Band Organ

Bandorgans were the yang if the carousel was the yin, or vice versa, depending on your philosophy. That honky tonk music sound rolling out of the ornate box, usually at the center of the ride, gave the carousel its audio legacy. The closest thing to this grand music box which a person can play is the accordion, to some this is THE instrument, and to others it is definitely NOT THE instrument, similar to the yin and yang. Also similar is that no matter where you travel on this planet, there will always be an accordion nearby.

Back to the band organs, there were many makers in Europe and the United States. The Dentzels even had one especially designed and made for them which had the Dentzel name on it. There are records of customers sending back the large barrels, full of pins which are the notes for the organ mechanism, to have the tunes modified or changed to their liking. One of the tune barrels would weight many pounds and take weeks or even months to ship for adjustments. One tune would last about 3 to 4 minutes, to use this same system and have as many tunes that are on a modern CD the tune barrel would probably be the size of a small ocean-going cargo ship. Fortunately the advent of punching holes into paper rather than setting pins on barrels paved the way for increasing the selection and length of tunes played on the band organ. Some say that this was the cause of the "Gay Nineties", eventually leading to the invention of the automobile, airplane and telephone, even space travel.