Serinette
A serinette or bird organ is a simple mechanical musical instrument . The small hand barrel organ was originally used to train caged songbirds, especially the finch species Girlitz (lat. Serinus serinus ) and siskin (French: serin ).
A typical serinette contains 10 pipes made of wood or metal in a wooden case, which can reproduce up to eight simple popular melodies in a pitch adapted to the birdsong. The sequence of the melodies is applied to a roller using pins that open or close the valves on the individual pipes. At the same time, the hand crank, which sets the roller in motion, also actuates a bellows that generates the necessary air ( wind ).
The first serinets were built in the first half of the 18th century. A center for the construction of these and other barrel organs was Mirecourt on the Lorraine side of the Vosges , south of Nancy .
In the 19th century, regardless of its original purpose, the serinette was often found in bourgeois salons as an entertainment instrument or, like the music box, as a children's toy. When the first phonographs appeared, serinettes, like other mechanical jukeboxes, lost their importance.