Site last updated: Dec-2002
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Essentially, any musical instrument played by an automatic mechanical system.

Cylinder music boxes are played using a small clockwork driven pinned barrel, which plucks ‘tines’ in a metal comb. Each tine produces a sound, the pitch being determined by the length. The pins in the barrel are arranged so that when the barrel rotates past the tines, music is produced.

Did you know that the familiar plinky-plonky tune heard from ice cream vans is actually produced by a music box mechanism in a sound proof box, containing a microphone, which is connected to a small public address amplifier! Although there is now a trend towards the use of recorded material.

Another system using a similar principle, is the ‘Polyphon’. This could be described as an early form of ‘record’ player (actually, does anyone remember records-you know those round things with grooves that plays music when a stylus is run over it?). The ‘record’ in this case is 2 feet in diameter and made of metal! There are a variety of different versions of this system, ‘Calliopedisc’ and ‘Symphonion’, to name two.

I have included some links to a number of related web sites. Go to the Links Page.

A Cylinder Music Box mechanism-Click on picture to listen!
[This is a 100kbyte MP3 file and should take 30 to 60 seconds to begin playing]

A Polyphon disk (or ‘Tune Sheet’)

The holes in the disk do not play the instrument directly, the punched ‘pins’ produced under the disk play an array of bells.

Fair organs are operated by a pneumatic (air) mechanism, which is played by moving a cardboard ‘book’ or paper roll over a ‘Keyframe’. The card/paper has holes punched into it, which are arranged in patterns corresponding to the music required. As the music passes over the keyframe, the key mechanism controls the flow of air through tubing to the ‘Windchest’. This causes air to be passed through Organ Pipes, producing a sound.