May 16, 2015
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Fancy Music Boxes at Tama Center
Today's walkies were at Tama Center. There is a small one room music box museum upstairs in the concert hall building. We have seen the posters for this museum, but had never visited. It was very enjoyable, but as we listened to the music, the presenter kept directing our attention to selections from anime made by the company that owned the museum. I thought that watching the instruments was much more interesting than cartoons on a screen. Why is it that nowadays we have to be fed images of everything rather using our own powers of observation and imagination?
Behold the Encore Automatic Banjo from 1903. Put in a nickel and it plays you a tune. The mother of pearl was pretty, and it sounded pretty good, too.
Below is the Mills Violino Virtuoso. It is a self playing violin and piano that was declared as one of the eight great inventions of the decade by the U.S. Government.
This is a Peerless Trio Orchestrion from from 1910. This will also play for a nickel, but the lady who was demonstrating the instruments skipped this one. It has a piano and three violins.
Now this was something to hear! It is an automatic orchestra ordered from the German Company Welte and Sons by the American Packard Company. It took several years to build and can produce the sounds of a 100 man orchestra from flutes to bassoons plus percussion. When the baffles in the upper section open, the volume is enough to fill a dance hall.
This is a fancy player piano from 1927 that was able to reproduce the style of the original player. We were treated to Rhapsody in Blue by a player who was not Gershwin. Mighty good, though.
Here are a couple more musical contraptions. Above is a 27" Orchestral Regina music box that dates from 1900. There were other discs in a storage cabinet under the player. Below is a portable organ, but I didn't see the monkey.
