Request Hofbauer Information from Fred Gerer
By Robbie Rhodes
[ Here's some follow-up correspondence. I don't recall if it [ was published or not. -- Robbie
Angelo,
Claus Kucher has talked with more than one dedicated hurdy-gurdy owner/operator in Vienna who wants his Hofbauer organ to play Austrian songs, instead of the German songs furnished with the organ. I suspect that this is an oft-occurring question raised by present and future owners of the instruments.
Please ask the Hofbauer distributor, Hr. Fred Gerer, what the company intends to offer for (1) playing the organ from an external computer or sequencer via a Midi cable, (2) storing externally created songs into the instruments memory (via "flash EPROM" or the like), and (3) upgrading older Hofbauer organs for these capabilities.
Hurdy-gurdy organs equipped with a music-roll playing mechanism obviously enable the owner to change the music at will, just as with a player piano; if the organ maker doesn't provide music which the organ operator likes, some other "third party" _will_. It seems that Orgelbaumeister Hofbauer has now eliminated this option.
I'm reminded of Thomas A. Edison and his vertical-modulation disk phonograph. Edison refused to acknowledge the desires of the consumers -- he himself approved the songs for publication -- and this attitude resulted in the early demise of the Edison Phonograph.
Best regards,
Robbie Rhodes |
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