Threnody for a Reed Organ is a generative music piece I made in 2018, to memorialize a rapidly-deteriorating 1924 Estey Field Reed Organ. Chords never repeat themselves, and an array of vocal samples provide endless textures for the organ to sing as long as the page is live. The organ itself bears a number of carefully etched markings, DIY fixes, and telltale marks of long-dried wood laminate drippings that indicate the organ was loved long before I recovered it from an imminent scrapping in Stamford, Connecticut.
Reed organs are effectively huge harmonicas: the organ itself is equipped with a number of vibrating reeds, which resonate and sound when air passes across them. This particular reed organ has two air bladders, inflated by foot pedals that need to be consistently pumped to keep air passing through the organ. Due to age and rushed DIY jobs along its 100-year history, only a single bladder works, and a number of reeds are too warped by moisture or damage to sound.
The particular model of organ is an interesting one: built after the First World War from a realized need to provide musical accompaniment to wartime liturgies on the Western Front, the Field Organ was purpose-built to be mobile, able to be folded down into a (remarkably heavy) box and carried by two infantrymen at a time. This organ’s carrying handles have long-since rotted away, as have their DIY’d replacement.
Spending two years with this organ, learning its specific eccentricities, nuances, and how its hundred years of damage fundamentally made it one-of-a-kind, made me want to document this organ in more than just imagery. It’s beautifully deep, diaphragmatic lower notes hold some of the most warmth of any instrument I’ve been lucky enough to play. Its single bladder necessitates a constant pumping of air, and its knee swell lever needs to be very carefully taught to keep the bladder from locking up. Every recording of it has a distinct thudding pump, an occasional metallic knock, the sound of old wooden keys struggling to brush past one-another. There isn’t a single organ out there like this one, and as the years pass, its song gets tangibly quieter, the bellows harder to keep full, the hardware and wooden accents slowly rotting away.
Threnody for a Reed Organ is something made to outlast the organ’s physical form: like a held memory, as long as this webpage exists, so too will the organ’s song; when the organ inevitably stops its song, Threnody will continue playing out endlessly, without chords repeating over themselves, a choral backing and guitar accents forever breathing life into its long, rattling drones.
This project is open source, with the entirety of its code live here.
Explore the scan of the organ, and you’ll find all the signs of age that make it so unique. Likewise, leave this audio on as you go about your day, and spare a thought for a centenarian with a wonderful voice.