A type of Reed organ. The instrument was developed by John Baillie-Hamilton [James Baillie Hamilton] (b Scotland, 20 Jan 1837; d London, after 1926), originally in an attempt to combine the sounds of free reeds and strings. A modified instrument in which wires were attached to heavy reed tongues was demonstrated before the Royal Musical Association in 1883, but the wires were deleted from the three-manual vocalion built at William Hill’s factory and shown at the International Inventions Exhibition of 1885 in London. In the same year Hamilton, who appears to have worked briefly with the Canadian organ builder S.R. Warren, exhibited the vocalion in the USA; he began to manufacture such instruments in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1886. Shortly thereafter production was turned over to the New York Church Organ Co., and in 1890 to the piano makers Mason & Risch, who continued manufacture in Worcester. In 1901 the firm was called the Vocalion Organ Co. In 1903 this firm was absorbed by the Aeolian Co., which continued to make vocalions until around 1910. Aeolian had already begun in the 1890s to use vocalion reeds for their ‘Orchestrelle’ player organs. The firm also produced self-playing organettes under the names ‘Syreno’ and ‘Tonsyreno’.
Ranging in size from foot-operated single-manual models to ones with two (or occasionally three) manuals and pedal, the vocalion is basically a reed organ on the pressure principle, but with unusually wide reed tongues. It is therefore somewhat bulkier than the average reed organ, but produces a smoother, more powerful sound. This characteristic made the vocalion, often decorated with a façade of dummy organ pipes, popular for use in small churches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
J.B. Hamilton: ‘The Vocalion’, PMA, ix (1882–3), 60–63
J.J. Richards: ‘The Vocalion’, The Diapason, lxvi/9 (1975), 5–7, 19
G.D. and D.A. Williams: ‘A Style 20 Vocalion’, The Tracker, xxiv/2 (1980), 16–17
A.W.J.G. Ord-Hume: Harmonium: the History of the Reed Organ and its Makers (Newton Abbot, 1986)
BARBARA OWEN