Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A large mechanical instrument resembling a barrel organ that produces sound in imitation of an orchestra.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A mechanical musical instrument, essentially similar to a barrel-organ, but having many different stops, etc., which allow the imitation of a large variety of orchestral instruments and the production of quite complicated musical works. Many different names have been applied to different varieties of the instrument.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A large music box imitating a variety of orchestral instruments.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun music a mechanical multiple musical instrument which allows one player to play all the parts of an orchestrated piece of music.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[orchestr(a) + (melod)eon.]

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Examples

  • "'I see in St. Louis once what they call a orchestrion [93],' says

    Heart of the West [Annotated] O. Henry 1886

  • Orchestrion brings a musical idea from the late 19th and early 20th centuries -- a large mechanical multi-instrument device that utilizes actual orchestral instruments of various types, called an "orchestrion" -- to the technologies of today.

    Marketwire - Breaking News Releases 2010

  • Orchestrion brings a musical idea from the late 19th and early 20th centuries - a large mechanical multi-instrument device that utilizes actual orchestral instruments of various types, called an "orchestrion" - to the technologies of today.

    JamBase 2009

  • Performing with the orchestrion is a primary motivation behind the endeavor.

    NPR Topics: News 2010

  • Performing with the orchestrion is a primary motivation behind the endeavor.

    NPR Topics: News 2010

  • The term "orchestrion" once described a self-playing, multi-instrumental music machine that disappeared almost a century ago.

    Metheny's One-Man Band Ashley Kahn 2010

  • The term "orchestrion" once described a self-playing, multi-instrumental music machine that disappeared almost a century ago.

    Metheny's One-Man Band Ashley Kahn 2010

  • The term "orchestrion" once described a self-playing, multi-instrumental music machine that disappeared almost a century ago.

    Metheny's One-Man Band Ashley Kahn 2010

  • Bob and Paul Milhous became obsessed one day with owning a Weber Maestro orchestrion, a huge mechanical instrument that generates the sounds of a 24-piece orchestra.

    From Old Cars to an Orchestrion Ellen Gamerman 2011

  • If there's anything about Metheny's orchestrion that might raise eyebrows, it's the lack of human interaction.

    Man And Machines: Pat Metheny's Orchestrion 2010

Comments

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  • Pat Metheny has re-invented this turn-of-the-twentieth-century contraption.

    April 17, 2010

  • The player piano and rest be gone,

    Obsessives are on a quest beyond

    To catch every part

    Of symphonic art

    In gears of a wondrous orchestrion.

    April 2, 2017