“We’re probably the only musical instrument museum in the world that wants you to play the instruments,” says Barbara George, who owns eight of the slate-sided buildings - all listed on the National Register of Historic Places - in the former manufacturing complex. The sound of Estey’s historic organs lives on in a humble museum in the company’s old engine house on the edge of the factory yard, a short drive from Brattleboro’s Main Street. Jacob Estey was the biggest name in organ manufacturing in the United States, and one of the biggest in the world.īut by the 1960s, the factory complex he built was shuttered for good, driven out of business by changing tastes and electronics.
The estey organ museum portable#
The company also produced a portable “folding organ,” which took the music outdoors, to theaters of war or, in the hands of missionaries, to the most rural of outposts. We just posted the 1961 Electronics Magazine article for download.At the height of their popularity, Estey’s elaborate organs filled churches, middle-class parlors, and silent-movie theaters with lush, complex, and sometimes overwhelming sound.
The estey organ museum update#
Update via haroldbodenews in the comments: Some beautiful music and some interesting demonstrations of his devices." So it seems to me, first voltage controlled modular synthesizer, Harald Bode 1960.Īnywho, they put out a CD of some of Bode's demonstration tapes which is available at the museum or through amazon.
It always seemed odd that they both came up with such similar systems independently, but it makes sense if they were drawing from the existing state of electronic design. It seems odd to me, because it wouldn't take anything away from Bob or Don, but it does take away the truth and the legacy of Harald Bode. I would love to read the 1961 article, but I haven't found it in my websearches, if anyone has it please let me know. Bode appears to have built the first barberpole phaser so the influence on Buchla seems plausible. The web sites this article as a big influence on Bob Moog, and I am sure Don Buchla was aware of the article or at least of Bode's work stretching back to his 1937 formant organ and the melocord built for and used by Stockhausen.
But Bode had built a voltage controlled modular system with integrated tape echo and reverb in 1960, and had published an article in Electronics magazine in 1961 about 'transistorized modular synthesis circuits. I have heard so many times that Bob Moog and Don Buchla independently and at the same time came up with voltage controlled music circuits and a modular format for their synthesizers/electric music boxes around 1963.
The organ museum is small but it has many old organs you can play and a walk through pipe organ, which is really the highlight of the place IMO.
It is mostly pictures and text, with some of Harald Bode's notebooks and such, and some audio files from his tape recordings of his experiments. "I had the opportunity to check this exhibit out this past weekend, and I would recommend it to anyone in the Brattleboro, VT area to stop by and check it out.
0 kommentar(er)
