There are many reasons why the 3,300-odd people who follow Matthew Kaminski on Twitter might have chosen to do so.

They might have seen him perform around Atlanta with one of the many musical acts with which he plays. Kaminski has done piano in a salsa band and accordion in a polka band. He’s also released a jazz organ record, and plays all three of these instruments for a burlesque troupe called Dames Aflame. They also could be among his piano students at Georgia’s Peggy Still School of Music or his classmates in Georgia State University’s Masters of Music program.

But perhaps the best reason to follow Kaminski is right there in his Twitter handle, @bravesorganist. When he’s not playing jazz, polka or salsa, Kaminski plays the organ at Atlanta’s Turner Field during Braves home games — and he’s taking requests through Twitter.

This is now his third season with the Braves, and by crowdsourcing roughly half of his in-game playlist, Kaminski has allowed his followers to hear their quirkiest suggestions for visiting teams’ at-bat music played live for the tomahawk-chopping multitudes. (It’s certainly cooler than requesting John Fogerty’s “Centerfield” on your local classic rock station.)

Kaminski took some time recently to chat by email with Wired.com about his Twitter request-line gambit, what happens when baseball and crowdsourcing mix, and what the future holds for his long-beloved profession.

Wired.com: Obviously your keyboard skills are not limited to playing “Charge!” at the appropriate moment. You’re pursuing your master’s degree at Georgia State and play in a half-dozen different groups. How does being a ballpark organist fit into your musical career? And how does someone even get one of these (sadly vanishing) jobs?

Matthew Kaminski: The way I got the Braves organist position was pure luck! An adult organ student of mine knew the audio engineer for the Braves and asked me if I was interested in the job. I immediately said, “Yes!” I got an interview a couple of weeks later and submitted a CD of me playing baseball-type songs. I guess that went well, because they asked me to play at the two preseason games at Turner Field as an “audition.” Things went really well in those two games and I got the job.

Of course, I still teach roughly 20 students a week, and am a husband and father of an 11-month-old girl. So I have to juggle all these things, which is difficult. During the summer, I teach my students in the mornings/afternoons and then go to the ballpark at night.

Wired.com: Where did the idea to use Twitter for these purposes come from? It’s one thing to use it to promote your jazz performances or your record — everyone, to a certain extent, uses Twitter to promote themselves — but this seems like a pretty serious leap from that.

Kaminski: Matt Montemayor, our production manager at Turner Field, was asking us (the audio/visual crew) about Twitter and how it was different from Facebook and such. I really didn’t know at the time, so I decided to sign up for an account. Then, another co-worker began to list the songs that I was playing. I got tired of him asking me which songs I was playing for which player, so I decided to start posting it myself and it ballooned from there.

Wired.com: To what extent do you actually crowdsource your musical decisions? There’s clearly a lot of interaction going on there, but how frequently does one of your followers suggests a song choice and you think, “That’s a really good idea. I’m going to do that”?

Kaminski: I would guess that it’s about 50/50 nowadays between my ideas and the fans’ ideas. One of the best fan-made suggestions was the theme to the “The Office” for Philadelphia’s Ryan Howard. “Ryan Howard” is a character on The Office, but since I don’t watch the show that much, I never would have gotten that one.

I also like doing “The Right Stuff” by New Kids on the Block for David Wright, and the Slinky song for Zack Greinke.

Wired.com: You’ve made some amusing suggestions in your feed about song choices. I especially enjoyed the idea that you’d introduce Dillon Gee of the New York Mets just by playing an extended G note. How much latitude do you have in terms of getting weird with these? And which of your more avant-garde choices are you especially proud of?

‘I think that organists add a spontaneous edge that you can’t get with pre-recorded music. I can play something at a moment’s notice.’

Kaminski: They’ve pretty much given me the OK on almost everything that I’ve done. The one that I’m most proud of is playing the Morse code of “S.O.S.” for Michael Morse of the Washington Nationals. I don’t know how many people get that one, but I’ll bet that it’s the only time anyone has played Morse code at a ballgame.

For Dillon Gee, I had to introduce that G note, so I played the A, B, C, D, E, F part of the alphabet song and then held the G for a long time so people would know which note I was holding. I think that a fan suggested the alphabet song part and I came up with just holding the G.

Wired.com: Baseball organists are something of an endangered species these days, and old-school organists like Nancy Faust of the Chicago White Sox had seemed for a long time like the last of their kind. You’ve shown that the gig can be brought up to date with Twitter and some of the songs on your set list, but are you worried that there won’t be any ballpark organists in a few years?

Kaminski: I can imagine doing this for a long time, and I hope I will. It’s just so much fun and I really enjoy making the baseball fans happy. I think that organists add a spontaneous edge that you can’t get with pre-recorded music. I can play something at a moment’s notice, whereas the sound engineer would have to search for a particular song or clip of music.

I’m here for the fans, not to play my favorite songs, and so I love getting suggestions and hearing what the fans (for any team) have to offer. The organ just goes with baseball so well. It’s the sound of the ballpark.

Photos: Courtesy Atlanta Braves

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