Category: THE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC
Posted by Angelika in THE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC Thursday, 24 December 2009 16:09 No Comments
The Reprouducing Piano. ..What! It can have Babies?
No, not really no.
Baby pianos should not be seperated from their mother and like to fed nursery ryhmes and folk songs
But it’s birth was one of proper recorded live music…
In Part 18 we met the player-piano-player family of instruments.
We learned that many felt that the largest and final fault of these instruments was that they were not actually fully automatic, as the player had to control the tempo and interpret what the tempo should be at any moment in the song. It also could not properly replay the subtle dynamic shading’s of master players.
There was another camp of Players that believed that controlling the tempo, interpreting the flow of the music, much like a conductor is the art of playing these instruments.
Non the less, it is true to say that the scrolls that were created, for many, many years, were created by transcribing or translating the musical notation into a system of perforated holes. (holy music anyone?)
While music notation is an incredibly accurate way of recording the mechanics, the mathematics of the music, the map is not the territory.
It cannot describe the dynamics, the soul of the music that is created through slight fluctuations of tempo and dynamics of struck notes.
This type of problem appeared again many decades later, with the invention of sequencers, drum machines and sound generators.
The technology did not fully mature until it could swing the notes, strike the individual tones with slight changes and differences, put a human soul style into the artificial output.
Then what is a Reproducing Piano? It’s a Piano that can play back or be able to reproduce the performance of a human playing on it or another piano. It effectively records the performance as the changes in notes, tempo and dynamics.
Something to keep in mind, is that Player-Piaono-Players were not seen as passive instruments. These were approached as an accessible interactive musical
Remember this Guy? He's a classic Version of a Piano Player Player, not to get mixed up with a Gangsta Player Player, because then you'll probably get dead.
instrument that were easier to play than any previous music instrument. While the Organette can really be considered the first truly domestic passive automatic instrument but was seen more as a novelty.
This mindset is important to note, because it explains why and how the Reproducing Piano came about more or less as a byproduct or accident.
The earliest versions came about in order to speed up production.
As it was often a very laborious and time consuming job to create the master scroll or stencils, early attempts to notate the scrolls live during a performance we’re mainly created as a way of speeding up the process of creating the music rolls. Even when the master players sat down to record onto these scroll masters, they were often just used as masters and would then be copied by hand (with small variation in where the holes were being created.
The earliest methods, were more used for automatic musical notating that could be used to create a stencil to be cut out by hand afterward.
This should not be under looked, this in fact was probably the first automatic method to record improvisation! (think of of it as a the Protools!)
The First technological breakthrough was the invention of real time perforating machines around 1894. The accuracy of recording the notes was truly amazing when compared to even midi as pianola.org explains;
“ but as early as 1894 there were real-time perforating machines in the USA which could instantly produce rolls from the playing of pianists. George Howlett Davis, an American engineer who worked for a while in the 1890s for the Automaton Piano Company of New York, patented at least two designs for perforating machines, which could be operated from a piano keyboard. In a British patent which he applied for in 1900, he speaks of working to an accuracy of 2,200 perforations per minute, roughly 1/37th of a second. Given that player pianos can reproduce complicated music with many notes simultaneously, this is not so much worse than our present-day MIDI, which, if it is subjected to the twenty-note chords sometimes played by duettists, can only manage 1/50th of a second.”But this still did not record the pacing and dynamics faithfully as the master.
It was in 1904 that an Instrument Called the ‘Mignon Artistic Player Piano’ came into the world. Invented by Edwin Welt and Karl Bockisch
ahh the good ole days.. i still remember Aunt Agatha freaking out.. "Cuthbert!" she cried, "someone's stolen all the liquor in the cabinet and replaced it with a piano!"
for the company Michael Welt and Sohne. This German Company was known through out the world for producing beautiful Orchestrons.
It seems that the ‘mignon’ developed out of the technology they used to record the music rolls for automatic organs.
What we know for sure is that they developed an ‘experimental’ piano playing recording device, this device was able to record a piano performance and then through the use of the Mignon Player Piano automatically play it back reproducing the notes, tempo, dynamics, phrasing and pedaling – thus the first reproducing Piano was born.
It was also an unusual thing to behold, as it was not really a piano player, or player piano. It lacked a keyboard and was often described as looking like an ornate sideboard.
Even though mechanically it was a piano, and that other Reproducing Pianos that followed contained keyboards, I believe the ethos of the Welte-Mignon was telling, this instrument was not meant to be played upon. This was a playback instrument, and the companies aim was to record for playback the performances of the finest Piano players alive.
