Bruce asks whether he should build a calliope with a smaller scale
(range).  On a 20-note organ, the scale is F to D -- a little over
2 1/2 octaves.  That's a total of about thirty-three notes.  But the
20-note scale leaves out most of the sharps; so it is diatonic.  The
typical air calliope can be played by hand; so it has all the chromatic
notes on the piano keyboard.   If you are only going to play it from
MIDI, you could leave out some pipes, just like the barrel-organ people
do.  A 43-note range would be about twenty-six or twenty-eight notes,
without the sharps.  But it would be confusing for someone to play by
hand, if it's not chromatic.

Regards,
Craig Smith,
Upstate New York