A mechanical organ is an organ that is self-playing, rather than played by a

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...

. For example, the

barrel organ A barrel organ (also called roller organ or crank organ) is a French mechanical musical instrument consisting of bellows and one or more ranks of pipes housed in a case, usually of wood, and often highly decorated. The basic principle is the sa ...

is activated either by a person turning a crank, or by clockwork driven by weights or springs. Usually, mechanical organs are

pipe organs The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks' ...

although some instruments were built using reeds similar to those found in a

harmonium The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. T ...

. Since the 1950s, some instruments have been built using

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

to generate the sound, though still operated by mechanical or

pneumatic Pneumatics (from Greek ‘wind, breath’) is a branch of engineering that makes use of gas or pressurized air. Pneumatic systems used in Industrial sector, industry are commonly powered by compressed air or compressed inert gases. A central ...

means. From the 1990s pipe organs have been built that are operated by

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...

rather than the earlier mechanical means. Originally, the music for mechanical organs was stored by pins on a large barrel. Such instruments were called

s. Such organs only have a very limited repertoire, both in the number of musical selections that could be stored, and the length of tune that could be accommodated. In the 1890s,

book music A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...

was invented. This meant that the length of music was no longer constrained. Being physically much smaller than a barrel for a similar instrument, it is much easier to manipulate the music, and so a greater variety of music could be played. Rather than the book music, some instruments are operated by a

music roll A music roll is a storage medium used to operate a mechanical musical instrument. They are used for the player piano, mechanical organ, electronic carillon and various types of orchestrion. The vast majority of music rolls are made of paper. Othe ...

In popular culture

In the movie ''

The Great Race ''The Great Race'' is a 1965 American Technicolor slapstick comedy film starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood, directed by Blake Edwards, written by Arthur A. Ross (from a story by Edwards and Ross), and with music by Henry Mancin ...

'' (1965) Professor Fate, with bandaged thumbs, is shown pretending to play a mechanical organ.

In popular culture

References

See also