In fact, the excellent Pianola.org has some recordings of just this click here.
The musical capabilities of this new invention brought the attention of many great pianists, and garnered a well-deserved respect very quickly indeed.
One of it’s great recording features was it’s ability to use electric contacts floating on mercury to record the notes played, thus keeping the feel of the keys light for these maestros to record on.
It wasn’t long before the Mignon mechanism was also installed on Steinway’s and Feurich pianos (this time with Keyboard).
Although there were many other competitors that entered the reproducing market, we’re just going to concentrate on one other, the Aeolian Companies reproducing piano the Duo-art.
The Duo-art hit the market 9 years after the Welte-Mignon, this is quite significant given that the Aeolian Company were by far the biggest player (pun intended) in the Player Piano market.
The reason for this tardiness?
Well my initial thoughts were that the chief engineer had dropped his keys behind the piano, and You know how hard it is to get them back out again..
But apparently I was way, way off. (go figure?)
Pianola.org suggests that reasons were 2 in number.
1) A belief that this technology would not take off, because Pianola players wanted to create their own interpretations of this music, rather than sit and listen passively.
2) The developmental/experimental department was occupied with an unfortunate failure - A synchronized phonograph and player piano.
This once again shows their emphasis on the interactive over the passive.
Unlike the Welte-Mignon, the Duo-Art’s recording process didn’t automatically record the players tempo and dynamics straight from the keys, instead a musical producer would man 2 dials beside the piano that would control the speed and dynamics recorded live onto the perforating machine.
Once a few copies were made, they would be re run the through the machine as a live performance where the producer, the player or the composer himself could control these variations until satisfied with the performance. In some ways the recordings on the Duo-Art can be seen as studio albums, and the Welte-Mignon that of live albums.
Even though it was the phonograph that in the end would later dominate the playback market, their recordings were scratchy and dull at best and required the user to replace the needle itself quite often.
Even to this day, there is something magical about hearing an instrument re-produce live a recording that was captured at another time and place.
Many believe that there is no better substitute to a live performance of a master Pianist.
The player-piano-player family still survives somewhat today. The music scroll versions mainly due to the it’s rare owners loving care and careful restoration. Thanks to modern technologies like midi, they can be used to interpret live performance or even previously recorded, or notated, and then sent to a perforating machine.
they had to fit a car alarm to this, as the local gang kept nicking it, thinking it was a car stereo..
There are new digital technologies that are available for both the player pianos and piano players, proving that the art – the medium still has something going for it. I believe that that while the piano is envogue these instrument’s will also be around.
We’ll soon be devoting a post to these modern versions in our technology section, so watch out for that.
The fall from mass popularity heralded a new way that modern society related to music, this was reflected in the advertising of the day.
Adverts for Player Pianos and Piano Players always had the people in the picture participating in the experience; suddenly these people were passive, concentrating on the performance.
It’s interesting to note that the active participating in the music has made a come back through computer games and hand held’s.
Games such as the Guitar Hero and Rockband Franchises, allow people to get involved with the music they have previously loved only from a passive listening or active dancing state.
Sure games likes these are seen as a novelty now, but they’re immensely popular, who knows what new developments are in store for us in the future?
Speaking of the Future, Merry Christmas Everyone and Happy New Year!!!
CLICK HERE for the previous chapter
CLICK HERE for the INDEX of History Of Electronic Music
Posted by Angelika in THE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC Thursday, 10 December 2009 10:09 No Comments
Part 18. Player Piano Playing vs Piano Player Playing, Confused much?
There’s a very good chance that you’ve heard of the Pianola.
This is a Player-Piano. ( and a baby)
There’s also a very good chance that when you think of the Pianola you think of the upright piano with a window in the middle containing a scroll with holes in the paper. This is because that this was by the far the most popular and well marketed Brand of player piano’s, but the Pianola actually started life as a different device altogether a piano player (and an automatic one at that). Confused yet?
Just to make it a little more confusing, Pioanola is a brand created by the Aeolian Company, there also other brands of Piano Players created by other companies such as The Apollo, The Angelus, the Pleyela and the Simplex which had one of my favorite slogans, “anyone can play anything”
Ok, now that Ive turned a perfectly good introduction into a confusing heap of information let me attempt to get a shovel and dig my way out..
