A theatre organ is an organ installed in a movie theatre, most often modelled after the style originally devised by Robert Hope-Jones, which he called a "unit orchestra". Such instruments were typically built to provide the greatest possible variety of timbres with the fewest possible pipes, and often had pianos and other percussion instruments built in, as well as a variety of sound effects. This article is part of the Pipe Organ Refactor Project. ... For other uses see film (disambiguation) Film refers to the celluliod media on which movies are printed Film — also called movies, the cinema, the silver screen, moving pictures, photoplays, picture shows, flicks, or motion pictures, — is a field that encompasses motion pictures as an art form or as part of... Theatre is that branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle — indeed any one or more elements of the other performing arts. ... In music, timbre is determined by its specturm, which is a specific mix of keynote,overtones, noise, tune behaviour, envelope ( ... ) as well as the temporal change of the spectrum and the amplitude. ... This article is about the modern musical instrument. ... Percussion instruments are played by being struck, shaken, rubbed or scraped. ...

Many organ builders supplied instruments to theatres. The Wurlitzer company, to whom Hope-Jones licenced his name, was the most famous manufacturer, and the phrase Mighty Wurlitzer is to many synonymous with the theatre organ. Other manufacturers included Page, Marr and Colton, Compton, Moller, Morton, Conacher, Hilsdon, Kimball, Barton, Christie, and Hill Norman and Beard. These last two were both brand names for the same company, which specialised at the time in standardised extension organs with electro-pneumatic action, ideal for the theatre and then promoted as convenient and cost-effective for churches. In general the Christie brand was used for theatre organs, which came with contemporary styled consoles, while the firm's own name Hill Norman and Beard appeared on similar and sometimes identical pipes and actions supplied to customers seen as less frivolous, controlled by a traditional drawbar-stop console. Their standardised pipe, relay and blower packages were called unit organs, and for theatre use were augmented with percussion and other additional effects. The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company is a brand of organ, and Jukeboxes and was first famous for manufacturing the finest quality band organs with self arranged music rolls which played at amusments such as carousels and skating rinks. ... An extension organ is a pipe organ that uses one or more ranks of pipes longer then the length of its keyboards to serve several different organ stops at different pitches. ...

During the silent movie era, theatre organs were built in large numbers, in a variety of sizes, and filled the gap between a simple piano accompaniment and a full orchestra. Indeed, even when theatre owners hired orchestras to accompany silent movies, they usually also used an organ to provide relief to the orchestra, and to play for less-expensive showings. A silent film is a film which has no accompanying soundtrack. ...

After the development of sound movies, theatre organs were still occasionally retained to provide live music between features; many others were scrapped, or sold to churches, private homes, museums, ice rinks, rollatoriums, and restaurants (especially pizzerias). In that era, many of the tonal characteristics of theatre organs became somewhat more exaggerated than they had been in the silent movie era. A church building is a building used in Christian worship. ... A museum is typically a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education enjoyment, the tangible and intangible evidence of people and their environment. ... An ice rink is a frozen body of water where people can ice skate or play winter sports. ... Roller skating girl in Rome, Italy (soul grind) Roller skating is travelling on smooth terrain with roller skates. ... Toms Diner, a restaurant in New York familiarized by Suzanne Vega and the television sitcom Seinfeld A restaurant is an establishment that serves prepared food and beverages to be consumed on the premises. ... A supreme pizza such as this one includes many different toppings, such as pepperoni (one of the most popular toppings on American pizzas), green peppers, olives, and mushrooms. ...

Technological Variations

• Horseshoe Console
• Decoupled Keyboard