Frog Music Press

The Organ started out as one set of pipes played from keys.

Now it can be many sets of pipes played from many keyboards, including a keyboard played by the feet.

The connecting together of various pipes and keyboards is complicated but part of the attraction of playing the organ, the ability to control so many different sounds and voices.

In the early 1900's theater organ builders added traps...drums, whistles and sound effects, based upon the addition of bells and bird whistles to organs back at Bach's time.  Even pianos were hooked up to be played from the organ keyboards.

We'll use the piano as an example.

When an organist pushed a stoptab marked piano, every time he played a key a signal would go down a wire to a pneumatic that would fire and make the piano hammer strike the correct string.  Keep that in mind.

Pianos often had players that read the holes in a long roll of paper, the hole activating a piano hammer to play a note.  Keep this in mind as well.

In the 1980's three musical instrument manufacturers, all engineers, got together and formed the MIDI Manufacturer's Association and created MIDI.  The Musical Instrument Digital Interface.  It was an agreement that the cable in the picture below could be plugged into any instrument by a member of the association and expect to the able to play and share sounds of this instrument from another from any member of the MIDI Association.  Ikutaro Kakehashi, the founder of Roland, was one of those three engineers.

The common MIDI Interface, the plugs, the cable and the sockets.

Rodgers got on board very quickly.

Rodgers organs had these plugs on them.  Roland built MIDI Voice modules that had strings, trumpets and other sounds in small electronic boxes as well as the Rodgers C-100 Keyboard that had instrumental sounds.

Plug any of these into a Rodgers Organ and they would add their voices to the organ, playing from their own speakers in some cases, but better yet from the Rodgers speaker system.

So you could play the organ AND play a string orchestra at the same time.

In 2001 Frog Music Press was founded after a dealer gave Noel Jones a PR-300.

The PR-300 was two MIDI Modules in one simple  box.  A Sequencer (which would record and playback like a player piano) and a Voice Module with a large library of strings, trumpets and other instruments and sound effects.

The Birth of: FROG MUSIC's MUSIC FOR ORGAN WITH MIDI ORCHESTRA ACCOMPANIMENT

Lauren Gadd, a LifeWay composer, and Noel got together and wrote music for this PR-300.  Frog Music started out selling books of An Angelic Christmas that sold with a floppy disk.

Here's how you used them:  Put the music score up on the music rack, choose your organ stops then insert the floppy disk in the PR-300 and press PLAY.

The Orchestral arrangement would begin to play  from the module and would be heard through the organ speakers.  You, the organist, would then play your part.

• How it works:  Floppy Disk plays Voices in PR-300 through Organ Speakers  

Later development:  MR-200 & MX-200 replace PR-300 - MR plays floppy disks and from memory - MX has MIDI Voices, including organ pipes.  Both are required to play Frog Music's Music for Organ with MIDI Orchestral Accompaniment books.

Even Later:  MR-200 removed from product line.  Frog Music begins production of AUDIO CD's to make any church with a sound system able to enjoy hearing Frog Music's Music for Organ with MIDI Orchestral Accompaniment books.

The Birth of: FROG MUSIC's INVISIBLE ORGANIST AND BACH BY IMMERSION

James Pressler and Noel Jones then started creating disks that play the organ.

• How it works:  Floppy Disk plays Organ Stops and Keys.