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Dance organ


A dance organ is a mechanical organ designed to be used in a dance hall or ballroom. Being intended for use indoors, dance organs tend to be quieter than the similar fairground organ.

Dance organs were principally used in mainland Europe. In their earliest days before the First World War they were used in France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands. After the First World War their use waned apart from in Belgium and the Netherlands where they became a mainstream form of music at public venues until the Second World War.

The dance organ came into its own during the early 1900s, with many large instruments built by Gavioli and Marenghi. In the early 1910s the firm of Mortier began expanding out the sound-schemes of these instruments with a variety of novel and new pipework and percussion adapted to the new emerging styles of early 20th century popular music. Other manufacturers such as Hooghuys and Fasano followed suit. Many instruments with older style sound schemes from Gavioli and Marenghi were modernized by Mortier and others either partially or entirely.

In Antwerp, Arthur Bursens built several hundred relatively small roll and book-operated café orchestrions under the trade name "Ideal" and "Arburo" (ARthur BUrsens and(Gustav) ROels). Roels was an early business partner, succeeded by Frans de Groof. The smaller cafes of the Antwerp area were Bursens' main customers, as these premises often did not have space or income to justify a larger (Mortier or Decap) dance organ. A coin was dropped into a wallbox that allowed one tune from a roll that usually had three or four tunes on it to be played. At the end, the roll would rewind ready to play from the beginning again.Multi-tune rolls were produced frequently to keep up with the demand to hear the latest popular hits.

By the early 1920s Mortier were the predominant brand closely followed by Gaudin of Paris - successors to Marenghi. Throughout the 1920s the sound-schemes of the instruments constantly evolved to keep up with the trends of jazz-age dance music. Facade styles also followed the fashions of the era moving progressing naturally from the art nouveau towards the art-deco of the 1920s and 1930s.

In the 1930s the dominance of Mortier was matched by the instruments from the firm of Gebroeders Decap Antwerpen (Dutch for Decap Brothers Antwerp). By the end of the 1930s both Mortier and Decap had reached their zenith both in art-deco facade design and musical abilities. Dance organs came in every size. More compact versions were used in cafes and smaller public venues where they bridged the gap between orchestrions and the giant dance organs. Just like many cafe coin pianos and orchestrions some of the smaller instruments were set up so that they could be coin-operated remotely.


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