Musical box
A musical box (or music box) was an 19th century automatic musical instrument that produced sounds by a set of pins on a revolving cylinder or disk that struck the tuned teeth of of a steel comb. They were developed from musical snuff-boxes of the 18th century. They were originaly called carillons à musique.
The original snuff boxes were tiny containers which could fit into a gentleman's waist coat pocket. The musical boxes could have any size from that of a hat box to a large piece of furniture. Most of them were table top specimens though. They were usually powered by clockwork and originally produced by artisan watchmakers.
For most of the 19th century the bulk of musical box production was concentrated in Switzerland, building upon a strong watchmaking tradition. The first musical box factory was opened there in 1815 by Jérémie Recordon and Samuel Junod. There were also a few manufacturers in Bohemia and Germany. By the end of the 19th century some of the European makers had opened factories in the United States.
The cylinders where normally made of metal and powered by a spring. In some of the costlier models, the cylinders could be removed to change melodies, thanks to an invention by Paillard in 1862, which was perfected by Metert, of Geneva in 1879. In some exceptional models there were four springs, to provide continuous play for up to three hours.
The very first boxes at the end of the 18th century made use of metal disks. the switch over to cylinders seems to have been complete after the Napoleonic wars. In the last decades of the 19th century however, mass produced models such as the Polyphon and others all made use of interchangeable metal disks instead of cylinders. The cylinder based machines rapidly became a minority.
The term "musical box" was also applied to clockwork devices where a removable metal disk or cylinder was used only in a "programming" function without producing the sounds directly by means of pins and a comb. Instead, the cylinder (or disk) worked by actuating bellows and levers which fed and opened pneumatic valves which activated a modified wind instrument or plucked the chords on a modified string instrument. Some devices could do both at the same time, and were often combinations of player pianos and musical boxes, such as the Orchestrion.
At the end of the 19th century most musical boxes were gradually replaced by Player pianos, which were more versatile and loud, and also melodious, when kept tuned, and by the smaller gramophones which had the advantage of playing back voices. Series production rapidly disappeared and all the important companies closed their doors.
Cheap windup music box movements (including the cylinder and comb and the spring) continued to be produced in countries like Japan, and later on in other countries with low production costs, to give a bit of music to mass produced jewelry boxes. These movements are also sold in retail outlets or by catalog for hobbyists who wish to make simple musical miniatures.
Surviving musical boxes from the 19th century and the early 20th century are prized by collectors and there is a a more or less constant manufacturing of reproductions.
References
- Greenhow, Jean. Making Musical Miniatures. London: B T Batsford, 1979.
- Reblitz, Arthur A., Q. David Bowers. Treasures of Mechanical Music. New York: The Vestal Press, 1981.
- Sadie, Stanley. ed. Musical Box. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. MacMillan. 1980. Vol 12. P. 814.
- Smithsonian Institution. History of Music Machines. New York: Drake Publishers, 1975.
