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A music box (
American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...
) or musical box (
British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadl ...
) is an automatic
musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...
in a box that produces
musical notes In music, a note is the representation of a musical sound. Notes can represent the pitch and duration of a sound in musical notation. A note can also represent a pitch class. Notes are the building blocks of much written music: discretization ...
by using a set of pins placed on a revolving
cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an ...
or disc to pluck the tuned teeth (or ''lamellae'') of a steel
comb A comb is a tool consisting of a shaft that holds a row of teeth for pulling through the hair to clean, untangle, or style it. Combs have been used since prehistoric times, having been discovered in very refined forms from settlements dating ba ...
. The popular device best known today as a "music box" developed from musical snuff boxes of the 18th century and were originally called ''carillons à musique'' (French for "chimes of music"). Some of the more complex boxes also contain a tiny
drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a ...
and/or
bell A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inte ...
s in addition to the metal comb.


History

The Symphonium company started business in 1885 as the first manufacturers of disc-playing music boxes. Two of the founders of the company, Gustave Brachhausen and Paul Riessner, left to set up a new firm, Polyphon, in direct competition with their original business and their third partner, Oscar Paul Lochmann. Following the establishment of the Original Musikwerke Paul Lochmann in 1900, the founding Symphonion business continued until 1909. According to the Victoria Museums in Australia, "The Symphonion is notable for the enormous diversity of types, styles, and models produced... No other disc-playing musical box exists in so many varieties. The company also pioneered the use of electric motors... the first model fitted with an electric motor being advertised in 1900. The company moved into the piano-orchestrion business and made both disc-operated and barrel-playing models, player-pianos, and phonographs." Meanwhile, Polyphon expanded to America, where Brachhausen established the
Regina Company The Regina Company was a manufacturer of mechanical musical instruments before it became a major vacuum maker. History In 1889, Gustave Brachhausen, the foreman of the Symphonion music box company based in Leipzig, created the polyphon Musikwerke ...
. Regina was a spectacular success. It eventually reinvented itself as a maker of vacuums and steam cleaners. In the heyday of the music box, some variations were as tall as a grandfather clock and all used interchangeable large disks to play different sets of tunes. These were spring-wound and driven and both had a bell-like sound. The machines were often made in England, Italy, and the US, with additional disks made in Switzerland, Austria, and Prussia. Early "juke-box" pay versions of them existed in public places. Marsh's free Museum and curio shop in Long Beach, Washington (US) has several still-working versions of them on public display. The Musical Museum, Brentford,
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
has a number of machines. The Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey, USA has a notable collection, including interactive exhibits. In addition to video and audio footage of each piece, the actual instruments are demonstrated for the public daily on a rotational basis.


Timeline

9th century: In
Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
, the
Banū Mūsā The Banū Mūsā brothers ("Sons of Moses"), namely Abū Jaʿfar, Muḥammad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir (before 803 – February 873); Abū al‐Qāsim, Aḥmad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir (d. 9th century); and Al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir (d. 9th ce ...
brothers, a trio of Persian inventors, produced "the earliest known mechanical musical instrument", in this case a
hydropower Hydropower (from el, ὕδωρ, "water"), also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by converting the gravitational potential or kinetic energy of ...
ed
organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...
which played interchangeable cylinders automatically, which they described in their '' Book of Ingenious Devices''. According to Charles B. Fowler, this "cylinder with raised pins on the surface remained the basic device to produce and reproduce music mechanically until the second half of the nineteenth century.". Citation on p. 45. Early 13th century: In
Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...
, an ingenious bell ringer invents a cylinder with pins which operates cams, which then hit the bells. 1598: Flemish clockmaker Nicholas Vallin produces a wall-mounted clock which has a pinned barrel playing on multiple tuned bells mounted in the superstructure. The barrel can be programmed, as the pins can be separately placed in the holes provided on the surface of the barrel. 1665: Ahasuerus Fromanteel in London makes a table clock which has quarter striking and musical work on multiple bells operated by a pinned barrel. These barrels can be changed for those playing different tunes. 1772: A watch is made by one Ransonet at Nancy,
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
which has a pinned drum playing music not on bells but on tuned steel prongs arranged vertically. 1796:
Antoine Favre-Salomon Antoine Favre-Salomon (30 November 1734 – 17 August 1820) was a Swiss watchmaker. In 1796, he invented a pocket watch with an embedded musical mechanism. which was later recognised as the first "comb" music box. One of his surviving music boxes ha ...
, a clockmaker from
Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situa ...
replaces the stack of bells by a comb with multiple pre-tuned metallic notes in order to reduce space. Together with a horizontally placed pinned barrel, this produces more varied and complex sounds. One of these first music boxes is now displayed at the Shanghai Gallery of Antique Music Boxes and Automata in
Pudong Pudong is a district of Shanghai located east of the Huangpu, the river which flows through central Shanghai. The name ''Pudong'' was originally applied to the Huangpu's east bank, directly across from the west bank or Puxi, the historic city ...
's
Oriental Art Center The Shanghai Oriental Art Center (), abbreviated SHOAC, is one of the leading performance and cultural facilities in Shanghai. The five interconnected hemispherical halls or "petals" are shaped to resemble a butterfly orchid from above.SHOAC"Prel ...
. 1877:
Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...
invents the
phonograph A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...
, which has important consequences for the musical-box industry, especially around the end of the century. In March 2016, the band Wintergatan released a video of their homemade Marble Machine which took 14 months to make and played in any key using a 3,000-piece wooden construction fueled by 2,000 marbles. Band member Martin Molin used a hand crank to mobilize the marbles, which then created various noises on a vibraphone and other installed musical elements. In 2019, Tevofy Technology Ltd., based in Taiwan, released the first app-controlled mechanical music box called the Muro Box, an abbreviation of "Music Robot in a Box". Unlike traditional music boxes, people do not need to punch holes to compose songs on a paper-strip music box, and there is no minimum order for making customized music box movement to play a selected song.