A Piano Player is an automatic device that is separate to the piano or organ. It sits in front and above the keyboard, it reads a perforated scroll and then depresses the keys using small fingers made of wood and metal covered in felt
A Player Piano is a Piano that reads scrolls as part of the inner workings and then strikes the different notes from inside the piano think of it as an all in one device.
..And this is a Piano-Player (no baby).
The First published Piano Player seems to have been invented around 1879 by Merrit Gally.
Aeolian’s first Pianola was released in 1895, the Pianola Institute describes this as the first truly musical Piano Player.
Even though Piano Players were at first more successful than Player Piano’s it should be noted that, the latter were released onto the market first.
(I’m not making this any less confusing am i???)
The player piano had the edge initially because many of those interested in the technology already had a piano and were loath to throw it out to replace it with what at the beginning was an unproven product.
The Piano Players were a less expensive addition.
The Pianola was a huge hit, and were shipped all round the world, Queen Victoria was even known to have one!
The Pianola stayed as Piano Player until 1903 when the now very successful Aeolian Company bought the well very respected Weber Piano Company.
This meant for the first time the Aoelian Company could build both pianos and piano players, the result was the release of Pianola as a Player Piano.
Now The Aoeloan Company and Player Pianos had the two factors they needed to become popular:
1) It had been around and was a proven technology
2) It could be installed into a piano with a good reputation.
This was improved further, after January 1909, when The Aeolian Company signed an exclusive deal with Steinway to be able to install a foot operated Pianola mechanism into their Pianos.
To give you an idea just how seriously these instruments were taken; in 1908 the piano industry got together and worked out a universal standard (like mp3, or midi today) that they could all agree on that got rid of the biggest weakness of both Player Pianos and Piano Players.
Previously the maximum range of notes that could be played from the scrolls were 65, now thanks to advancements in hole punching technology (heh what a funny statement) they could read and play the full piano scale of 88 notes.
The Guy at the Pianolo is controlling the tempo and the pedals (well he's not really, he's a just an illustration)
For some the other major flaw of the scrolling music players were it’s lack of automatic tempo. I say for some, because many players believed and still believe today, that controlling the tempo, interpreting the flow of the music, much like a conductor does, is the art of playing these instruments.
This is an important point. Even though many would see the pumping of pedals and slight adjustments by hand as a passive interaction to music, for Pianola Players of then and now it’s anything but.
Player Piano players and Piano Player players (another great statement) were all seen as musicians of sorts. These technologies were still active – they required interaction, there was a human performer between the instrument and the audience.
These magic playing pianos effectively increased the distribution of music throughout the western world, and much of the rest.
Look that's how it works.... sort of.
Like all inventions in this series it changed the way we relate to music, it changed what we heard, and how we heard it.
It wasn’t until the decline in popularity of this technology, that the phonograph and radio emerged to change our relationship with sound even more permanently.
But we’re not finished with these automatic keyboards players yet. There is one more important step to cover with these Majestic Music Roll machines.
Find out what in PART 19 CLICK HERE
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Posted by Angelika in THE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC Friday, 4 December 2009 15:13 No Comments
Part 17: Finally Everyone Could Have Their Own Phantom Of The Opera!
Welcome to part 17!
Last installment we explored the strange portable world of the Organette, today we’re going to find all about one of it’s bigger siblings, the Player Organ.
As the table top Organettes had become popular enough to become established, people started to discover their faults.
Most had an average range of fourteen notes, once the composer you used the notes for the melody there were normally only enough notes left for are very basic accompaniment.
As the richer folk had already been investing in barrel mounted flute organs for a while it was a natural evolution for the roller operated organ to be produced.
Even though historically the player Organ developed roughly in tandem with Organettes, they were aimed at a richer more musically discerning demographic.
This thing was the Cat's PJ's..
The differences that made the Player Organs far superior became very obvious very quickly, especially on models that were released after 1890.
The larger models had a range of 58 notes, and often had many different ranks of reeds (timbres of sound).
They attracted the respect of famous musicians who had them installed into their homes, and the adulation of the rich and famous were given, Pope Leo XIII himself granted a private audience to the technological marvel.
The best of these roll operated reed organs was the Orchestrelle created by the leading maker of Player Organs, the Aeolian Company.
It was capable of playing the two manual 116 note rolls of it’s ultimate Big brother the Aeolian Pipe organ.
more fancy than the fancy silver on the fancy tablecloth...
The Orchestrelle was designed to reproduce the tones of different orchestral instruments, enabling those that could afford it, the incredible luxury, of playing whole symphony arrangements in their own home.
