Organs

Name	Image	Tradition	Description
Barrel Organ		England	A barrel organ is a mechanical musical instrument consisting of bellows and one or more ranks of pipes housed in a case, usually of wood, and often highly decorated. The basic principle is the same as a traditional pipe organ, but rather than being played by an organist, the barrel organ is activated either by a person turning a crank, or by clockwork driven by weights or springs. The pieces of music are encoded onto wooden barrels (or cylinders), which in a sense, replace the keyboard of the traditional pipe organ.
Chamber Organ		United States	A chamber organ is a small pipe organ, often with only one manual, and sometimes without separate pedal pipes, that is placed in a small room, that this diminutive organ can fill with sound. It is often confined to chamber organ repertoire, as often, the organs have too little voice capabilities to rival the grand pipe organs in the performance of the classics. The sound and touch are unique unto the instrument, sounding nothing like a large organ with few stops drawn out, but rather much more intimate. They are usually tracker instruments, although the modern builders are often building electropneumatic chamber organs. The image shows a chamber organ in a church of Williamsburg, Virginia.
Chord Organ		United States	A chord organ is a free-reed musical instrument, similar to a small reed organ, in which sound is produced by the flow of air, usually driven by an electric motor, over plastic or metal reeds. Much like the accordion, the chord organ has both a keyboard and a set of chord buttons, enabling the musician to play a melody or lead with one hand and accompanying chords with the other. Chord organs have seen a recent revival amongst minimalist and ambient musicians. The image shows a Magnus 890 electric chord organ.
Dance Organ		Belgium	A Dance organ is a mechanical organ designed to be used in a dance hall or ballroom. Being intended for use indoors, dance organs tend to be quieter than the similar fairground organ. Dance organs were principally used in Belgium and the southern Netherlands. Early Dance organs were operated by the 'book system' used on fair organs. The more modern instruments are often MIDI controlled. The image shows a dance organ built by Mortier.
Fairground Organ		United States	A fairground organ is a pipe organ designed for use in a commercial public fairground setting to provide loud music to accompany fairground rides and attractions. Unlike organs designed for indoor use they are designed to produce a large volume of sound to be heard over and above the noise of crowds of people and fairground machinery. Organs were designed to mimic the musical capabilities of a typical human band. For this reason they are known as band organs in the US. Consequently the pipes and percussion and their divisions were chose specifically to fulfil this concept.
Hammond Organ		United States	The Hammond organ is an electric organ which was invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company until the 1970s. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the pipe organ, it became the de facto standard for jazz, blues, and rock music (in the 1960s and 1970s) and gospel music.
Harmonium		India	A Harmonium is a small, portable, bellow-blown reed organ used in India, Pakistan and Western countries. Though derived from the designs developed in France, the harmonium was developed further in India in unique ways, such as the addition of drone stops and a scale changing mechanism. In Indian and Pakistani music, the player usually sits on the ground, with one hand fingering the keyboard and the other pumping bellows.
Organ		Europe	The organ is a keyboard instrument played using one or more manuals and a pedalboard. It uses wind moving through metal or wood pipes and/or it uses sampled organ sounds or oscillators to produce sound, which remains constant while a key is depressed. Its sounds, which vary widely in timbre and volume, are divided according to ranks and controlled by the use of stops. The keyboard is not expressive and does not affect dynamics. Organs vary greatly in size, ranging from a cubic yard to a height reaching five floors, and are located primarily in churches, concert halls, and homes. The organ is one of the oldest musical instruments in the Western musical tradition, and carries a rich history connected with Christian liturgy and civic ceremony.
Organetto		Italy	The medieval Organetto was a portable pipe instrument, allied to the later classical pipe organ, and pumped with the hand. It is referenced in the Roman de la Rose: "There are easily manageable organs which are portable and are pumped and played by the same person, who also sings either the soprano or tenor part." It was among the most popular instruments in Europe from the 13th to the 16th century. The organetto was relatively lightweight and could be carried with a sling to use in religious processions or other occasions. Bellows provide the wind supply, and a button-type keyboard could be used across approximately two octaves. The organetto could only play one note at a time, and was used for a single part in a polyphonic piece, motet or chanson, and for monophonic dance music.
