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 19^th century’s version of the iPod.

But first a small side note.

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.

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..

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.

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 19^th 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.

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.

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]

Click here to check it out!

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 Part 14

CLICK HERE for the previous chapter

CLICK HERE for the INDEX of History Of Electronic Music