MIDI Accordion Plays Mechanical Concert Organ

A WORLD EXCLUSIVE... Me playing the newly midi -ized concert (fairground/street) organ "De Arend" live in real time using my MIDI accordion... very cool indeed!

The world's biggest accordion expander perhaps? This certainly beats any electronic sound generator boxes, as everything you hear is coming from real instruments, all still operated pneumatically (the MIDI system uses an electro-mechanical relay chest I made to interface to the organs pneumatics).

Not the easiest setup to play, but interesting none the less, with similarities here to a theatre organ. Sorry for the odd slip up here and there, but obviously these were deliberately put in to prove I'm playing live (!) and remind you this is the first time ever I've played a mechanical organ like this (a fun but strangely disconcerting experience as I'm so used to listening to these machines play by themselves!). I could really have done with a bigger keyboard as couldn't fit all the counter melody notes on the top end of the treble, and had to transpose an octave up in order to access the register setting notes to change the ranks of pipes being played.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the video, and please post your comments below.

Don't forget to take a look at my other videos for details of the MIDI interface system and videos of the organ playing from both this and traditional perforated cardboard.