August 2, 2000
Organ real monkey business
Monkey organ grinder makes sweet music for Acme museum
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Mix a monkey with a king, a veteran with an organ and what do you get?
A monkey organ grinder, that's what, just like the one recently purchased by the Music House Museum in Acme. This addition to their extensive collection of antique musical instruments and paraphernalia comes minus the standard monkey, though the top of the organ sports a stuffed one to remind listeners of the instrument's tradition.
"This organ is something we've been wanting for some time," said Andy Struble, curator at the Music House Museum. "We do have the plans for making one and considered building it ourselves, but since there are only two of us who work on the instruments, we decided we didn't have the time to make one."
An instrument with such a rich, colorful history fits right in at the Music House Museum.
The monkey organ grinder was an instrument invented in the 1800s and popularized by European royalty who gave them to war veterans as a pension. Instead of a direct handout from the government the veteran was given an instrument and a license to peddle in a country. The veteran then traveled from town to town playing his organ to earn a living, setting up in front of a store for a while until the owner asked him to move on.
The accompanying cute and persistent monkey - usually wearing a hat and vest that matched his owner's attire - would climb up the clothing of passerby to convince them to drop a coin in their cup.
"Organ grinders are similar today to the guy with the squeegee and the bottle of Windex who jumps out at your car at a stoplight in Greektown," said Howard Byrne, a docent with the Music House Museum in Acme. "It is the same way of providing you with a service you don't want and getting some money to go away."
The Music House Museum purchased the monkey organ grinder for $10,000 from a firm in Germany that makes a few dozen a year. The museum board decided to make such heavy investment so they could have a traveling instrument for educational purposes and to raise awareness of their facility. They hope to put on programs in schools around the region once the school year starts.
Since its debut at the Grand Traverse Pavilions a month ago, the monkey organ grinder has been to Kid's Day at the National Cherry Festival and to Friday Night Live, where there is a standing invitation to attend each week. Struble will also take the instrument to the Grand Traverse Heritage Center's "Fun-raiser" later this month.
Sometimes their travels bring out little known facts from listeners, who upon hearing the lilting melodies remember other times they have heard the distinctive sound.
"People who saw us at Friday Night Live told us they remember an organ grinder in Traverse City in the 20s or 30s, though they were not sure if he was local or not," said Struble, who demonstrates the instrument for the public decked out in a period shirt and a bowler hat. "At that time it was not that uncommon to have organ grinders around, especially in the bigger cities like Chicago and Detroit."
The monkey organ grinder the museum purchased is a small organ whose melody is 22 pipes wide. A person playing it turns the instrument's crank and manipulates a series of five knobs on the side of the instrument to control the melodies. The instrument includes six rows of pipes, one of which is the accompaniment. Other pipes reproduce sounds of different flutes, string pipes and whistles.
"It is not a difficult instrument to play but it takes getting used to because cranking the handle does not go along with the music," Struble said. "It is a sort of happy sound, the music is upbeat."