Reading MMD, updating my web site and talking to friends on this
weekend, I felt I might also add a few very random thoughts on
this topic.

In May, a friend of mine asked whether I could arrange three or
four pieces by [American pop rock singer] "Pink" for a wedding party.
(For those who don't know her, she's a contemporary pop singer and
songwriter.)  When I listened to them, I found that, with varying
degree, they have what I like about music:

* Melodies that are easy to listen to, yet not trivial;
* Tension -- you wait for what's going to happen next;
* Polyphony -- there is "more than one thing happening all the time";
* Harmonic complexity -- more than just first and fifth and fourth
  degree.

I have arranged "Funhouse" and "Please Don't Leave Me" for 20er
organ, you can listen to recordings of these arrangements on my web
site http://www.haraldmmueller.de/  Go to the 20er arrangements, then
to "Pop", and click on the notes.  (I hope it's okay to advertise my
web site here).

 [ It's quite alright.  We need more noteurs like you and Ingmar!
 [ -- Robbie

Apparently, my arrangements were quite some success at the wedding
party.  Yet, when I listen to Pink's rendition and compare it to the
crank organ, well, it's clear who wins.  Why?  I do believe that one
almost insurmountable problem is that songs are sung.  A singer --
a person -- so much more connects the listeners to the music than an
instrument, and therefore, when songs are arranged for organs (or also
piano), the arrangements lose out.

And this is not only true nowadays.  By chance, I stumbled over a
fairground organ recording of Robert Stolz's "Klingelfee", a song from
1919.  The recording is at http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=clxs45Hw9EY
 
The arrangement is, by and large, well-done.  Still, if you know the
funny and at a few places quite suggestive (of ...) lyrics, which
create a story of their own, the mere melody is only half the fun.

Singing is, arguably, the quintessential music.  Even if the singer
sings a trivial melody, shouts against a battery of drums, croaks into
a microphone, she or he will transport emotions in a way that is much
easier to understand by "all".  (For the same reasons, as far as I
know, there have been only a handful of orchestral pieces at position
"One" on important ratings charts; a few of them, I heard, were jazzy
pieces by Leroy Anderson.)

So we who do mechanical music, which is by definition not singing,
need to look carefully at which music can be adapted to our instruments
sensibly.

One kind of music that comes to mind is film music, most of which is
orchestral.  Composers like Hans Zimmer or James Horner create
memorable melodies that can certainly be arranged on larger organs or
pianos.  Klaus Badelt's and, partially, Hans Zimmer's soundtrack for
"Pirates of the Caribbean" is a hit with all small-town kid's
orchestras here in Germany: I have heard it in the same concert from
a big band, a string orchestra, an accordion group and a solo piano
player!

And rock'n'roll and boogie woogie!  I rarely play my organ in public,
but when I do, almost all children like Elvis and the old boogie
masters from the 1920s and '30s.

Regards,
Harald M. Mueller
from Grafing near Munich - bypassing the Oktoberfest right now,
but I'll try to visit the "Historisches Oktoberfest".