It’s ultimate bigger brother the Aeolian Pipe organ, as the name suggests, was not a reed organ but a pipe organ.
It could play rolls that had a range of 116 notes it could manage 2 manuals and even control pedals.
Unfortunately it wasn’t until the devolpment of the reproducing organ in the 1920 that automatic tempo was added.
The Aeolian Pipe organ caused a pretty big stir on the professional music scene, with famous composers writing specifically for it.
The Aeolian Company used this publicity to sell these incredibly expensive machines to the very wealthy and apparently even managed to get some of these buyers, to invest back into the company as they attempted to get into the mass market with what became their most famous and successful venture.
The Pianola. (More on that in part 18).
The Player Organ was important not only as a much needed step in the refinement of automatic music, but also raised the bar far above the novelty music of it’s predecessors, turning an automatic music maker into a serious musical instrument to be respected.
It’s technological advances also meant parallel advances in the ability to create sophisticated musical instructions.
In our next installment Part 18 we look at another way that solved the riddle of automatic music playing… CLICK HERE
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Posted by Angelika in THE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC Saturday, 28 November 2009 11:17 No Comments
THE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC.
Part 16. Roll Out The Barrel And Music That Jumped Off The Paper.
Holy paper batman! In part 10 we looked at how systematic holes punched in paper and cardboard transformed the textile industry and later help to create the computers we use today.
Organette with an empty spool - the equivilant of the mute button...
Up until the invention of the perforated paper automatic music, pre-programmed music was hampered by the bulkiness of barrels with raised pins.
This initially restricted it’s portability as an instrument, it’s versatility was effected too as the barrels were not easily created and copied, which normally resulted in having a small repertoire of songs available to perform.
Suddenly paper took those restrictions away, and Organettes were created.
Although the first Organette was called the Cartonium, built in 1861 in Nantes, France, the first Organettes to really capture the public imagination made a big splash at the 1876 Expo in Philidelphia.
The exposition included a variety of these instruments from various countries.
The Organette, came in all sorts of shapes and sizes, many were created to sit on top of tables and would be operated by turning a handle that would operate the bellows and the keys over the reed holes. Others were designed to be played by blowing through them
Although some Organettes still used a small barrel (called a cob) the amount of music that the barrels could hold was limited and were quite complicated to change.
The Most popular Organettes by far, adopted the use of perforated paper. This meant the that songs played could be much longer, were easier to install and due to it’s comparatively simple production process offered a greater range of songs to choose from. The paper was often fed from one spool or scroll to another, this was fed over a track bar, with holes in the paper triggering which notes to be played.
They had a note range of between 8 -25 notes and were mostly found with a 14 note ability.
One of the more successful companies to create the machine was the Munroe Organ Reed Company. In 1887 it produced over 50,000 of these instruments.
This marks the Organette as the first massively popular automatic music maker, sold mainly by mail order, prices ranged from $1.65 to $10, not cheap, but the for the first time in history affordable for the Middle class and small Business to invest in.
Automatic Music had arrived in the average home!
They remained very popular until the early 1900’s and although they were sold right into the 1930’s they had started to loose their popularity to that incredibly important invention the home phonograph.
harmonica for idiots - closed..
..and open!
It’s interesting to note that the Rolmonica, the last organette to be created, which was sold in the 1930’s was very similar to the first popular organette the trumpetto as they were both moth operated.
If you think about it, it’s a kind of fascinating to think that paper, the very tool mankind has used to communicate for thousands of years, was one of the earliest and most successful way to communicate to machines. Traditionally it’s what’s written on the paper that is important, it’s the communication – the information that has been added to blank paper that has value.
But with perforated punch cards and paper rolls. The information is what’s taken away, it’s the absense of the paper that creates the sound.
Does this make the music created by perforated holes the first subtractive music?
What is certain is that this instrument that is largely unknown today, was the first breakthrough musical player. Organettes were the first mechanical musical instruments to allow for a wide range of music to be played at will, it was the first musical instrument or player/ that was accessible to the average family to enjoy in their own home.
For these reasons I believe it was as big a break through as the walkman in regards to the evolution of our relationship with music.
So, Organette, we tip our metaphorical hats in your direction.
In part 17 We discover the Organettes much more famous big brother and sister. CLICK HERE
CLICK HERE for the INDEX of History Of Electronic Music
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Posted by Angelika in THE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC Saturday, 21 November 2009 15:07 No Comments
Part 13. The First Portable Music Player – The Most Popular Automatic Music Instrument in the World.
