How I make a Barrel Organ
WHEN I BUILD a new organ I begin firstly with the bellows or their equivalent. This means that as I make each pipe I have some means of testing and tuning it. The tubular and conical wooden pipes are made on a lathe and tuned with stopped plugs. Larger (lath) pipes are long rectangular tubes made by sticking four thin slats of wood together with glue and carving a whistle for the end. Wooden tubes that can be seen are layered with gold or aluminium paint before tuning. The metal pipes are made from ordinary tubing with whistles hand-carved out of aluminium wedged inside below the flute-slot. These are tuned firstly by their chosen length and more finely by moving the whistle plug up or down the tube. Dummy pipes are also installed on the front of the instrument for decoration. In addition to pipes, a barrel organ may have drums, acoustic woodblocks, reeds, tubular or conical bells, horns, cymbals or other musical instruments.
UNLESS YOU USE PIANOLA ROLLS the paper rolls need to be punched by hand. This is made easier now-a-days by playing the music on a midi keyboard and printing the Event Listing onto a paper roll. This can then be slotted by hand with a craft knife. Or they can be left as printed black dots and lines so that a row of 'optical cells' (one for each note) can 'read' the dots and lines on the paper and relay this information to solenoids which operate the pipe valves. On my 'Faque' organs the rotating paper roll is purely decorative as the notes are sounded by digital MIDI or magnetic tape devices. My 20-pipe 'Kinderflutenpipe' organ uses a hand-embossed metal drum instead of a paper roll.
How does the instrument know which note to sound? This is what the perforated roll is for.
The holes are cut by hand to allow for the creation of special effects based on location, shape and size. Mechanical cutters such as are used for commercially produced pianola rolls are usually limited to note selection and duration, and occasionally volume.
PIPES NEED TO HAVE VALVES operated by air, mechanical trackers or electric solenoids otherwise all pipes would sound at once. The signal from the paper roll, digital MIDI or magnetic tape device selects which valves will open, for how long and (in some cases) by how much (controlling volume).
THE ORGAN NEEDS A CRANK HANDLE or electric motors to make it work. A series of pulleys or gears and levers operate the different parts and these also need to be squeezed into the cabinetry. I prefer to use home-made wooden bearings (turned on a lathe from Australian hardwood and lubricated with candle-wax) as these are quieter than metal commercially-made bearings.
THE DECORATIONS are as much a part of the organ as the 'innards'. 'Kinderflutenpipe' has a model carousel operated by a set of gears attached to the main drum-shaft. My 'monkey' organs have a rod-puppet monkey mounted on the top and the 'Organmagnifique' has operational bells, pipes, horns, drums and cymbals adorning the façade. Bright colours and scroll-work then add to the carnival atmosphere created by the music.
Lionel Hartley, PhD
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