How I became the Mad Organist - Part 1

 

Here it is. My Gulbransen Pacemaker Custom Organ. What would Halloween be without a haunted organ?  Much to my wife's surprise I came home with one back in June. I spared no expense. I spent $35.00. The company I dealt with specializes liquidating estates. The salesman told me how their clients have no idea that old organs from the 60's & 70's are basically worthless (except Hammond's). This Gulbransen Transistor organ sold for about $2,700 new in the 1970's.  I had lofty goals of animating it. Like it was being played by a ghost. I had some very strict design goals.

1. It must use the built in electronics of the organ to get that real (NOT MIDI) sound.

2. The keys must move to activate the organ. So if the "ghost" is going to play middle C the middle C key must depress.

Here is a picture of the organ so you can see the beautiful instrument I had to work with.  

My wife is the greatest when it comes to my Halloween hobby (Obeseeion?). Here only rule was "If you buy it you have to have it ready for this Halloween"  


So the plan was to create a system to read midi files, convert that into a 5 volt electrical charge, connect that to a solenoid that presses the keys and 5 years and $1,000 later I would be done! Well it wasn't that bad. I was able to scuttle that project before I got too far along. Now what?

I decided to learn how to play an organ. Here are some details about my Gulbransen.

 It can really play lots of variations between organ, flute, calliope, piano, harpsichord, very creepy. Now how to learn a few spooky songs in a couple of months? (I finally gave up on the automated organ idea in September). Where else, but YouTube.

I thought of one of my favorite spooky sounds, the organ from the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland. So I typed "How to play haunted mansion" into YouTube. Here is what I found.


How to Play Disneys- Haunted Mansion

Perfect! I mastered this in a week and tried a few more. As of Halloween I had mastered Tales from the Crypt, Haunted Mansion, The Shining, Dark Shadows, Chopin Funeral March, and finally The Phantom of the Opera. Here take a listen:
 

Next time I will have some samples of what the organ sounded like on Halloween.
That's it for tonight from 1313 El Potro.