to redo the facade of the organ if you haven't seen it this season we redid completely the facade to some nice bright colors that really bring it back to its original state that we talk about this morning and you don't so i've done some work on the inside of the organ to make it sound the best we can talk a little bit about the next step that we can take even to make it sound even better so lucas how much of this passion over the years he's bent over to the now who wants to work with some of their folks who work for you professionally so it's i don't even listen to the organise stuff so everyone good morning everyone ok for i get started are there any veterans here today would you please rise thank you we definitely want to be able to be here and talking about an organ that went through the war if we hadn't been through a war ourselves and we wouldn't have men fighting for our own freedoms and women ok so a little about myself so personally i enjoy playing the piano i also play the organ for church and then a little bit on the accordion not a whole lot don't ask me to play it  but what's interesting is i'm one of the youngest to have an interest in mechanical music now i have an interest in mechanical music but the idea that a machine can be used to create a performance and  people for many generations is mind blowing i find that fascinating as something that was built you know seventy five years ago is still here at when the island and people enjoy it guess enjoy it here and it was built how long ago a long time ago  no since two thousand and nine i have studied these specific organs and been fascinated about what makes a street organ more pleasing then the rest of mechanical music everybody's heard a player piano but it sounds very dry and mechanical you know a straight organ is very pleasing the type of sound that it makes is different than any other kind of instrument so anyway i've worked at dependently to find the experts the resources books you know i've even dabbled with a little bit of dutch to try and better understand how to take care of these instruments you know it was not until i was given an impossible task of restoring a big bellow inside of a bigger organ that it clicked that i could you know restore instruments myself because i never had the confidence to do that until after i had rebuilt a big bellow in a bellows the inside of the organ where it creates the air for the whole organ to work so if you do that wrong the organ is not going to work then now later i was given the chance to learn from the experts and really grow in the art of fighter restoration i've not only had the opportunity to work and learn from the master organ builders in the netherlands but i'm the caretaker caretaker for the organs at dutch village i oversee their restoration and maintenance and i find it a privilege to have the opportunity to present such a fantastic piece of history as well as educate on the subject of automatic musical instruments i've been very blessed to have continued work on the instruments that that's relig as well as the organ here for other clients in the united states  stayed up here and reading from a piece of paper i'm just going to tell you i'm pretty scared of this just to read the paper and say the words correctly but if i were over there talking about the organ music or the book or anything like that you would be able to shut me up keep that in mind if it sounds a little dry or something doesn't doesn't make sense just fine me afterward say what did you mean by that ok here's a little bit of the work that i've done you can see in the bottom left of the stream there's a big square looking thing with with blue on it that's the bellow that i restored and then up in the top right corner is some music that was being recovered from old patterns it's a it's a punch machine it has a square punch that cuts the slots in the music book so that it can be played  mechanical organ so at that i recall could be many things it could be a dance organ could be a fair organ or could be a street organ most often when you say that i or will most dutch people know it as the feeling you get when an organ is on the street  the organ is also one of the few real dutch treasures from holland that we have here in holland michigan at window island you have three real dutch treasures i think matt has said this several times you have the windmill that's the biggest part of your to really understand what this organised you have to also understand its builder how carl for i was not only a musician himself i should just read books on the paper here we go so he was raised in the black forest of germany he also attended school for musical education at a very young age he worked for other organ building firms in belgium germany france and in holland before perfecting his own system he did marry a flemish bride and relocated to the southern part of the netherlands after the first world war that together with his son carl jr carl fry was able to make a living using all of the suppliers and contacts he made throughout europe now the four columns remains a masterful creation combining the latest tricks of father karl he relocated again at the at the outbreak of the second world war ending his career and making street organs now once he was back in germany he began building big organs for use on the fairgrounds and for showm now what is a street orgon but chemical organs are built for specific reasons most were built to be used in dance halls or on the fair grounds for amusement rides for an absurd to be enjoyed on the open street it must overcome many challenges it must be pleasing has to stay in tune the mold will but most importantly it has to bring in good money for its owner along with cheese wooden shoes when bills and tulips there are very few things as dear or as famous as the cheerful organs that are crate and pushed on the busy streets the netherlands has a longstanding history of musicians and other performance that entertain on the streets for tips and bigger cities even today one can find an organ man trying to grind out his living so not all organs were named on the streets the organ renters would often call them by what was on the fronts or who owned them or who played them the four columns required her name because of the striking columns that adorn the facade everybody's seen the organ write it just