Fairground organ

Originated in Paris, France, it was designed for use in commercial fairground settings to provide loud music to accompany rides and attractions, mostly merry-go-rounds.

Unlike organs for indoor use, they are designed to produce a large volume of sound to be heard above the noises of crowds and fairground machinery.

The period of greatest activity of fairground organ manufacture and development was the late 1830s, particularly with the opening of the Limonaire Frères company of Avenue Daumesnil, Paris in 1839.

The organ chassis was typically covered with an ornate and florid decorative case façade designed to attract attention in the tradition of most fairground equipment.

The motive force for a fairground organ is typically wind under pressure generated from mechanically powered bellows in the instrument's base.

[citation needed] Early organs were played by a rotating barrel with the sounds triggered by metal pins, as in a music box.

Like all mechanical instruments, fairground organs have been made by a myriad of manufacturers, in various sizes and to various technical specifications, with various trademark characteristics.

To offer a more flexible choice of repertoire, a system of robust interchangeable perforated cardboard book music was patented first by Parisian manufacturers Gavioli.

Ruth Fairground organ
A Frati Band Organ.
The Frati & Co. Band Organ at the Lakeside Park Carousel in Port Dalhousie , ON.
A Wurlitzer 146 roll-playing mechanism.
The roll-playing mechanism on the Wurlitzer 146 band organ at the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum in North Tonawanda , NY. 150 Scale.
Duplex roll mechanism of a Wurlitzer 153 band organ