Barrel Organ

Unknown

ca. 1800 · Wood, various materials · Musical Instruments

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. This instrument is activated by a person turning a hand crank, which both powers the bellows that provides air, and also rotates the cylinder that engages the mechanism that sends the air through specific pipes. The tunes represent a typical repertoire of English and American dances, patriotic songs, hymn tunes and popular music of the period ca. 1800. Technical description: Rectangular cherry and satinwood veneered case with inlay showing a classical portal on the front panel; lid hinges up to reveal mechanism; door on left side allows barrel to slide out; several different layers of floral design colored paper cover interior case sides and reservoir top; lid locks to front, with keyhole above portal; four brass stop knobs (two missing) operate stop levers extending through front panel, bottom, and 16 tunes are selected by engaging notches on shift pin with a latch mounted on right side; curved crank with wood handle protrudes near upper right side of front; within, the crank turns a combination worm and crank shaft, the worm engaging a spur gear on a cylindrical, brass-pinned wood barrel, while crank shaft operates two double fold feeders mounted below a reservoir; feeders and reservoir covered with brown leather; 17 sticker pins open valves in windchest below 3 ranks of wood pipes (lowest pipes mitered, pipes mainly open with tin tuning flaps, but lowest pipes stopped), and six other pipes are set horizontally into a windchest in front of the barrel and are operated by pressing 6 buttons near the front left corner inside the case (four of these pipes are open wood, two are single beating reed with cane reeds lapped with thread onto shallots); compass two octaves diatonic, D-D, plus upper C#; pipes marked with letter names and numbers; titles of tunes shown on handwritten label on sliding panel mounted in a box at right side within case.

Artist

Unknown

Date

ca. 1800

Medium

Wood, various materials

Culture

American

Department

Musical Instruments

Credit line

Gift of Eric M. Wunsch, 1972