GoKawiilIn 2017, I bought an old Magnus chord organ off Craigslist for $10. It’s one of my favorite music gear purchases. Electric chord organs let you play full chords with just a press of a button, making them perfect for aspiring singer-songwriters or fooling around at home. But chord organs largely fell out of favor in the ’80s, as digital keyboards like those from Casio grew in popularity.
The Telepathic Instruments Orchid attempts to recapture some of that simple parlor instrument magic. Just like those vintage electric chord organs, the Orchid allows you to play rich chord progressions without having to master a ton of theory or complex fingering. It’s not an instrument that demands mastery. It’s a way for songwriters to sketch out ideas with minimal fuss, and it expands on the chord organ heritage with distinctly modern twists.
The Orchid was designed in collaboration with Kevin Parker of Tame Impala. Aesthetically, it harkens back to ’60s brown-and-tan organs by the likes of Magnus and Bontempi. The speaker grill even resembles the fan vents on those classic instruments. It’s definitely a spiritual successor, just, you know, a lot more expensive at $649.
But where a Magnus organ is limited in how many one-button chords it can play by the number of physical reeds it can hold, the Orchid is all digital and can theoretically play any chord, in any voicing, from any scale. It also means that the Orchid can sound like more than just the beautiful droney cousin of an accordion.
Photo: Terrence O’Brien / The Verge
For a songwriter, this means you can focus on your lyrics and vocal melody. If, like me, you struggle to sing and play an instrument at the same time, this can take a huge mental load off. The variety of sounds also means that not everything needs to sound like a funeral dirge or a sea shanty, which isn’t necessarily the case with an old-school chord organ.
If you have even a passing knowledge of music theory (and it would be generous to call mine even passing), you should have little trouble with Orchid. There’s a one-octave keyboard and a handful of buttons to the left of it that correspond to different chord types, i.e., major, minor, diminished, major 7th, and so on. Press C and major, and you get a C major. Press F# and 9, and you get an F#9. Simple.
The Orchid’s E-Piano sound playing chord stabs over a drum beat.(opens a new window) The Orchid’s E-Piano sound playing chord stabs over a drum beat.
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