Common questions about the band, the typewriters, and booking.
The Boston Typewriter Orchestra is an experimental percussion ensemble that performs rhythmic compositions on manual typewriters, combining music with office-themed performance, comedy, and satire.
The Boston Typewriter Orchestra was founded in 2004 in the Boston area, with its first performance in Somerville, Massachusetts, on October 20, 2004.
The Boston Typewriter Orchestra began in 2004 in the Boston area as a joke its founders decided to make real. Co-founder Brendan Quigley has described the spark as hearing a pop song on the radio — Wham!’s “Last Christmas” — and thinking it would sound better played on eight typewriters than by a band. The group started as a bunch of friends banging on typewriters and grew into a band with structured compositions and a set list.
The Boston Typewriter Orchestra typically performs with four to eight members, who appear in matching white shirts and ties.
The Boston Typewriter Orchestra is made up of members who hold day jobs outside music, including a software engineer, a crossword-puzzle constructor (co-founder Brendan Quigley), and librarians, among others. Several members also play in other bands.
The Boston Typewriter Orchestra is based in the Boston, Massachusetts area, and originated in Somerville, Massachusetts.
The Boston Typewriter Orchestra plays manual typewriters as percussion instruments, using the keys, carriage returns, and bells of vintage desktop and portable machines, along with voice.
The Boston Typewriter Orchestra plays vintage manual typewriters — brands such as Underwood, Royal, and Smith Corona — ranging from small portables to large desktop machines and mostly 50 to 70 years old, chosen for their distinctive sounds. Members source them through online marketplaces such as Craigslist and eBay and through donations from fans.
A manual typewriter offers several distinct sounds: the individual keys make a sharp clack, the shift moves the heavier mechanics for a bass note, the roller adds a ratcheting sound, and the carriage return gives a sweeping swoosh. The Boston Typewriter Orchestra combines these, along with the bell, to build out each part.
No. The Boston Typewriter Orchestra removes the ribbons from its typewriters, so the machines are not typing readable text. The performers play them purely as percussion instruments, coaxing rhythm out of the keys, bells, and moving parts.
Yes. The manual typewriters the Boston Typewriter Orchestra plays are fragile and wear out under hard use, with keys snapping off and parts failing, so the group continually repairs and replaces machines. Members do most of the upkeep themselves, with some repairs over the years from Cambridge Typewriter, a local typewriter shop. Members estimate a machine lasts only about two to three years of hard playing.
Yes. The Boston Typewriter Orchestra has appeared on NBC’s America’s Got Talent (2011), The Kelly Clarkson Show (2020), NBC Nightly News (2023), Chicago’s WGN Morning News (2024), WCVB’s Chronicle (2025), and CBS Boston’s WBZ-TV, among other programs.
Yes. The Boston Typewriter Orchestra remains active and performing. The group marked its 20th anniversary in 2024 and has continued to tour and draw press coverage through 2025 and 2026.
Yes. The Boston Typewriter Orchestra appears in California Typewriter, the 2016 documentary about typewriter enthusiasts that also features Tom Hanks.
The Boston Typewriter Orchestra is based in the Boston, Massachusetts area but tours regionally and nationally. Recent performances include Sag Harbor, New York (2025), Milwaukee, Wisconsin (2025), and the Berkshires in western Massachusetts (2022).
The Boston Typewriter Orchestra performs original compositions such as “Entropy Begins at the Office” and “Left Blank,” along with a typewriter rendition of the surf-rock classic “Wipe Out” that the group titles “Wite-Out.”
The Boston Typewriter Orchestra writes its own material, usually starting from an interesting sound a member discovers on a particular machine and building a structured piece around it. The group performs without a conductor and arranges parts so that sections function like the verses and choruses of a rock song.
Yes. Although it performs on manual typewriters, the Boston Typewriter Orchestra plays structured, rhythmic compositions rather than random noise; Boston’s GBH public radio described the results as “weirdly impressive music.”
Booking and contact information for the Boston Typewriter Orchestra is available on the band’s official website, bostontypewriterorchestra.com.