Topic summary

Theatre organ

Theatre organ

Style of pipe organ used for entertainment Console of the 3/13 Barton Theatre Pipe Organ at Ann Arbor's Michigan Theatre A theatre organ, also known as a theater organ or cinema organ in the United Kingdom, is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films from the 1900s to the 1920s. Theater Organ Console Theatre organs have horseshoe-shaped arrangements of stop tabs (tongue-shaped switches) above and around the instrument's keyboards on their consoles. Theatre organ consoles were typically decorated with brightly colored stop tabs, with built-in console lighting. Organs in the UK had a common feature: large translucent surrounds extending from both sides of the console, with internal colored lighting. Theatre organs began to be installed in other venues, such as civic auditoriums, sports arenas, private residences, and churches. Though there are few original instruments, hundreds of theatre pipe organs are installed in public venues throughout the world today, while many more exist in private residences. Some theatre organs have been digitally sampled to create digital sample sets of both free and paid for softwares like the free GrandOrgue or the paid Hauptwerk which c