Cranking to Bailout Wall Street
I had my large Hofbauer Violin Pan with percussion at the Lake County Farm Heritage Festival. I got a great cheer or was it a jeer from the gathered crowd when I told them at the end of cranking serveral songs, that I was collecting money for needy Wall Street Bankers! To put the crisis in perspective: It is as though the government encouraged loans to sub-prime collectors to buy fair organs. A collecting frenzy ensued, lots of money was made, and then the collectors failed to pay for the organs after the organ debt securities were bundled and sold as financial instruments to banks all over the world. Then the United States Government (pushed by greedy bankers who liked money instead of organs) demanded a bailout of the sub prime organ loans by the taxpayers. If they did not go along they were verbally threatened with a Depression (horrors!). I will continue cranking on Sunday and will see if the punters have lightened up on the needy bankers like the failed WA MU President, Alan Fishman who according to news reports departed the failed company after only 17 weeks on the job with 19 million in severance and payment fees!

What does "Fair Organ" subsitute?

Sunday Cranking Brought Out More Coments
It is fun to get the "pulse" of the people while cranking the organ. When I "joked" about collecting funds for needy Wall Street bankers, I was amazed at the pent up anger the average people have against a bailout. Second, this time I played a wide variety of music on the organ from rock pieces to standard vintage music and traditional German organ tunes with an eye toward audience response. This organ has a chromatic melody and accompaniment section with 9 bass notes. It also has orchestra bells and a full range of percussive effects from a high hat cymbal to a woodblock and is operated by Hofbauer's Mikrobox computer. It has the ability to play a large variety of music very well. Musically the old melodic standards sound the best on the organ; especially the outstanding arrangements of Tom Meijer, Art Reblitz, and Wayne Holton. They get the best response from the ALL ages of the public even though MANY of the younger ones have never been exposed to such songs before!!!! AGAIN MORE AND MORE I AM FINDING THE PEOPLE APPEAR TO BE STARVED FOR MELODIC MUSIC! And by the way, upon seeing the organ, many asked, "What is it?" "What do you call it?" This shows that many of the viewers had never been exposed to such an instrument before and yet they liked it. I tend to mask the fact that the player system is operated by a computer. Most of the older people tend to be disappointed when they learn that it is operated by a computer. The younger people who are more computer savy find the application fascinating. Often I will let people crank it. Kids especially want to crank it and will often form a line to do so. I will usually reward a successful cranker with a free CD.

Interesting. At the most, what was the most people you have ever attracted with that organ(or any other)at one time?

Farm Festival
The visitors to the event were constantly strolling by where I had the organ. When I started to play it, it would usually attract a group of between 10 and 35 people depending on the density of the people passing by. More people looking tend to attract more people. Usually the first ones to come to towards the organ are kids between 5 and 10 pulling their parents behind them. Others quickly follow. Some hover nearby and then seeing a group forming, they join in. On a small table near the organ, I set out some fair organ magazines, the book Put Another Nickel In, and several CD's. I also put out several folding chairs for those who want to sit down and talk mechanical music.

Very true indeed.

Did the US Treasury crank an organ to raise their $700bn or did they use another method? How much have you raised so far? What does Nancy Pelosi think of all this? If you think your organ might raise even £1bn or I'd settle for half please let me know where I can buy one!