Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
A barrel organ (also called roller organ or crank organ) is a French [1] mechanical musical instrument consisting of bellows and one or more ranks of pipes housed in a case, usually of wood, and often highly decorated.
Barrel organ, musical instrument in which a pinned barrel turned by a handle raises levers, admitting wind to one or more ranks of organ pipes; the handle simultaneously actuates the bellows. Ten or more tunes can be set on one barrel.
The meaning of BARREL ORGAN is an instrument for producing music by the action of a revolving cylinder studded with pegs on a series of valves that admit air from a bellows to a set of pipes.
This 18th century barrel organ resides in the West Virginia period room at the DAR Museum in Washington, D.C. Restored to working condition in the mid-20th century, three museum staff members...
A barrel organ plays music by using turning a barrel, with notes decided by an arrangement of pins. It is very similar to a simple music box where the pins pluck a metal harp. With a barrel organ, the pins in the barrel lift "keys" that open valves that let air from the bellows to play the pipes.
BARREL ORGAN definition: 1. a large musical instrument that plays music when you turn a handle on the side. In the past…. Learn more.
This website provides a summary of surviving organs with barrel mechanisms that were used to play metrical psalms, hymns, voluntaries and chants in English parish churches from the late eighteenth century onwards.
Barrel organs almost always have multiple stops: a series of organ pipes with the same timbre. These stops can be played together or separately to give the sound produced by the organ more depth. For example, there are stops that imitate existing instruments such as the violin.
At its heart is a revolving cylinder or barrel, placed horizontally and bearing brass or steel pins which open (or trigger the opening) of the required pipes or keys. These are activated by puffs or currents of air provided by bellows, which are operated by the same motion that turns the barrel.
Instead of having a keyboard played by an organist, a barrel organ is a mechanical instrument that has the musical notes encoded in an arrangement of metal pins in a wooden barrel or cylinder.