Rehearsing & Introducing the Barrel Organ

25th October 2024

This week, we started to focus on the rehearsals. We began with the first three acts. While performing, we also analysed what everyone can contribute to the performance. While rehearsing, the vocalists were working on developing some 'Jane' material.

The Barrel Organ

A barrel organ player in Vienna, Austria

I decided to take the task and match the barrel organ in the fair scenes in the first and second act.

Similar to a pipe organ, a barrel organ is a mechanical musical instrument that generates sound through pipes. It works by using a rotating drum, known as the barrel, equipped with pins or pegs that activate levers as it turns. The different levers open valves to enable air to pass through the pipes producing music. The barrel functions as a "music roll," dictating the notes played depending on the pin's placement. The instrument may also incorporate extra elements such as percussion sounds. Additionally, throughout my research, in many scenarios there is usually a monkey on top of the barrel organ, this adds to the excitement and elevates the energy.

After a deep search and watching so many videos about barrel organs, I started searching for high quality organ sounds all over the internet I managed to find three solid and high quality ones. I found them on freesound.org. After playing them to everyone, we chose only two of them, one as a main for the fair, and the other one could be used for a different sort of scenes. the third one did not fit the context of the scene. The ensemble asked me to pitch the main organ recording a semitone down to match the material everyone is working on.