now fry organs are known to be feisty they're very eager to please hardworking luxurious and can often bring powerful emotions from their performances i would think i would like to say about any karl fry organ is that regardless of its condition it always plays with its whole heart and that's how they say that's how the dutch people say organ in that you know it can be soft enough to play a beautiful serenade but it can be robust enough that if you hear a nice german march on it makes you want to get up and march into poland and they're very  the fanatics how do you how do you translate leaf ever it's the people that love it it's in there inside of them so the fanatics of the organs still know the four columns because of the few recordings that are still in the netherlands they were recorded on old seventy eight records and they often called the mysterious four columns had that were to the front of it almost every time i've heard it because there's such a mystery to the way it plays karl fry it made inside this organ different things that he didn't build in to any other instrument that still exists today so when they hear it they go how did it do that because it doesn't make sense it's a mystery anyway here are a few pictures of her while she was still not a limits those are all if you look at the top left that was a a group of people that that got together for it i think it was at a celebration if you someone's birthday if you look at the top right that's the picture that i used mostly when i did the redecoration of the organ i can zoom in or something and receive that so from this black and white photo i had to try and pick out all of the colors that were in there as well as where the color stop where the other color started ok so even even today it's still a very well loved in a very well known instrument in the netherlands because of its personality a few things that have been said about this organ from from the dutch organ fanatics is they they've called it a stradivarius of the streets that's a pretty good term i'd say and they say a nice way one of the finest put together by  father fry and with proper care she will be as pleasing in the future as she is on the recordings so a little comparison i said that there are new organs today that play like this one but there were originally three nayla man was a man who was in the netherlands and he also had a lot of other organs he had the two organs that were built just like the four columns but he changed them he thought he was going to be an organ builder and he rebuilt them on different scales but he didn't reuse what karl fry had inside the organ so those organs are completely different today than the way they were supposed to be built they were the dutch don't discriminate they're the big in the the small radio that's what they were called so not as colorful names anyway  so these two organs appeared on the streets in one nine hundred twenty nine which was two years after the four columns was already out and performing so the four columns is the only organ that stands today that still uses the original scale speaking of that scale so this is probably where i'm going to lose everybody if you look at the the picture of a scale card over here but at the top of the book you'll see  section for twenty three melody notes and those slots or what what would be punched into those slots are where you could have different voices of the organ play so you could have violence you could have  stopped flute you could also turn on tremulous there's twenty two places there for all of those melody notes to go and the melody is basically what you hear when you hear a song and then as you get lower on the so like i said there are twenty two places for the melody notes to go as this this card would pull through the reader of the organ everything right here that's supposed to be played would sound like melody notes because that's what it is but the basis of it you've got eight bas company a company notes and they sometimes are used just to keep time but they're also used for other accents so here you have a base in a company but this is a quick waltz down at the bottom are the places for the coder melody to go there are only seven places but karl fry what he did is he used five places from the melody and used them on the counter melody and that's what makes it mysterious there are no other organs today that use that i'll get to that again in a minute so a little bit about its disposition probably a little more detail than you need but under the organ there are big pipes there are eight base pipes because there are eight places on the card for those bass notes to go there under the is that the type of sound that it's going to create right here all of the melody notes you've got to stop the ones in the front and those are very pleasing you've also got strings on the back like violins and then up here folks who model which which means the human voice or stem as they say in dutch and that's an old fashioned register that it's not found in st organs any more ok it's history now the only two other organs that were built with the ability to borrow those notes from the other ranks were you know recreated into different instruments what happened is after none of the arrangers were using the capabilities to kind of borrow notes from different ranks karl fry only built seventy two key instruments so he started out with a sixty seven he scale people weren't using it that were making the music and so he built seventy two key incidents because that's what he had wanted from the beginning he wanted them to use twelve uncountability and they weren't other famous organs that were built in this period were the lekkerkerker and that's one of the most famous organs from the netherlands that's on the lower left of the picture you can see it the nathan to her which is bottom right and that just means the ninety year again they don't discriminate they call it what it is it was one of the first organs to play on the ninety note scale so that's why it's called the ninety  later she was purchased from this order with the understanding that she was to be given to the city of holland michigan in special gratitude for the liberation of the netherlands after world war two the organ was used in parades and was kept at the holland using them once the novelty of having the organ wore off it was