Pipe Organ		Europe	The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound when pressurized air (referred to as wind) is driven through a series of pipes. The admission of wind into the pipes is controlled by a keyboard. The size of pipe organs varies greatly: the smallest portable organs may have only a few dozen pipes, while the largest organs may feature tens of thousands. An organ pipe sounds when a key is depressed on the keyboard, allowing the wind to pass into the pipe from a chest below. The organ's continuous supply of wind allows it to sustain sound for as long as a key is depressed, unlike other keyboard instruments such as the piano and harpsichord, whose sound begins to decay immediately after the key is struck. The image shows the Hexham Abbey (Northumberland, England) organ built by Lawrence Phelps in 1974.
Portative Organ		Europe	A portative organ (portatif organ, portativ organ, or simply portative, portatif, or portativ) (from the Latin verb portare, "to carry") is a small pipe organ that consists of one rank of flue pipes and played while strapped to the performer at a right angle. The performer manipulates the bellows with one hand and fingers the keys with the other. The portative organ lacks a reservoir to retain a supply of wind, thus it will only produce sound while the bellows are being operated. The instrument was commonly used in secular music from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries. The portative is constructed simply in order to make it as portable as possible. It is smaller than the positive organ.
Positive Organ		England	A positive organ (also positiv organ, positif organ, portable organ, chair organ) (from the Latin verb ponere, "to place") is a portable one-manual pipe organ that may be moved without first being disassembled. It was common in sacred and secular music between the tenth and the seventeenth centuries, when it was used in the performance of basso continuo parts in ensemble works. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it was placed on a table or floor to be played, but many modern positive organs feature wheels. The positive organ differs from the portative organ in that it is larger and is not played while strapped at a right angle to the performer's body. The image shows a portable organ on wheels in a church of St. Albans, England.
Reed Organ		France	A reed organ, also called parlor organ, pump organ, cabinet organ, cottage organ, is an organ that generates its sounds using free metal reeds. Smaller, cheaper and more portable than pipe organs, reed organs were widely used in smaller churches and in private homes in the 19th century, but their volume and tonal range is limited, and they were generally confined to one or two manuals, pedalboards being extremely rare. A reed organ is usually positioned on the floor in a wooden casing. It is operated either with pressure or with suction bellows. The reed organ was the other main type of organ before the development of electronic organs.
Street Organ		Germany	A Street organ is a mechanical organ designed to play in the street. The operator of a street organ is called an organ grinder. The two main types are the smaller German style and the larger Dutch street organ. The image shows a street organ in Rüdesheim am Rhein, Germany.
Symphonic Organ		United States	The symphonic organ (or concert organ) is a style of pipe organ which flourished during the first third of the twentieth century in town halls and other secular public venues (particularly in the United States and the UK). It is a variation of the classical pipe organ intended for the performance of orchestral transcriptions for pipe organs. The concert organ has seen a revival in the US, Europe and Japan in the latter part of the 20th and 21st century. The image shows a concert organ at the Yokohama Minato-mirai Hall of Kanagawa, Japan.
Theatre Organ		United States	A theatre organ is a pipe organ originally designed specifically for imitation of an orchestra, but in latter years new designs have tended to be around some of the sounds and blends unique to the instrument itself. Theater organs took the place of the orchestra when installed in a movie theatre during the heyday of silent films. Such instruments were typically built to provide the greatest possible variety of timbres with the fewest possible pipes, and often had pianos and other percussion instruments built in, as well as a variety of sound effects such as a siren. The imagw shows the horseshoe-shaped console of the 3/13 Barton Theater Pipe Organ at Ann Arbor's Michigan Theater.
Tracker Organ		Europe	A tracker organ is a pipe organ that its key action is a tracker action. A key action which physically connects the keys and the windchests is called a mechanical action or a tracker action. This connection is achieved through a series of wooden or metal rods called trackers. When the organist depresses a key, the corresponding tracker moves allowing wind to enter the pipe. Tracker action is in contrast to electrical or electro-pneumatic actions, which connect the key to the valve via an electrical link or an electrically assisted pneumatic system respectively.
Water Organ		Italy	The water organ or hydraulic organ (early types are sometimes called hydraulis or hydraulos or hydraulus or hydraula) is a type of automatic pipe organ blown by air, where the power source pushing the air is derived by water from a natural source (e.g. by a waterfall). Consequently, the water organ lacks a bellows, blower, or compressor. In addition to being the source of power to push air through the organ pipes, the water is also used as a source of power to drive a mechanism similar to that of the Barrel organ, which has a pinned barrel that contains a specific song to be played. The image shows the most famous water organ of the 16th century. It is at the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, Italy.

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