Is this clockwork, music box or a millwork, something amazing

[Roger Nair]

Give a listen, a very imaginative design and execution of woodwork that creates music, that is both played and mechanically programmed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q

[John K Jordan]

This was amazing when I saw it once before. Thanks for the reminder! The guy is a Lego maniac too...
This video is of him showing how parts of it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uog48viZUbM

And even more interesting to "makers," this page has a bunch of videos of him building parts of the machine - incredible. Ever want to make wooden gears?
http://www.wintergatan.net/#/m.m.machine

And other instruments he made!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFfe4ZRQOH8

JKJ

[Brian Tymchak]

Wow! that's fantastic! I wonder what the purpose is to have 1 black marble in the mix..

[Frederick Skelly]

Neat stuff.

[Steve Peterson]

That thing is truly amazing. I loved the videos of how he made it and how it works. It looks like there was a lot of trial and error in making it. And he used mostly simple tools.

The black marble is a marker to help visualize the movement when everything is running. It is sort of like finding a painted quarter at the laundromat. They use it to test the coin drop mechanism.

Steve

[Roger Nair]

The aspect that I think is tops is the timing of all various instruments that make music by dropping balls and the conveyors that take the balls to the top, all in a concise space and the distribution of the balls to all the channels.

[Brian Henderson]

Except that's a big machine to only play one song. Interesting mechanics, but more show than substance.

[John K Jordan]

When I first saw this I wondered if the guy was inspired, at least in part, by the Animusic "Pipe Dreams", which I'm sure most people have seen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu-A0jqMPd8&list=RDXu-A0jqMPd8#t=58

This animation, from about 15 years ago, was programmed so the 3D control and rendering was driven by a midi file. The first time I saw it was at an international computer graphics convention - the crowd (of at least a thousand people) went wild. I was certainly impressed. I got the tee shirt.

JKJ

[Roger Nair]

Brian, I believe that there can be genuine musical possibilities with such a machine, for instance I.ve been listening to Alice Coltrane recently an much of her work incorporates droning in an Indian classical style that underpins the entire work such as "Journey in Satchidanada" also minimalist works also use drones as well as some straight up rock, rnb and boogie woogie. Phasing shifts could also present other forms of musical ideas. Differential phasing perhaps can yield changes such as bell ringers. The gearing could get very wild. This could extend into performable music with additional players. The really big hurdle would be nuance.

John, that is a great connected idea, I now recall the video since you referred to it