Calliope (music)

A calliope (see below for pronunciation) is a musical instrument that produces sound by sending a gas, originally steam or, more recently, compressed air, through large whistles—originally locomotive whistles.
A calliope is typically very loud. Even some small calliopes are audible for miles. There is no way to vary tone or loudness. Musically, the only expression possible is the pitch, rhythm, and duration of the notes.
The steam calliope is also known as a steam organ or steam piano. The air-driven calliope is sometimes called a calliaphone, the name given to it by Norman Baker, but the "Calliaphone" name is registered by the Miner Company for instruments produced under the Tangley name.
In the age of steam, the steam calliope was particularly used on riverboats and in circuses. In both cases, a steam supply was readily available for other purposes. Riverboats supplied steam from their propulsion boilers. Circus calliopes were sometimes installed in steam-drive carousels, or supplied with steam from a traction engine. The traction engine could also supply electric power for lighting, and tow the calliope in the circus parade, where it traditionally came last. Other circus calliopes were self-contained, mounted on a carved, painted and gilded wagon pulled by horses, but the presence of other steam boilers in the circus meant that fuel and expertise to run the boiler were readily available. Steam instruments often had keyboards made from brass. This was in part to resist the heat and moisture of the steam, but also for the golden shine of the highly polished keys.
Calliopes can be played by a player at a keyboard or mechanically. Mechanical operation may be by a drum similar to a music box drum, or by a roll similar to that of a player piano. Some instruments have both a keyboard and a mechanism for automated operation, others only one or the other. Some calliopes can also be played via a MIDI interface.
The whistles of a calliope are tuned to a chromatic scale, although this process is difficult and must be repeated often to maintain quality sound. Since the pitch of each note is largely affected by the temperature of the steam, accurate tuning is nearly impossible; however, the off-pitch notes (particularly in the upper register) have become something of a trademark of the steam calliope. A calliope may have anywhere from 25 to 67 whistles, but 32 is traditional for a steam calliope.
History.
Joshua C. Stoddard of Worcester, Massachusetts patented the calliope on October 9, 1855, though his design echos previous concepts, such as an 1832 instrument called a "steam trumpet," later known as a train whistle. In 1851, William Hoyt of Dupont, Indiana claimed to have conceived of a device similar to Stoddard's calliope, but he never patented it. Later, an employee of Stoddard's American Music, Arthur S. Denny, attempted to market an "Improved Kalliope" in Europe, but it did not catch on. In 1859, he demonstrated this instrument in Crystal Palace, London. Unlike other calliopes before or since, Denny's Improved Kalliope let the player control the steam pressure, and therefore the volume of the music, while playing.
While Stoddard originally intended the calliope to replace bells at churches, it found its way onto riverboats during the paddlewheel era. While only a small number of working steamboats still exist, each has a steam calliope. These boats include the "Delta Queen", the "Belle of Louisville", and "President". Their calliopes are played regularly on river excursions. Many surviving calliopes were built by Thomas J. Nichol, Cincinnati, Ohio, who built calliopes from 1890 until 1932. The Thomas J. Nichol calliopes featured rolled sheet copper (as used in roofing) for the resonant tube (the bell) of the whistle, lending a sweeter tone than cast bronze or brass, which were the usual materials for steam whistles of the day. David Morecraft pioneered a resurgence in the building of authentic steam calliopes of the Thomas J. Nichol style beginning in 1985 in Peru, Indiana. These calliopes are featured in Peru's annual Circus City Parade. Morecraft died on December 5, 2016.
Stoddard's original calliope was attached to a metal roller set with pins in the manner familiar to Stoddard from the contemporary clockwork music box. The pins on the roller opened valves that admitted steam into the whistles. Later, Stoddard replaced the cylinder with a keyboard, so that the calliope could be played like an organ.
Starting in the 1900’s calliopes began using music rolls instead of a live musician. The music roll operated in a similar manner to a piano roll in a player piano, mechanically operating the keys. Many of these mechanical calliopes retained keyboards, allowing a live musician to play them if needed. During this period, compressed air began to replace steam as the vehicle of producing sound.
Most calliopes disappeared in the mid-20th century, as steam power was replaced with other power sources. Without the demand for technicians that mines and railroads supplied, no support was available to keep boilers running. Only a few calliopes have survived, and these are rarely played.
Pronunciation.
The pronunciation of the word has long been disputed, and often it is pronounced differently inside and outside the groups that use it. The Greek muse by the same name is pronounced , but the instrument was usually pronounced by people who played it. A nineteenth century magazine, "Reedy's Mirror", attempted to settle the dispute by publishing this rhyme:
This, in turn, came from a poem by Vachel Lindsay, called "The Kallyope Yell",
in which Lindsay uses both pronunciations.
