Images from the Tea Room Orchestrion by the Seeburg Company, ca. 1913 NMM 6022. Orchestrion by J. P. Seeburg Company, Chicago, ca. 1913. Style G. Torch style art glass. Gift of Douglas and Phyllis Adam, Yankton, South Dakota, 1996. "Nobody Can Listen to it Without Smiling!" Douglas and Phyllis Adam of Yankton, South Dakota, who donated this valuable piece of Americana to the Museum, promised that "nobody can listen to it without smiling," and they were right. Exhibited in the Museum's Jeanne F. Larson Tea Room, just off the front lobby, the orchestrion delights visitors who can still hear it played for only a nickel. Often called nickelodeons, because they play automatically each time a nickel is dropped into the slot, orchestrions were popular in restaurants, hotel lobbies, and saloons. This example, Seeburg's famous Model G, features Torch Style leaded art glass windows, set into an oak case. The instruments inside, may of which can be seen when the doors are opened, include a piano, two ranks of organ pipes (flute and violin), mandolin, snare drum, bass drum, timpani, cymbal, and triangle. Using a pneumatic action powered by an electric motor, the instrument is operated by changeable perforated paper rolls that each contain ten different tunes, many of them melodies from the 19th-century operatic and orchestral repertoire. Technologically advanced for their time, such instruments remind us of the many revolutionary inventions of a hundred years ago--the light bulb, the internal-combustion engine, the telephone, motion pictures, and the list goes on and on--that changed lives then perhaps even more dramatically than the new technologies of today. Dr. Deborah Check Reeves, Curator of Education, promises a chance to hear--and watch--the mechanical marvel, as a reward for good behavior at the end of the many tours that she gives for visiting children. Even "sophisticated" college students find it impossible to resist the instrument's noisy appeal. Left: This leaded art glass panel inclues a pastoral scene with a cabin under some trees on the shore of a lake with a mountain in the background. Right: A windmill and a large barn are silhouetted against the trees in this leaded art glass panel on the right door of the Museum's 1913 Seeburg orchestrion. Excerpted from: André P. Larson, "Nobody Can Listen to It Without Smiling!," America's Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter, 24, No. 2 (January 1997), pp. 1-2 and The South Dakota Musician (Winter 1997), cover and p. 18.   Click arrow to continue Tour of Exhibits in Lobby, Hallways, Concert Hall, and Tea Room Go to Exhibits in Lobby, Hallways, Concert Hall, and Tea Room Tour Index Go to Virtual Tour Index Go to Checklist of Keyboard Instruments A postcard of the orchestrion is available from the Gift Shop National Music Museum The University of South Dakota 414 East Clark Street Vermillion, SD   57069 ©National Music Museum, 2001-2008 Most recent update:   February 7, 2008 You are the 23,741st visitor to this page since February 6, 2001. The University of South Dakota Return to Top of Page