This is a very poor plan, and the resulting effect is thoroughly mechanical and unsatisfactory. Only one keyboard is played upon at a time as a rule, and neither the stops nor the pedals, nor the expression levers are operated at all.
The Aeolian Company, of New York, effected an improvement some years ago when they introduced what they term the double tracker bar. In this case, the holes in the tracker bar are made smaller than usual and they are staggered--or arranged in two rows. Every evenly numbered hole is kept on the lower row, and the oddly numbered holes are raised up to form a second row.
Provided the paper be tracked very accurately, and be given careful attention, this plan adopted by the Aeolian Company allows of two manuals of an organ being played automatically; but still the stops and expression levers are left to be operated by hand.
More recently a plan has been brought out by Hope-Jones that provides for the simultaneous performance of music upon two manuals and upon the pedals--each quite independent of the other. It also provides for the operation of all the stops individually in a large organ, and for the operation of the expression levers.
A switch is furnished so that when desired the stops and expression levers may be cut off and left to be operated by hand. The Hope-Jones Tracker Bar has no less than ten lines of holes--it is, of course, correspondingly wide.
We look for a great development in the direction of organs played by mechanical means.
The piano player has done a very great deal to popularize the pianoforte and in the same way it is believed that the automatic player will do a very great deal to popularize the organ.
Many people who cannot play the organ will be induced to have them in their homes if they knew that they can operate them at any time desired, even in the absence of a skilled performer.
We now give specifications of some of the most notable organs of the world, all of which have been built or rebuilt since the year 1888, and embody modern ideas in mechanism, wind pressures, and tonal resources. First in the writer's estimation comes the