Dance organ

Many instruments with older style sound schemes from Gavioli and Marenghi were modernized by Mortier and others either partially or entirely.

Bursens primarily catered to the smaller cafés in the Antwerp area, which often lacked the space or income to justify a larger Mortier or Decap dance organ.

By the end of the 1930s both Mortier and Decap had reached their zenith both in art-deco facade design and musical abilities.

More compact versions were used in cafes and smaller public venues where they bridged the gap between orchestrions and the giant dance organs.

Modern technology in all its varied forms is frequently adapted with the result than many new instruments are wi-fi and midi operable and tones electronically generated to modern standards, have percussion with dynamic playing capability, karaoke systems, volume control and other improvements.

It is important to note that the dance organ developed to closely follow the new emerging styles of popular music.

During these early years the instruments were, in addition to loud performance, capable of soft solo playing with distinct solo pipework voices coupled with swell shutters in order to handle the characteristic gentle ballroom dances of the early 1900s such as the valse tres-lente, the valse boston (or Cross-step waltz) and the Hesitation waltz styles.

In the 1930s the natural progress continued with further extended percussion to cope with the trends for Latin American rumba and other new rhythms in popular music.

Some instruments have further visual interest provided by displaying automatically operated accordions, visible percussion and occasionally dummy saxophones rigged so that they appear to be playing, but actually the sax sound is made by a rank of reed pipes within the pipework case.

The robot drummer turned to align his drumsticks with snare drums, cymbal or tempo block as required, his foot playing a hi-hat.