ grinders to take turns. There is certainly enough room back there for them to hide behind the machine!
What is the song called that it plays in the beginning
Tbh, that one looks newly printed. It might be one of our more modern songs someone requested-
Wait.
What if it's Marble Machine?????
I could only imagine how tired one would get after having to crank out that big 3062 organ book...
Nice organ
Wooooow. Thanks for showcasing!
Damn, I really wants to visit this place!
Me too!
Hearing the beginning made me think a Final Fantasy battle has begun
You should come and check out the McGraw Bell tower here at Cornell in New York! It's daily concerts really light up the campus
Pretty fascinating, thank you for sharing with us!
Fantastic, thanks for sharing!
Wonderful ★
Just in time :)
thats awesome man
this is amazing and i can not even try to understand how it works!
I think this was built in 1902?
According to Fred Dahlinger's scholarly article on 65-key Gavioli organs published in the COAA (Carousel Organ Association of America) Journal several years ago, he believes the 65-key type was introduced by Gavioli in 1902... before this they built other key sizes / scales but not this size, which is notable for its many automatic pipe registers.
I think this might also be the oldest 65-key Gavi known to exist, although Mr. Silcock's and Mr. Forrests's (both in the UK, the latter touring with a working carousel / gallopers) run a close second and third (they were built in 1903).
Regardless of the date it's one of the very finest mechanical organs in the world, and one of the greatest sounding Gavioli organs, mainly due to its originality (the pipework was never messed around with by amateur "organbuilders"). I think all the paintings on the facade panels are original too!
Thanks for posting this!!!
* Edit: they do say 1902 several times in the video, so spot on, of course! I'm just questioning the "120 years" in the video title... I guess in 5 years it will certainly turn 120.
Since I mentioned Mr. Forrest's organ which tours with the gallopers in the UK, I should post this link to someone else's video of it from several years ago, playing the "Choo Choo Samba". Very nice! : th-cam.com/video/AarrZL3k2Pc/w-d-xo.html
You can tell this one is built to be a carousel organ, because although the main chassis pipework is nearly the same in type and layout, the facade top and side panels are much smaller, so as to fit in the center of the carousel.
I *think* this organ plays the same 65-key scale as the organ at Speelklok museum but I might be off by a key or two.
If you're wondering about the difference of dance vs fairground organs, with regards to Gavioli: As best as I understand it, their dance organs typically had large, flowing facades with giant panels so that they would fill the entire opening at the end of the dance hall and present an impressive appearance;
by contrast, their fair organs were either built compact, to fit in the center of a set of gallopers or a switchback ride,
or else they too had giant facades, even larger than the dance organs, to form the entire front to what was called a "bioscope show" or traveling silent movie tent theatre, complete with entrance and exit doors built into the organ facade!
Also the dance vs fairground musical arrangements were often a bit different in styling and length with, (as a generalization) the dance arrangements frequently having a thinner texture, more solos, more contrasting register changes etc; with the fairground arrangements often having a thicker musical texture and generally arranged to make more sound / more noise to carry on the fairgrounds and cover up mechanical noises from the rides.
Most obviously, the dance organs usually had the pipes voiced for indoor use, and the fair organs for outdoor use i. e. louder.
However some huge dance halls had rather loudly voiced organs, so that they could be heard better, in the days before amplification.
P. S. I'm strictly an armchair enthusiast / amateur historian. I always defer to the REAL experts on these matters. Maybe someday I'll be able to afford a fair or dance organ.
Amazing.... Thank you so much
Please show us the machine that makes the organ books!!! How does the musical note on a piece of paper get transferred to "machine code" and what machine punches the holes in the organ book. And the organ books could only be used on one type of organ, right?
Here is a video explaining a traditional non-computer way that books were arranged and punched. This man is doing it by ear, but most people use a sheet music score, either the original published sheet music (with transpositions / omissions and changes in the arrangement done in their head before committing to paper), or making a special arrangement on manuscript paper and then punching that out: th-cam.com/video/iTZLUTqOLqo/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for the info! Very cool.
After seeing this I kinda wish I could find a public archive of all the songs recordings played via this machine. And if there isn't one. Then someone should really do a history video and record all the songs they still have preserved for future generations to see and hear.
