Harald Sakshaug's Home Page

The "Steinkjer Positiv"

my 20 year project.

Since I like techno, mechanical objects and play music, it somewhat is obvious I should have a soft spot for mechanical music instruments. And I have to admit, I do.

The town where I grew up, Steinkjer just north of Trondheim there was several instruments builders. There were built around 600 instruments in a periode of 60 years. The oldest known Steinkjer Positiv is made by instrument builder Tharaldsen in 1856. He have made around 400 of the 600 instruments.

So what is a Steinkjer Positive?

The instrument carry many names depending on which part of the world it is described. I have heard Grinder Organ, Barrel Organ, Street Organ and Monkey Grinder just to mention a few. The local name here in Steinkjer for these music instruments is "Positive". Under you will see a photo from Trønder Avisa 9th of May 2007 where Charles Karlsen is playing one of these instruments. Charles have worked many years to document the history and details about these instruments.

Charles Karlsen playing a Steinkjer Positive.

These instruments have a barrel inside which lifts pushrods to open valves. The valves then let air from the airchest to up to four rows of flutes. Most Steinkjer Positives har four "choirs" of flutes. There were usually 22 flutes which was tuned for playing local historical music, such as Polka, Waltz, March and so on. How do they sound I hear you ask... And you can start this order to listen to a similar hand cranked instrument.

The instrument on this video is a Busker Organ, and it plays paper rolls instead of barrels. But I guess you can get an idea for how these plays. However I urge you to also listen to this one and you will hear that the instrument can be rather versatile! If you are wondering how the mechanical part works, look at this video where you can see the barrel holding up to 10 songs lifts the pushrods which operate the valves for the flutes.

These instruments are highly sought after, and is really hard to purchase. And if you find one, it is usually in need of restoration and have a very high price at the same time. So what to do when you want one? Anwer: YOU MAKE ONE YOURSELF.

One can purchase plans and parts for street organs at various sources. My favourite would be the Busker Organs. They are not so complicated to make, and they play paper roll music which can be bought from several suppliers.

If you want a real barrel organ with a barrel holding pianowire pins and lifters, you have no choice than to look at other organs and design your own as far as I know. I wanted a barrel organ, so I had to design one myself.

I recommend people to contact organ flute builders in order to learn the basic tricks of the trade. I did this, and I have never regretted the year of research and discussions which led to the flute design and menzuris I have been building. My organ is a free and modern derivation of the original Steinkjer Positives. It has major parts similar as 200 years old instruments, but I have introduced plastic parts for valve openings. I also plan to install a MIDI chip which have attenuators for opening the valves electrically. By this my instrument will play any music, and I dont have to rely only on the 8-9 songs nailed into the barrel.

It is however the flutes which makes the sound, and all the sound is a result from your work with them. The mecanics inside the instrument is also rather complicated to make, but it is after all just mechanics.

I did make my flutes from 6 parts of wood. The "top" of the flute is where the hole where the sounds is made. I made the top part and the inner central blocks of birch. Birch is a hardwood, accessible and it do not get so much affected by damp air. The 3 remaning parts, sides and bottom i made from ordinary spruce. Pine is not a good material for flutes, since it is perforated. Spruce is a better choice even if this also is highly affected by damp air.

I will have two types of pipes in my organ, the lowest sounds will come from enclosed (gedacht) pipes, and the highest notes from open pipes. There will be one bottom rach of mostly open 8 feet enclosed flutes. And then three choirs of one enclosed 2 feet, and one open 2 feet. I have plans for adding a 2' perfect fifth, flute rack also, to get the sound a bit more powerful.

gedacht

To the left here you can see the design of the enclosed flutes, It is litterally a box of 4 wooden pieces with a plug with airchannels on the left side, and a plug on the right side which is moveable to tune the flute. They are actually not so complicated to make, and if one follows the menzuri lists carefully, they even sound rather good and loud. The trick is to make all pipes sound dymaically the same. If not careful when making them, lower pitched flutes might not be loud enough.

open

The open flues do not have the plug to the right, but either an adjustable metal flip, or as the drawing, a wooden piece to adjust the pitch of the flute.

Under the baseplate of the instrument, the flutes are fed with air from airchannels created in the plate. On the three top choirs the flutes are fed having pushrod valves to turn them on and off. (The 3 merbau wooden "sticks" pointing out on one side of the baseplate in the images below)

I did design my instrument in Autocad, and I have put the drawings here for you to see. I have tried my best to both 2D and 3D design this instrument so I know there is space for everything inside. But I must admit, there is quite a few issues which I have to solve when I make it. (Click on the images in order to see the full size picture)

If you wonder which menzuri I use on each flute choir, you can look at my menzur list written in Excel downloadable as a zipped file. This zipfile is in norwegian regarding comments, but if you wish to know a little more, I can translate if you ask.

I have been working on this project quite a bit, but not enough in order to have any instrument playable. But I still add a few imges here from the things I have made so far. Basically the valves, airchest and 8 feet flutes are done.

My instrument will have a handcranced double bellow which will pressurise the windchest (box under valves). If I avoid leaks this box will have a constant pressure of wind for the flutes, and with a large bellow, enough wind to play up to 16 flutes at a time. When one valve is opened, the air escape into channels which leads to the flute underneath, and to the 3 flutes on the top. The botton flute will always play, but the top ones can be selected one by one. Basically the instrument then will be able to play 4 flutes for each tone at maximum, and one flute per tone as minimum. This is to enable dynamics to the music which is played.

These instruments I believe originally came from Germany. And many of the finest instruments of this type is built there today. The mechanical organ comes in a variety of sizes from a hand held unit to a full orchestra which need to be transported on a hanger.

Hope you liked this very short introduction about my project. We are not many instrument builders in the world, so feel free to contact me if you have a similar project.


Side view of all faces with internals in place.	Front view with four feet flutes in situ.

Bottom view with 8 feet flutes in situ under the instrument .	Push valves inside airbox.

Vindchest and valves opened to show the operation of them. In the back you can see the 3 choir selector valves which can be pushed out or in to let air go to the choir.
Under the instrument is the location of the 8 feet flutes. There is 4 unbuilt flutes, and half a bass only in the picture.	Vindchest and valves close up.
Array of choir valves. One pull this out one inch and allow air to the array of flutes. This enables the instrument to play with only one array or selectable between them. The 8 feet bottom one will always play, but the 3 top ones can be turned on or off.	How the valves is covering the windchest. When the valve opens, pressured air in the windchest leaves the hole in the top into the row of flutes just behind it.