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Wurlitzer
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments from Germany for resale in the United States. Wurlitzer enjoyed initial success, largely due to defense contracts to provide musical instruments to the U.S. military. In 1880, the company began manufacturing pianos and eventually relocated to North Tonawanda, New York. It quickly expanded to make fairground organ, band organs, orchestrions, player pianos and pipe organs, pipe or theatre organs popular in theatres during the days of silent movies. Wurlitzer also operated a chain of retail stores where the company's products were sold. As technology evolved, Wurlitzer began producing Wurlitzer electric piano, electric pianos, electronic organs and jukeboxes, and it eventually became known more for jukeboxes and vending machines, which are s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wurlitzer Electric Piano
The Wurlitzer electronic piano is an electric piano manufactured and marketed by Wurlitzer from 1954 to 1983. Sound is generated by striking a metal reed with a hammer, which induces an electric current in a pickup. It is conceptually similar to the Rhodes piano, though the sound is different. The instrument was invented by Benjamin Miessner, who had worked on various types of electric pianos since the early 1930s. The first Wurlitzer was manufactured in 1954, and production continued until 1983. Originally, the piano was designed to be used in the classroom, and several dedicated teacher and student instruments were manufactured. It was adapted for more conventional live performances, including stage models with attachable legs and console models with built-in frames. The stage instrument was used by several popular artists, including Ray Charles, Joe Zawinul and Supertramp. Several electronic keyboards include an emulation of the Wurlitzer. As the Wurlitzer is an electromechan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatre Organs
A theatre organ (also known as a theater organ, or, especially in the United Kingdom, a cinema organ) is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films from the 1900s to the 1920s. Theatre organs have horseshoe-shaped arrangements of stop tabs (tongue-shaped switches) above and around the instrument's keyboards on their consoles. Theatre organ consoles were typically decorated with brightly colored stop tabs, with built-in console lighting. Organs in the UK had a common feature: large translucent surrounds extending from both sides of the console, with internal colored lighting. Theatre organs began to be installed in other venues, such as civic auditoriums, sports arenas, private residences, and churches. Though there are few original instruments, hundreds of theatre pipe organs are installed in public venues throughout the world today, while many more exist in private residences. History Originally, films were accompanied by pit orchestras in larger houses, and pi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electronic Organ
An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the pump organ, harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has since developed into several types of instruments: * #Tonewheel organs, Hammond-style organs used in pop music, pop, Rock music, rock and jazz; * #Digital church organs, digital church organs, which imitate pipe organs and are used primarily in churches; * other types including #Combo organs, combo organs, #Home organs, home organs, and #Software organs, software organs. History Predecessors ;Harmonium The immediate predecessor of the electronic organ was the pump organ, harmonium, or reed organ, an instrument that was common in homes and small churches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In a fashion not totally unlike that of pipe organs, reed organs generate sound by forcing air over a set of reeds by means of a bellows, usually ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fairground Organ
A fairground organ is a musical organ covering the wind and percussive sections of an orchestra. Originating in Paris, France, these organs were 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, fairground organs are designed to be loud enough to be heard above the noises of crowds and fairground machinery. History As fairgrounds became more mechanised at the end of the nineteenth century, their musical needs grew. 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. Virtually all ambient fairground music continued to be produced by fairground organs and similar pneumatically operated instruments until the advent of effective electrical sound amplification in the mid-1920s. The organ chassis was typically covered with a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jukeboxes
A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that plays a user-selected song from a self-contained media library. Traditional jukeboxes contain records, compact discs, or digital files, and allow users to select songs through mechanical buttons, a touch screen, or keypads. They were most commonly found in diners, bars, and entertainment venues throughout the 20th century. The modern concept of the jukebox evolved from earlier automatic phonographs of the late 19th century. The first coin-operated phonograph was introduced by Louis Glass and William S. Arnold in 1889 at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. The term "jukebox" itself is believed to derive from the Gullah word "juke" or "joog", meaning disorderly or rowdy, referring to juke joints where music and dancing were common. Jukeboxes became especially popular from the 1940s to the 1960s, with models produced by companies such as Wurlitzer, Seeburg, Rock-Ola, and AMI. In t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugene De Kleist
Baron Frederick Joseph Eugene de Kleist (18 January 1853 – 1911), was a pioneering German organ builder, who in founding the North Tonawanda Barrel Organ Factory, started the American style of Band organs. Eugene de Kleist was born in Düsseldorf on 18 January 1853, the son of Baron Ewald and his Belgium-born wife Charlotte de Kleist (née Heyden). At the end of his formal schooling, he joined the Prussian Army, and fought in the Franco-Prussian War. After the end of hostilities, he trained as a barrel organ builder with the French company Limonaire Frères, in the Black Forest town of Waldkirch. In 1880, De Kleist moved to London, England, where he started his own organ building business. Almost from the start of its foundation, De Kleist built contacts in the United States, and commuted regularly across the Atlantic Ocean. After the United States Government announced the imposition of import tariffs from 1893 on new organs, he was pursued by Allan Herschell, to persuad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Tonawanda, New York
North Tonawanda is a City (New York), city in Niagara County, New York, United States. Its population was 31,568 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Buffalo, New York, Buffalo–Niagara Falls, New York, Niagara Falls Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area, metropolitan statistical area. The city is named after Tonawanda Creek, its southern border. Tonawanda in the Seneca language means "swift-running water". Tonawanda Creek, which flows into the Niagara River, once had large stretches of rapids (see Rapids, New York) until it was tamed with the construction of the Erie Canal. The city also calls itself the "Lumber City," due to its past primary industry, and it once was the largest port on the Great Lakes during the height of the Erie Canal. Along Goundry Street are mansions built for the lumber barons, including 208 Goundry Street, called ''Kent Place'', designed by Stanford White. Many of the local residents refer to the city as the "Jewel of Niagara County" due to its ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baldwin Piano Company
The Baldwin Piano Company is an American piano brand. It was once the largest US-based manufacturer of keyboard instruments and was known by the slogan, "America's Favorite Piano". , it has been a subsidiary of Gibson Brands, Inc. Baldwin ceased domestic production in December 2008, moving its piano manufacturing to China. History The company traces its origins to 1857, when Dwight Hamilton Baldwin began teaching piano, organ, and violin in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1862, Baldwin started a Decker Brothers piano dealership and, in 1866, hired Lucien Wulsin as a clerk. Wulsin eventually became a partner in the dealership, which by then was known as the D.H. Baldwin & Company. The Baldwin Company became the largest piano dealer in the Midwestern United States by the 1890s. In 1889 or 1890, Baldwin vowed to build "the best piano that could be built" and subsequently formed two production companies: Hamilton Organ, which built reed organs, and the Baldwin Piano Company, which made pi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
