STREET ORGAN INFORMATION USA

Information on street organs, music, US organ street grinders, US organ events - will be undated frequently. Feel free to contact me with information you'd like to see posted on this site. Thanks!

HOW IT ALL BEGAN 

The hand-cranked street organ began life in the eighteenth century as a little tiny hand-cranked table organ that was designed to teach song birds how to sing pretty little songs. These bird organs were called serinettes in French, but then, they have a different word for everything. Serinettes contained all the basic elements of the modern street 
organ - bellows, pipes, and a way of making the pipes sound at the right time, which in this case was a barrel with little pins sticking out of it. These pins would hit keys which in turn would open valves which let air go to the pipes. The serinette was soon adopted by wandering troubadours and other ne'er-do-wells.The only problem with serinettes was that they produced a very small, bird-like sound. As performers demanded a fuller sound, organs were built with larger pipes and bellows, and interchangeable barrels. Thus the instruments we would recognize as barrel organs were developed. Barrel organs were very popular, at least with organ grinders. They were considered a nuisance by many people, not only due to their 
abundance in major cities, but due to the repetitive nature of their repertoire. Many makers required that their instruments be returned to the factory for a new barrel to be installed, so most grinders simply didn't bother. They were content to grind out the same old 
few songs day after day after day after day - you get the picture.  One British journalist of the day noted that an itinerant organ grinder was paid "for his silence and not his sounds".