Mechanical jukebox

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Mechanical jukeboxes , also known as mechanical musical instruments , are self-playing musical instruments that can produce music without an interpreter . Such instruments are already known from ancient times .

Some of these instruments still allow manual play by an artist even by switching or retooling.

Colloquially, these devices are often referred to as mechanical musical instruments, while the conventional musical instruments are often colloquially referred to as acoustic. The processes in a pianola and in a piano or in a violin and in a "violin" in the orchestrion are also mechanical, even identical. All musical instruments are necessarily acoustic, without acoustic wave radiation one cannot hear anything.

History of the jukebox

In ancient times, e.g. B. Heron of Alexandria in his work Automata not only temple doors that open automatically as if by magic, but also music machines.

The oldest surviving mechanical musical instruments are the carillons in the monumental clocks of the late Middle Ages . During the Renaissance , artisans in Augsburg created valuable music automatons and self- playing spinets that were controlled by pin rollers .

The flute clock was created in the 18th century , for which Haydn , Mozart and Beethoven created original compositions. The demands on the technical and musical possibilities of self-playing instruments increased steadily, and at the beginning of the 19th century so-called “music machinists” like Johann Nepomuk Mälzel constructed entire self-playing orchestras, the “ orchestras ”.

In 1799 Johann Heinrich Völler (1768–1834) from Angersbach in Hesse constructed a machine. This automaton was a combination of pianoforte and flute, in front of which sat a mechanical boy who operated the keys with correct fingering.

Around the same time, music boxes were created in Switzerland , in which the pins of a rotating brass cylinder tore the teeth of a clay comb and made them sound. In the course of industrialization , it later became possible to manufacture inexpensive and therefore affordable devices for everyone: the "Ariston" and "Herophon" rotary instruments controlled by perforated cardboard discs were sold by the hundreds of thousands. Around 1890 they were replaced by the record music boxes, the best-known brands of which were “Polyphon”, “Symphonion” and “Kalliope”.

With the introduction of pneumatics towards the end of the 19th century, it was possible for the first time to manufacture self-playing pianos that allowed a satisfactory dynamic gradation. The “Phonolas” and “ Pianolas ” operated via “pedals” belonged to every middle-class establishment. Electric pianos and huge pneumatic orchestras were built for inns and dance halls, and a self-playing violin, praised as the eighth wonder of the world, delighted music lovers. The hand-held rotating organ, documented as early as the 16th century and widespread from around 1700, was further developed into a powerful carousel and dance organ . However, it only counts to a limited extent as a jukebox, because the operator of the barrel organ can influence the reproduction of the music.

Tipus Tiger in the Victoria and Albert Museum London

In 1904, Welte & Söhne brought the "Mignon" piano playing apparatus onto the market, which for the first time made it possible to reproduce a pianist's piano playing with all dynamic and agogic details. With the spread of the gramophone and the radio , mechanical musical instruments were increasingly forgotten. But this does not apply to reproduction pianos . B. Bösendorfer has been producing a computer grand piano since 1986 which, thanks to an electronic recording device, is able to perfectly record and reproduce the playing of a pianist or to subsequently edit the recordings electronically.

At the end of the 18th century, jukeboxes became popular at Indian royal courts and exported there. Tipus Tiger is a special Indian adaptation , a mechanical automaton manufactured in Mysore at the end of the 18th century . It shows a tiger attacking a European soldier or employee of the British East India Company and creates appropriate noises and movements. It also contains a small organ keyboard with 18 pipes.

Examples

Collections of jukeboxes

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Century is the piano maker Johann Heinrich Völler (1768–1834, Völler wing, around 1810, in the city museum) in Kassel." In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies. Volume 41, Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies 1908, p. 13
  2. Arrey von Dommer (Ed.): Musical Lexicon: based on the Lexicon's by H.Ch. Cook . JCB Mohr, Heidelberg 1865, pp. 57–58 ( online in the Google book search): “Apollonion, a strange keyboard instrument, invented and built around 1800 by Joh. Heinr. Völler from the village of Angersbach in Hessen-Darmstadt. It is 5 feet long, 3 1/2 feet deep and nearly 11 feet high and consists mainly of 1) a pianoforte in the upright shape of a grand piano, with two keyboards one above the other, circumference from F1 to a3; 2) a pipework for the second piano, containing an S, 4- and 2-legged flute; 3) an automaton the size and shape of an eight-year-old boy who plays several flute concerts with correct fingerings and puts down the flute in the breaks. The instrument can be used as a pianoforte alone, also in connection with the flute and with the automaton. It has 18 main changes, with the slides for the pianoforte under the board of the keyboard, for the pipework at the player's feet, and for the automaton on the sides of the instrument. In addition, the main changes result from mixing in a large number of other variants. With one move you can let the whole thing play a lot of smaller and larger pieces by itself. The mechanism should be so simple that you can take it apart completely in 8 minutes. S. Leipzig General mus. contemporary Year II piece 44 “.
  3. Heinrich Welcker von Gontershausen: Newly opened magazine of musical sound tools: represented in technical drawings of all string, blow, hit and friction instruments Welcker von Gontershausen, 1855, p. 117 ( online in the Google book search).
  4. ^ Gustav Schilling: Encyclopedia of the Entire Musical Sciences, or Universal Lexicon of Tonkunst. First volume, Verlag FH Köhler, 1835, p. 247 ( online in the Google book search).
  5. Archive link ( Memento from August 25, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Description of Tipu Sultan's Tiger on the website of the Victoria and Albert Museum
  6. ^ Society for self-playing musical instruments homepage
  7. ↑ A 200-year-old jukebox replicated orf.at, March 6, 2016, accessed on November 1, 2016.
  8. Nicolay Ketterer: The Marble Machine by the Swedish band Wintergatan. Keyboards - Analog Sequencer for Purists, March 23, 2020, accessed August 7, 2020 .
  9. ^ Deutsches Museum: Deutsches Museum: Automaten. Retrieved August 17, 2020 .
  10. Mechanical sound factory in Haslach an der Mühl
  11. Reiner Hüttel: Welcome to Hüttels Musikerk. In: huettel-musikwerke.de. Retrieved August 17, 2020 .
  12. Eger music machine collection - Altenfeld municipality. In: altenfeld-thueringen.de. Retrieved August 17, 2020 .

literature

Web links