After many months this great video randomly came back onto my TH-cam feed and so it occurred to me to look at the comments again. I’m glad I did. There is now a 24/7 streaming internet radio station exclusively of recordings of automatic musical instruments, hosted by Mr. James Dundon in the UK but available (generally) worldwide. It is called “Mechanical Music Radio” and can easily be found via a search. Many many recordings of fairground organs, dance organs, street organs, player pianos, orchestrions, music boxes, and more! Also he does a live broadcast where he takes requests, I think once a week? Hope you can find it and enjoy!
I will try to make a playlist of all the videos and recordings of this organ I can find on TH-cam. In the meantime some other great organs, including many other Gaviolis, can be heard on the TH-cam channel “Tom Gavioli” run by an ardent enthusiast. I think over 2,000 recordings and counting!
Nice!
6:42
Yes! We can now listen to the full version!
what is the song name?
BombeRema sous ciel de Paris
Great
This: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom is the weaving device Martin was speaking of.
Wow
Awesome video,nice content..., like always!!!😃
The series'opening XD
you should play the phantom of the opera theme on it 🎃
Crazy Monkey I agree I love phantom of the opera
@@jonathanfalix2875 I'm sure it would certainly be possible to program an organ book to play that piece. I saw a youtube video of a mechanical organ playing Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" and it sounded quite awesome honestly. So if a mechanical organ can play that song, I'm sure it could play the Phantom of the Opera.
I love how he says mondays but its already Tuesday in my country lol
That tune had me thinking of people coming to the café for a dance, after watching the guillotine do its grisly work.
I really enjoy these videos. :D
Did anyone else want to see what would happen if he put the organ book in upside down? I know it would produce an undesired effect as that was not the way the different instruments and notes were programmed into it, but I definitely wanted to see what weird song it would produce if the book would work upside down!
Theotil Mortier had a lot to answer for. Gavioli went bankrupt because of having to make organs for Mortier free of charge. That's why this organ bears both names. Gavioli was not the most business savvy, and Mortier claimed that Gavioli was copying his ideas. Mortier took it to court, and Gavioli lost. The result was that Gavioli organs were built for Mortier, thus ending the Gavioli business. Mortier then went on to use Gavioli's ideas and patents in developing his organ business. Mortier organs are very good, but the tactics he used to build his business are dubious. Mortier were eventually merged with Gaudin.
Oh boy, this rumor about Mortier (who was a Gavioli dealer since at least the 1890s, and who definitely sold this organ which is why his name is also on it) being forbiddden by Gavioli from building his own organs, and then doing it anyway (*well, hiring staff to form a shop and do it) and running away with Gavioli’s business, is at best a half truth. Supposedly there was some major lawsuit but the researchers who wrote “The Mortier Story” book, published in 2019, were not able to find actual evidence for this supposed lawsuit in court records.I think they searched both Belgium and France historical court cases. Anyway, what IS true is that the foundations of the Gavioli factory in Paris were found to be unsound in the early 1900s, and quite a lot of the operating liquid capital of the firm had to be spent on their professional reconstruction/repair, so the building would be safe. This depleted some of the money they had to pay employees, with the result that some people like factory foreman Charles Marenghi left, to form their own rival companies, which certainly hurt Gavioli’s business. Mortier starting to built organs in... (we’re not sure what year; definitely by 1906, but they may have built a very few much earlier- like 1895), certainly didn’t help Gavioli’s sales to dance halls in Belgium, as they represented a competitor. Finally, the Gavioli factory (as well as the generator building for the Paris Metro located next door) was inundated in a major flood in Paris in 1910. This ruined their seasoned lumber stock and quite a number of unfinished organs in progress on the shop floors. This was the last straw and the company totally folded in 1912. Mortier, of course, lasted until 1952 although there wasn’t much business at the very end. Rene van der Bosch then bought the rights to the Mortier name and made a limited number of electronic dance organs of that name in the 1950s-70s.
I have never read anywhere else about any connection between Mortier and Gaudin, although they were both active building dance organs in the 1920s (with Mortier building many more than Gaudin ever did, and Mortier’s existing organs influencing the design and tonal plan of some Gaudin organs, although more through popular music/organ trends than actual designs).
The Gaudin Bros took over the Marenghi factory in Paris after Charles Marenghi died in 1919, so that’s a direct connection.
They may have bought one or more other French organbuilders after the smaller firm went out of business.