stored and remained derelict until the one nine hundred ninety s with the cooperation of a top organ restore from a museum in the netherlands and american restorer here in vermont it was once again possible to have the organ in a playable condition even though the american restore was only familiar to player pianos he was able to maintain the organ and keep it performing for guests that will island after he passed away quickly from a short battle with cancer they are going to venture they needed a new restore but more familiar to the special treasures to continue its upkeep it was at this time that most of the music was spoiled and became unplayable the directors of one of the island hired the services from a firm in england they were then presented with  challenge of wanting the best restores but the distance for them to travel made the repairs very very costly after the directors no longer felt it was necessary to continue the work with their english friends they asked if i was comfortable continuing the work and keeping the organ in a playable condition so that's where it is today now we get to the redecoration which happened in my basement last winter so over the winter of twenty sixteen seventeen the organ received necessary restoration to the facade or the front as well as the decoration painting the urban taishan brought back as close to original the same as it was in one nine hundred twenty eight the restoration of the organ front required more than four hundred hours of work the wings or the the wings that sit on the side of the organ left and right those were made new in belgium by carver who works and restoration of organ fronts they were recently decorated in the fall of twenty seventeen and they are being presented here for you people today so you're the first to see the organ with its decorated wings before it's i guess this is its big debut for the wing ok now so that's a little bit about its history in the redecoration and i hope you learn a little bit about mechanical music we're going to go out and listen to the organ the little bit keep in mind it's really cold the organ plays best when it's about fifty degrees or above it was to me when it was about seventy four degrees so that's going to be that's going to be a big factor for it now i'll just say a little bit of the format comes back up here the performance from the organ isn't nothing close to perfect but like i said the character of a fry organ is that it always plays with its whole heart so even though it's not in the best condition and it's far from perfect it still sounds very pleasing to the average person the organ has needed major internal restoration for several years keeping the organ performing redecorating the organ front and restoring the wings are big steps in the eventual goal to replace the repertoire of original music but also the final costly goal of an internal restoration as it's still loved by organ fanatics in the netherlands and here we all hope to see and hear what the next phase of this organ's life will bring that's it that's all i got organs in here to work on the organ it's a whole different ballgame so it's great to have someone like luke who has knowledge of these types of organs biggest as far as these fry organs there's just hours when it does village  he was a builder out of belgium he recently passed away last summer anyway from i wouldn't know there are several thousand little bow core holes or belly organs the ones that you wear or ones you put on a little cart will crank up several thousands and thousands of those instrument america to bring their instruments to dutch village and play for friday afternoon saturday and sunday whatever they please what shows up i don't have the the control of that these people are traveling from you know from maidan or  from from i r missouri and if they want to leave a little early on sunday we can stop them they're all they're all voluntarily bringing these instruments to  are the wheels like the the wagon or there were the organ used to be on a three wheeled cart and on a push cart you know just like the wings we don't know where that ended up somewhere between a few years ago and fifty years ago it disappeared card sure sure there was an organ renter pearlie in amsterdam and he had several dozen organs most of the organs that he had the people would have a horse or a donkey or some other large animal to pull around the streets  a lot of times it happened at markets where they could just bring us there the horse would stay and then they'd play the organ they go get the horse and then bring it home there isn't an organ near the hegg which plays it is also still pulled by a horse is very very different the one it that's religious was built by the same guy over his son but it was built on a completely different system so the insides are all german the outside belgian this one the outsides are belgian on the inside they're dutch but as this works out a cube system so you physically have a little metal pin that pokes up through the slots in the book the one of that's real it works completely under magic so it's air pressure that pops up through the book yes  how does the drum work sure so absolutely what you have is a is a large pneumatic so there's a there's an area where there's air pressure inside of leather what happens is there's a dump valve and you get a little mixture most of them are completely made of wood but some are also metal oh it depends just inside of one little pipe like the violence that are sitting on the table over there  backs and sides are made of just like a straight pine the front is made of cherry inside the little block it's made of maple or beech the front of it is made of a much harder wood and then the frying is made of that's the metal part that makes it sound like a violin that's that's metal and so it's brass or copper and economics a dice the slide is also made of coke tim so you have a lot of different parts to make anything ye used were all home workers and so he would say i need a portrait here and a portrait there i need you to put a landscape right here and you know when you're making hundreds and hundreds of organs you can lose inspiration after a while they used french fashion and these were italian models that they were copying from the fashion magazines from a french magazine them they may believe that if they'd like