Welcome back! Today we’re going to conclude the story about the miniaturization of time and music.
We’re going to discover how the worlds first mass produced truly portable music player came about – in many ways it was the 19th century’s version of the iPod.
But first a small side note.
This NOT how the Duck worked..
To tell this tale of clocks and mechanical music fully, I should have included the tales of Europe’s seemingly bizarre obsession with automatons and the simply incredible inventions of men like Jacques de Vaucanson.
I say ‘should of ’ as their development goes hand in hand with watch making and musical entertainments, technologically and socially.
But they are so fascinating that I believe they should have a story of their own and will devote a post or 2 to them at a later date.
Instead I’m just going to touch on these automatons as they directly relate to the miniaturization of music and clocks.
In 1737 Jacques de Vaucanson, invented the flute player, a life sized mechanical Shepard that actually played the flute and tabor and had a repertoire of 12 songs.
2 years later he invented the Carnard Digerateur or Digesting Duck, an automaton of a duck, it had 400 moving parts, it could flap it’s wings , drink water, digest grain and even …err ..defecate, although thise was actually just a cunning trick. (I never thought i’d use the words cunning and defecate in the same sentence, oh look i did it again ;-] )
Vaucanson’s level of sophistication added much fuel to the fire of the automaton fad that was already sweeping through Europe.
Soon inventors were looking for novel ways of adding music to these complicated toys.
Around 1780, Swiss craftsman Jaquet-Droz, invented the mechanical singing bird. The bird sat and sang at the bottom of it’s cage. With all the complications hidden in the base.
Tipu's Tiger, if you look closely you can see the Tiger's organs!
Tippo’s Tiger (or tipu’s tiger) was created in 1792, it was made of wood, and featured a soldier that would move it’s arms as a tiger lunged and growled by use of a small simple organ.
Mechanical movement was once again tied to creating mechanical music, the technology that drove clocks, also drove these Mechanical marvels and music was an integral part of the performance.
The highest form of mechanical music at the time was expressed in an elaborate French Mantle clock. It played five songs that were especially composed for it by famous composers of the time including Hayden and Mozart.
Beethoven was another enthusiast of the mechanical era. He became fascinated by the inventions of Johann Maelzel which included an ear trumpet, automatic chess player (a hoax) and a mechanical trumpeter.
In fact, by stealing off each other the metronome was invented.
(I think Beethoven is credited as inventing the ‘tic’ part and Maelzel the ‘toc’ bit.)
But it was Beethoven’s composition “Wellington Seig” celebrating the defeat of Napoleon, composed especially for Mealzels crowning glory the Panharmonicon, that gave mechanical music a huge marketing boost. First built in 1800, the Panharmonicon was the worlds first Orchestron, it was a massive Music box that played pipes, snare drums, cymbals and bass drums. It was also the world’s first mechanical polyphonic orchestral instrument. (More about this in part 14)
In 1787, an ominous invention was created. Levi Hutchins of New Hamshire built the first mechanical alarm clock. It probably won’t surprise anyone that the ringing bell alarm on his clock could only ring at 4am. It wasn’t until 1846 that Seth Thomas patented the first mechanical alarm clock that could be set for anytime. ( but strangely still kept waking people up at 4am…….)
Back to our story at hand..
Taa Daa!!
In 1796 Antoine Favre a Swiss clockmaker, made a key breakthrough, a major plot point in our story. (so pay attention)
Favre replaced bells with combs that were made of pre-tuned metallic strips, the barrels plucked the teeth to create music.
Not only were they slim and took up little room but offered many more precise notes.
Music that was set on a barrel had moved from giant clock towers, to clocks, and now to the musical repeater pocket watch.
The miniaturization of music had reached it’s tipping point, watchmakers no longer were solely concentrating on technical improvements to the watch itself, suddenly they were concentrating on the music that could be created using this new innovation.
Musical watches were not the only things born from Favre’s invention.
The first music boxes appeared in the form of musical snuff boxes called ‘carillons a musique’, as some of the more complex boxes also included tiny drums and set of small bells.
Not only were these devices simply revolutionary, they created a sound that was unique – a brand new instrument had found a voice!
Both Demand and improvements came rapidly, in Geneva and Sainte Croix the industry grew to quickly surpass the watchmaking and lace industries, the musicbox suddenly represented 10% of Switzerland’s export. Workshops were opened in Europe and the United States, which expanded to employ over 100,00 workers.
The Boxes became elaborate, and varied in sizes from small snuff boxes to free standing pieces the size of a coffee table.