Repertoire

In 1974–1975, German composer
Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groundb ...
composed '' Tierkreis'', a set of twelve pieces on the signs of the
zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The pa ...
, for twelve music boxes.Christel Stockhausen, "Stockhausens ''Tierkreis'': Einführung und Hinweise zur praktischen Aufführung" ''Melos'' 45 / ''Neue Zeitschrift für Musik'' 139 (July–August 1978): 283–87.


See also

* Barrel organ *
Cuckoo clock A cuckoo clock is, typically, a pendulum clock that strikes the hours with a sound like a common cuckoo call and has an automated cuckoo bird that moves with each note. Some move their wings and open and close their beaks while leaning forwards ...
* Graphophone * Musical clock *
Player piano A player piano (also known as a pianola) is a self-playing piano containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism, that operates the piano action via programmed music recorded on perforated paper or metallic rolls, with more modern im ...
* Singing bird box * Shanghai Gallery of Antique Music Boxes and Automata *The Musical Museum, Brentford, London, England has several examples by makers including Nicole Frères, Regina and Popper which may be seen and heard.


References


Further reading

* Bahl, Gilbert. ''Music Boxes: The Collector's Guide to Selecting, Restoring and Enjoying New and Vintage Music Boxes''. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Running Press, 1993. * Bowers, Q. David. ''Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments''. . Lanham, Maryland: Vestal Press, Inc., 1972. * Diagram Group. ''Musical Instruments of the World''. New York: Facts on File, 1976. * Ganske, Sharon. ''Making Marvelous Music Boxes''. New York: Sterling Publishing Company, 1997. * Greenhow, Jean. ''Making Musical Miniatures''. London: B T Batsford, 1979. * Hoke, Helen, and John Hoke. ''Music Boxes, Their Lore and Lure''. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1957. * * Ord-Hume, Arthur W. J. G. ''The Musical Box: A Guide for Collectors''. . Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1995. * Reblitz, Arthur A. ''The Golden Age of Automatic Musical Instruments''. . Woodsville, New Hampshire: Mechanical Music Press, 2001. * Reblitz, Arthur A., Q. David Bowers. ''Treasures of Mechanical Music''. . New York: The Vestal Press, 1981. *
Sadie, Stanley Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was pub ...
. ed. "Musical Box". ''
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and t ...
''. . MacMillan. 1980. Vol 12. P. 814. * Smithsonian Institution. ''History of Music Machines''. . New York: Drake Publishers, 1975. * Templeton, Alec, as told to Rachael Bail Baumel. ''Alec Templeton's Music Boxes''. New York: Wilfred Funk, 1958.


External links

* * Performance o
Listen Thing
an

on a punched paper-tape controlled music box (video)
Musical Box Society International – Glossary of Terms

Music Box Maniacs
– a website dedicated to paper strip punch card music boxes


Audio of historical music boxes


Polyphon Music Box, made app. 1850

Mira Music Box – Sammy 1903

Mechanical Music Box – Auld Lang Syne

Mechanical Music
from Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences * LP vinyl record: "The Concert Regina Music Box and the Symphonium" (1977, Nostalgia Repertoire Records – Sonic Arts Corporation, 665 Harrison Street, San Francisco Ca. 94107, Curator: Leo de Gar Kulka, Record No. RR 4771 Stereo.) {{Authority control Comb lamellophones European musical instruments Box Articles containing video clips