I enjoy Polka music as well-Wished more of it was played on radio stations.Hate most of the stuff they play-I spent almost 25 years working in a commercial top-40 radio station-so at this point I am sick and tired of late 60's,70's and 80's type music.The mechanical music is a nice change-have lots of records,cassttes,and CD's of it at home.Discovered gold mines of it on YouTube-
"Fairground" organs are generally those used to provide music for fairs and amusement parks.Smaller organs are used to provide music for individual rides-beleive me the band organ music is SO MUCH BETTER on an amusement ride than horribly loud and distorted rock music played thru a crappy sound system some parks now use.The music makes the ride--As Rudolph Wurlitzer used to say(His company was one of the larger builders of band organs in the US)"people will stop-listen and RIDE!"A company is the US makes band organs today-Stinsen Organ Company out of Bellafontaine Ohio.Some park owners have bought their organs to replace an older one or the horrible rock music sound system.Brings rides to life-esp Carrosuels(not sure of the spelling)
Dance hall organs are still used today-esp in Europe-to provide music in cafes and restuarants.wish that was the case here-get so TIRED of the crappy rock background music-many times while eating ask the server to turn it down or off.Dance organs emphasise rythem-they have lots of percussion instruments in them-to try to get people to dance to their music.And dance organs have what is called "Bax","Baxophone"pipes that give a warble like tone.And they also have accordeans on them too.Dance organs are built today by DeCap Herantals out of Belguim.Mortier is another.Decap instruments can be played from the traditional music books or MIDI digital music files.some older ones have been converted to play MIDI.and a few DeCap models can play either MIDI or books.The music books are perforated cardboard strips that are used to provide the music "programming" to play the organ and its instruments.US band organs use perforated music rolls much like a player piano.There should be some cafes and other establishments in the Amsterdam area that should have dance organs-try to seek them out and give them a listen--and for you Polka fans-Dance hall organs can be real "Polka Music machines"there are some examples of them on Youtube playing Polka music.Cafes,Eating establishments in Europe use these organs musch like US eateries use juke boxes.