No it's not a foosball table it a music box! ( a biggun!)
Advances were made like the sectional comb. This allowed the comb to have up to 325 teeth. Suddenly this little wonder had a greater note scale than the 88 notes available on a grand piano.
Musical arrangements become limited solely on the composer and or tune arranger’s imagination.
Harmony, expression changes, percussion and bells – it was all available to the creative.
In 1848, thanks to this technology, Parisian Blaise Bontems, took the art of the singing bird to new ‘heights’, although they couldn’t fly, many of his birds were free standing life sized and sang perfect renditions of the birds they were meant to portray.
By the 1850’s a change from keywinding to a lever spring winder, meant that in conjunction with box cylinders that contained 6 – 12 tunes uninterrupted play was achieved.
Achievements in 1862 and 1879 furthered this by enabling the exchanging of cylinders in the costlier models. Some of the best models even had 4 springs enabling the user to enjoy continuous play for up to 3 hours.
By the second half of the 19th century music box mechanisms were also found in jewelry boxes, windup toys and holiday novelties, many boxes contained movable figures, of humans and animals of all sorts of sizes. By this time, there was virtually no music which could not be played on a music box.
Then in 1877 Thomas Edison invented the Phonograph, in 30 years it would become a threat to almost all mechanical music, in 50 years it and the great depression would mean the music box’s death.
In the 1880’s a German company released the Symphonion.
These devices were a game changer, instead of barrels, the music was on removable, easily manufactured discs made from zinc and steel.
Does this make the music box the first to play disc-go?!
Soon other company sprung up, offering similar devices, each with their own sized discs and teeth, this was done to stop cross compatibility and more importantly for the manufactures, to evade law suits on patent copyright.
These disc music boxes were very popular and thanks also to it’s ability to be mass produced, had all but replaced the barrel varieties.
This created another industry that would last until the turn of the century.
In 1900, a disc by popular music box manufacturer Regina cost $75, almost four months wages for the average American Worker. Much more affordable and cheaper windup phonograph devices were starting to appear, these had the added benefit of being able to playback the human voice.
Interestingly the same company, Regina, tried to compete, with the newly crowded market of phonograph, orchestrons and player pianos by releasing a combination music box and 78 rpm phonograph.
The combination of this congested market, the first world war, and the Great depression had devastating effects on the music box industries.
The golden age of music boxes had ended.
There was a small surge created by Japanese manufactures, and World War II soldiers began collecting them as momento’s for their loved ones while abroad.
Only a few Swiss companies survived, and were eventually bought out by Reuge, the last of the Surviving Swiss makers of Musical boxes.
In fact they still operate today.
Over a century ago, more people owned music boxes than an other type of musical instrument. (Sounds a little like the iPod today!)
But Music boxes left a legacy that we still feel today, when it’s popularity finally waned, it had lost the fight to dominate the market it single-handedly created – that of home entertainment.
Thanks to the music box, people got used to enjoying and having a choice of music in the home.
Music boxes were created in the form of consoles, snuff boxes, jewelry boxes, pocket watches, clocks, water globes, miniature piano’s, mechanical toys, sculptures and humidors.
Today they are also found everywhere from windup novelties, to works of art, prices vary from less than $1 to over $40,000.
This is where the term roll out the barrel comes from...
It was the end of miniaturization revolution that also gave us portable time, that which almost everyone in the world relies on today.
But it doesn’t end there.
Because the music box has evolved again – it’s called the Whitney Music box.
And I’ll let wikipedia tell you all about it..
“a virtual form has emerged as the Whitney Music Box, named for computer animator John Whitney[2] and invented by programmer/musician Jim Bumgardner.[3] This web application displays dots arranged in a chromatic scale spinning incrementally faster as they travel up the scale with the slowest dot cycling every three minutes. These dots move across a stationary line and activate a note to represent its place on the scale. The notes can be arranged with various sounds, frequencies, and keys. There are also settings for stereophonic and hand-cranked versions of the music box. The visual layout of the spinning notes displays how, as chords are made, the whole form takes on geometric shapes. These shapes correspond to musical thirds, fourths, fifths, and so on. The hand-cranked variation allows the user to stop the animation and examine which notes are being activated.[3]Next episode..
Guess what?
The music box wasn’t the only mechanical musical revolution taking place, there was a louder more brash change happening in churches and peoples homes..
CLICK HERE for the previous chapter
CLICK HERE for the INDEX of History Of Electronic Music