The History of Music BoxesGinger Bellisario

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prequel Mechanical Music

Bell towers

when bells need to be rung

-Instigator of mechanical music

-Bell towers

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-Bell ringer

-Shake the rope

-Strike the hammer inside the bell

-Pulleys

-Pull the rope

-inconvenient

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-Earliest Modern Clocks

-Cam attached to a shaft that rotated once an hour

cam raises and lets fall a hammer that strikes the bell

-struck the hours had no dials to read the time

-striking feature more important than the clock faces

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-More complicated systems

-Sometime 14th century

-Carillons- A set of stationary bells hung in a tower and sounded by manual/pedal action/machinery

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-Dials

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-Town Clock Shrunk to become the pocket watch(16th century)

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-German watchmakers

-Tiny Hammers strike smaller bells

-Presented Emperor Rudolf II first truly automatic

musical clock 1601

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-Englishman Edward Barlow

-First Repeater WATCH in 1687

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-1730 German Anton Ketterer

-First Cuckoo Clock

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-Louis Favre

-Watchmaker from Geneva, Switzerland

-Believed to be inventor of the first

music box

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-1815“Key Wind”

- Four to Six Tunes

-Craftsmen more concerned with tonal quality

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-1840 “Rachet Wind”

-Played six to twelve tunes per cylinder

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- Typically, metal cylinders powered my a spring

-Paillard 1862

-Changeable cylinders for different tunes

-More springs =continuous play

-Swiss were making small music boxes

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-1875 St. Croix, District of Geneva, Switzerland

-First music box production line

-Pins given to transposer

-Sent to Swiss homes and Orphanages

-Swiss craftsman took metal and formed it into the cylinder

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-1876 Gem Organette Production Germany and

the United States

-Combination of the cylinder type workings and

reed organ housing

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-1878 Edison’s Talking Machine

-Turmoil for music boxes

-Produced Voices

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-1886 Symphonion

-Revolving DISCS struck with goose quills

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1870-1890

-Cylinder music box production at is height

-Most technically challenging period

-Zithers, Bells,Castanets,Drums and Cymbals

-Price became prohibitive

-Going out of business

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-First music box factory had opened in Switzerland 1815

-Manufacturers in Bohemia and Germany

-End of the 19th century European makers opened factories in the United States

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-1899 Polyphon Music Works sent

workers and equipment to

America

-Continued to prosper after being

transplanted

-Inexpensive

-Disc-type prospered

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-Polyohon Music Works

-Surpassed the Symphonion Corporation

-Nursery boxes,Clocks, Coin-in-the-slot machines

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-1901 Melville Clark -First full 88-key player piano

-End of the 19th century beginning 20th -player pianos

gradually replaced Music boxes

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-“Music box” clockwork devices

-Not only cylinder -Modified wind

instruments -Modified String

instruments -Combinations of player pianos and music boxes

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1905-1922-Phonograph began production

-Stole home audiences

-Production of music boxes dwindled

-Bankruptcy in main manufacturing companies

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-Current music box production has not differed from the original designs much

-Sill in production all over the world

- Swiss still famous for their music boxes

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