In the song "Blinded by the Light", written in 1972, Bruce Springsteen used the four-syllable () pronunciation when referring to a fairground organ, and this was repeated by Manfred Mann's Earth Band in their 1976 cover.
Related instruments.
Pyrophone.
The calliope is similar to the pyrophone. The difference between the two is that the calliope is an external combustion instrument and the pyrophone is an internal combustion instrument.
At 1998's Burning Man, a pyrophone referred to as "Satan's Calliope" was powered by ignition of propane inside resonant cavities. This device was incorrectly referred to as a "calliope", since a calliope is an external combustion instrument.
Calliaphone.
The Calliaphone is an invention of Norman Baker. He developed
an air-blown (versus steam) instrument that could be easily transported.
Lustre chantant.
The "lustre chantant" (literally "singing chandelier") or musical lamp, invented by Frederik Kastner, was a large chandelier with glass pipes of varying lengths each illuminated and heated by an individual gas jet. A keyboard allowed the player to turn down individual jets; as the glass tube cooled, a note was produced. Kastner installed several such instruments in Paris.
Popular culture.
The Beatles, in recording "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" from the album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," used tapes of calliope music to create the atmosphere of a circus. Beatles producer George Martin recalled, "When we first worked on 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!' John had said that he wanted to 'smell the sawdust on the floor', wanted to taste the atmosphere of the circus. I said to him, 'What we need is a calliope.' 'A what?' 'Steam whistles, played by a keyboard. Unable to find an authentic calliope, Martin resorted to tapes of calliopes playing Sousa marches. "[I] chopped the tapes up into small sections and had Geoff Emerick throw them up into the air, re-assembling them at random."
The song "The Tears of a Clown" from Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, first released in 1967 and whose music was composed by Stevie Wonder and Hank Cosby, features a distinctive circus calliope motif, which inspired Smokey Robinson with the lyrical theme of the sad clown.
The art rockers of the United States of America used the instrument on several tracks of their eponymous 1968 album (recorded 1967).
American rock band Kiss used a calliope on their song 'Flaming Youth' from their 1976 album Destroyer.
Tom Waits' 2002 release "Blood Money" features a track written for trumpet and calliope.
Vernian Process' 2011 single "Something Wicked (That Way Went)" features a sampled calliope throughout.
In the "Thomas & Friends" episode "Percy and the Calliope", Percy the Small Engine saves a calliope from the scrapyard.
In "In the Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson, the main theme of the title song is played on a calliope towards the end of the piece.
During Madonna's The Girlie Show tour, during the encore for "Holiday", the credits include the statement, "contains excerpts from "Holiday for Calliope"," which was, in general, the hook for "Holiday" played with a calliope. Additionally, a generalized circus theme was played with a calliope sound through part of the song.
In the web series "Bravest Warriors", there is a theoretical system (similar to string theory) humorously dubbed the "Space Time Calliope" in which an infinite number of universes and timelines exist. The name is possibly referencing the mechanical complexity of calliopes.
The Bruce Springsteen song more popularly covered by Manfred Mann's Earth Band "Blinded by the Light" contains the line "the calliope crashed to the ground".
The Barclay James Harvest song "Medicine Man" uses the lyric "And didn't anybody want to ask the calliope to call the tune". This song was a great concert favourite and concerned a sinister travelling fair and carousel.
At one point in the "SpongeBob SquarePants" episode "Free Samples", SpongeBob uses a calliope to lure potential customers to his free samples stand. Instead, the calliope does the opposite.
In "The Red Green Show" episode "Out of the Woods", Red makes a calliope using a v8 engine and an assortment of old exhaust pipes.
In "Girl Genius", the main character Agatha Heterodyne is given a calliope to repair by a travelling circus that had been wrecked, and thought to be beyond repair, in volumes 4 and 5. In the climax of volume 6, it is revealed she had modified it to control an army of small robots.
The Italian alternative metal band Ravenscry released a song called "Calliope" on their 2009 self-titled album.
In Larry Niven's "The Ringworld Engineers": "The puppeteer wasn't in sight, but presently Louis heard the sound of a steam calliope dying in agony."
In Terry Pratchett's novel "Moving Pictures", the theater-owner's daughter who sells banged grains and sings between shows is named "Calliope", which may be used to evoke the ornate movie house as "temple" of ancient gods, or else a play on the daughter's singing abilities.
On Cream's Wheels of Fire album, Jack Bruce is credited as playing the calliope on the song Passing the Time.
The 2013 video game "Bioshock Infinite" features an audio track of an instrumental calliope cover of Cyndi Lauper's 1983 single "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", and is heard as the player progresses through the "Battleship Bay" area of the fictional city of Columbia. This song appears as one of a number of anachronisms that occur within the context of the game's story, as it takes place decades before the song was composed in the real-world timeline.