Some people know that I collect automated musical instruments: player pianos, player organs, nickelodeons, and other mechanisms that use a roll of paper to control the playing of the instrument. This was a natural outcome of my fascination of controlling a piece of hardware with "logic" and "software" and my love of music. I have even developed a talk about how free software is like a player piano, and have given this talk several times, complete with illustrations and music played from my piano collection.

Many years ago, I joined the Automatic Musical Instrument Collector's Association (AMICA) [1], and I receive their publications. This month's edition talked about how Yamaha is using Linux in their automated grand pianos to control the automation. These Yamaha Disklavier Mark IV pianos provide an amazing array of features and the ability to download music software updates from the Internet [2].

Pogue's article reminded me of the Marshall & Ogletree Opus 1 organ installed at Trinity Church in New York City. Designed to replace Trinity's real pipe organ, which was destroyed during the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001, the Opus 1 uses 10 Linux PCs to drive 74 channels of sound with between 150 and 500 watts of power for each channel. It even has a "hot stand-by" PC to take over in case the hardware fails on any of the 10 PCs. On their website, the Opus 1 designers say that a certain popular desktop operating system was too unstable for anything as important as an organ recital, which is why they chose Linux. Of course, this instrument is also connected to the Internet and can download new voices or be monitored during an organ concert. You can read more about the instrument and its capabilities online [3].

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