Idea for any future projects: A series dedicated to making different organ pipes for band organs and tips and tricks for building band organs or orchestrions Just an idea but I thought I would throw that one out there as a suggestion 😁
Great job Bruce! However the file you have called "The Battle March" is actually mis-labled. It's someone's piano roll arrangement of a rag called "Chimes Rag" composed by Homer Denney, calliopist of the "Steamer Island Queen" riverboat in Cincinnati who promoted his rags up and down the river on the boat via the calliope. This tune dates from 1910 and was his most commercially successful rag, I think (although "Monograms" is my personal favorite rag of his). Mr. Denney lived a long time, till 1975, and two or three of my friends got to meet him!
Ragtime pianist and later Missouri state senator, John Hancock, recorded a great LP of rags featuring Homer Denney's rags, for the "Stomp Off Records" label in the mid 1980s. I can't remember the name of it, but you should really seek it out. Good stuff! Mr. Hancock has just gotten back into music in the past several years after a long political career.
Thanks for the correction Andrew!. The file also said it was played by Pete Wendling and I kept thinking "that doesn't sound like a march and it certainly doesn't sound like Pete!"
Hi! Greetings from Hungary. I'm glad to hear that absolutely different kind of stops. I'm an electrical engineer and a qualified organ builder, and mostly make electronic pipe organ controls. In my country, these wooden violin pipes were extremely rare. Before WW2, similar pipes were popular in church organs, but made of tin. Unfortunately, after the war they went out of fashion, and in many churches, during the communist era, and lack of money & good organ builders, they were cut down to 4' or 2' length to get some higher octave flutes (with horrible tone). Do You have drawings and sizing table for these violin and melody pipes? They sound awesome! The windchest You're using is strange, similar with our famous builder, Joseph Angster's pneumatic system with negative logic used in the beginning of the 20th century.
I would love to have a whole stop of "Band Organ" on a large theatre organ as a solo stop; wouldn't that be cool? I'm curious as to seeing that Æolian piano when it's done!
Bruce, do you have any 165 roll MIDI files to use for demonstration purposes? It would be great to hear these ranks individually and in pairs, etc. playing very familiar 165 roll arrangements (vintage Wurlitzer), rather than the player-piano roll arrangements heard here (great as they are). If you don't have any, Mikey Mills can email you some. I don't have any or I'd send them right off to you. It will be even better for a band organ enthusiast to hear how these ranks blend, by playing them with familiar 165 arrangements. Thanks!