Another issue (one for which we future generations are very grateful, regarding the surviving instruments!) is that Gavioli did not do anything by half measures. Indeed, they built some of the finest mechanical organs of all time, not only in terms of the awe-inspiring beauty of their facades and figures, but in terms of their good design, quality physical construction, and above all, generously scaled and beautifully voiced pipework, so exemplified in this wonderful instrument (and also in the 87-key Gavioli “Troubadour” which can be heard elsewhere on TH-cam). Gavioli organs are works of art; even their cases are not just painted white for protection on the outside (like many makers did), but are actually double-veneered inside and outside, with handsome wood, so that the case is not only strong but handsome.
Further, Gavioli were very non-standardized in terms of organ facades (by about 1905, they were up to over 700 facade style numbers! The final total of different organ facades “styles” was likely over 800, many of the designs probably only being built once or twice.)
Gavioli loved doing custom work and giving the customer what they wanted, although the organ chassis themselves were slightly more standardized, and so were most of the scales.
This whole “giving the customer whatever they want” including custom lavish, exquisitely carved facades, we *think* (don’t know for sure) also helped put the company in the poorhouse since we don’t *think* they had a lot of “overhead” to work with build into the organ’s final sale price, so as to remain competitive.
But anyway this Gavioli build quality pays dividends today both in terms of restore-ability and overall longevity.
There was a period when UK owners of organs were calling most of them “Gavioli” (painting it on the front) despite some being perfectly good Mortiers, Lemoine-Dusseauxs, etc. This was due to Gavioli’s known high quality and great reputation among mechanical organ enthusiasts.
I have one in my house, sounds verte cool
how tho
WHAT?
I do enjoy a good "green cool" sounding instrument
Joost thanks Happy Halloween to them Are you living your work build teams
Ah the sound of my home country swampy holland ;)
In 2118.... This is marble machine x made by wintergatan.... ❤️❤️❤️❤️
With the sound that putting the book in makes, I really want to hear Starmachine2000 on this.
Early techno music.
This is a band organ with organ pipes and drums Snare and Bass Drum a cymbal too.
I'd be interested in a prepared version of one of these à la John Cage's prepared piano.
"stealing" the idea from the Jacquard loom is only true in the sense that even back then not always folks would credit the people on which their own work was based. So, Gavioli has not mentioned Jacquard when he presented organ books to the world, but clearly it isn't so much of a "steal" as a "re-adaptation"; and not an easy one at that... he couldn't transplant a Jacquard loom right into a barrel organ; weaving and pneumatics are two totally different beasts...
Even under today's patent laws... I think he could claim the music books as a new patent.
Adaptation is the word i would use as well. Jacquard didn't even "invent" the idea of punched cards to control a mechanism, there were multiple people before him that had the idea, he just perfected parts of the mechanism and popularized the idea. "Great Man" history is never accurate, and it does a disservice to the designers and engineers who came before these "Inventors". Most of what we think of as invention is actually adaptation.
The fundamental difference between Jacquard and Gavioli is that the latter uses card that travels at a constant speed whereas jacquard uses card that moved in discrete jumps between each setting of the needles. Gavioli was obviously influenced by Jacquard but he made that 'leap of invention' and realised that using a constant speed music book would allow him to punch slots of different length for the notes and transversly different notes across the book.
The Jacquard system reads each card in one go, or each relevant part of each card, to set up the needles. The Jacquard cards are driven by sprocket holes. Gavioli used a continuously moving card driven by rubber rollers, a system still used today for card operated organs. Gavioli probably got his idea from Jacquard but made a number of significant changes relevant to the technology he was operating with it. Gavioli's invention certainly deserves credit as an invention. Remember what Isaac Newton said when asked why he was so clever. He said he was standing on the shoulders of giants, ie, Robert Hooke et al.
It doesn't matter how many changes you bring to an existing idea - it's still not "yours" to lock up. Which is why patents need to die - nobody lives in a vacuum, ALL IDEAS ARE DERIVATIVE, full stop.
Does anyone else have a crazy crush on Joost?
You're not the only one! Just watch him spin that wheel!
He spins me right round.
2:09. By hand?? It would take away from the original nature of this beast, but couldn't they hook this up to a stationary bike and use pedal power?? 2:32. Also, why don't they replace that with a straight wheel? They could put the damaged wheel out front on display.
6:36 here have a listen