I had an organ booking at Speke Hall near Liverpool this weekend and I was taken to see an interesting collection of looped paper music in their archive, which have no information associated with them.

There appears to be twenty-something notes (based on a rough approximation of slot spacing), so I can only assume it would have been a keyless hand-turned organ of some kind?

Does anyone know what these are and what would they have been played on?

I can only assume that it is some form of early Karaoke (heaven forbid!), where a verse is played in a loop for people to sing along with!

The music is about 5 and a half inches wide (138mm).















Photo's taken by yours truly, with the kind permission of the National Trust.

Speke Hall also has a weight driven Imhof and Mukle barrel organ, which I am hoping they will send me a picture to show on here, because the hall contains a number of items owned by other collections and the copyright owners don't allow photography in the hall (even though the organ is owned by the National Trust).

Interesting what comes up! It looks like the music belongs to a table top reed organette, where the music goes under the instrument after passing through the keyless frame. They are usually 14 notes.

The paper bands pictured are for a Seraphone, made in England, and
playing the same format as the popular Celestina. An endless band
adapter allowed it to play these "loops" as well as rolls. A tune list
may be found in the The Organette Music Repository at:
http://music.organettes.com/instruments/seraphone/home

Todd Augsburger
todd@rollerorgans.com
Roller Organs
www.rollerorgans.com

Hi Todd, welcome to the forum and thanks for your reply which was very useful information.

Do you have a picture of the Seraphone with the adaptor that you could post on here?


Best Regards

Dave Stubbs (Site Admin)

Here are pics of the Seraphone in my collection.

Sounds like you need to sell one to Speke Hall.

Thanks Todd .
Great pictures that solve the mystery.
Armed with the information, Dave can now go back to Speke Hall in the hope that he can find the hidden Seraphone.


George.

This is a video of an organette collection, one of which shows a paper loop being played.