Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Non-fashion, non-skirt, non-gender discussions. If your post is related to fashion, skirts or gender, please choose one of the forums above for it.
User avatar
Gregg1100
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 547
Joined: Sat May 13, 2006 9:47 pm
Location: Wales

Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by Gregg1100 »

Anyone seen this---how did they dream this up, let alone make it ??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q
User avatar
Gregg1100
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 547
Joined: Sat May 13, 2006 9:47 pm
Location: Wales

Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by Gregg1100 »

Or this-

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

How many marbles did they have to pick up from floor before they got the timing right ????
User avatar
crfriend
Master Barista
Posts: 14432
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2004 9:52 pm
Location: New England (U.S.)
Contact:

Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by crfriend »

I've seen both videos before, and the second one is CGI. The first is real, and a really cool implementation. On the second, it was implemented later on, but a lot of the technology to drive it was very visible and the control mechanics made audible noises.

Of course lots of marbles got dropped on the deck whist the thing was being developed. Some may never have been found!
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
User avatar
Kirbstone
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 5571
Joined: Sun Jun 06, 2010 7:55 pm
Location: Ireland

Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by Kirbstone »

Very clever and interesting, of course, but in neither case is the result Music.

Music is performed with out exception by people.

Tom
Carpe Diem......Seize the Day !
pelmut
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1923
Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2014 10:36 am
Location: Somerset, England

Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by pelmut »

Kirbstone wrote:Music is performed with out exception by people.
I have listened in awe to a reproducing organ roll of the blind organist Alfred Hollins (1865 – 1942) playing his own composition "Song of Sunshine" - if that isn't music, I don't know what is.
There is no such thing as a normal person, only someone you don't know very well yet.
Stevie D
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 479
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2003 9:56 pm
Location: Sheffield, UK

Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by Stevie D »

Kirbstone wrote:Very clever and interesting, of course, but in neither case is the result Music.
Music is performed with out exception by people.
I'll have to disagree with you Kirbstone. In my opinion this is music.
I know what you are saying by "Music is performed with out exception by people", but that's not necessarily strictly true. The aeolian harp and windchimes both produce music, without the aid of people, save for the person who designed and made the wind thing.

Just because the Marble Machine is a mechanical device, it doesn't mean it is not a musical instrument capable of making music. The sounds it produces are harmonious and rhythmical in a completely structured manner (not random sounds) and (importantly) it has been 'programmed' to do that by the maker/operator. He designed and set up the components deliberately to make the sounds which you hear, so in that sense he is performing the music on the instrument. Additionally, he can vary the tempo by changing the speed of the wheel, or even make temporary gaps and silences, so in that sense, he is also in control of the sounds and hence the performance.

There is nothing new in pre-programming an instrument. I have a superb recording of 'Rhapsody in Blue' with the solo piano part performed by the composer George Gershwin himself who recorded it in 1925 on a pianola roll, then accompanied by and re-recorded (i.e. overdubbed) by the Columbia Jazz Band in 1976. Definitely music in my book. The Marble Machine is not so different from this in its concept.

Just found the Gershwin recording on Youtube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTOJXxTypuU
Stevie D
(Sheffield, South Yorkshire)
User avatar
crfriend
Master Barista
Posts: 14432
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2004 9:52 pm
Location: New England (U.S.)
Contact:

Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by crfriend »

Kirbstone wrote:Music is performed with out exception by people.
Whither music boxes? Before the invention of the phonograph, music boxes became very complex and popular in the Victorian era, and some can produce some really extraordinary renditions.

We have one dating to that period that still works, and it's a delight to listen to with a repertoire of some dozen pieces. My elder aunt has it, and I really should pack up some hardware to record it in action some time.

The "Marble Machine" is a large and complex device that, ultimately, is under the control of a human. Without the human, it would run down, and the strings require human interaction to get more notes than the basic number of strings (note the fretted fingerboard). Does what emanates from a player piano not count as music? Having heard one playing a piano roll of The Maple Leaf rag created by the composer himself, Scott Joplin, and that sure sounds like music to me! The "Marble Machine" is also a wonderfully Rube-Goldbergesque device that's a joy to watch in action.
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
User avatar
Caultron
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 4122
Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2013 4:12 am
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by Caultron »

Kirbstone wrote:...Music is performed with out exception by people.
So, player pianos, music boxes, juke boxes, radios, and MP3 players don't generate music?

Oh, but those play recordings of performances by people.

Except that some human being programmed the marble machine.

But I have to admit it still can't cut julienne fries.
Courage, conviction, nerve, verve, dash, panache, guts, nuts, balls, gall, élan, stones, whatever. Get some and get skirted.

caultron
User avatar
Kirbstone
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 5571
Joined: Sun Jun 06, 2010 7:55 pm
Location: Ireland

Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by Kirbstone »

Great responses guys and thanks Stevie for that link to the Great Man himself pressing a piano roll.

I have been a total sucker for George Gerschwin for many years and some time ago committed the piano solo version of 'Rhapsody in Blue' to memory. Nowadays at parties my patient listeners only get an abridged version, as the whole thing takes too much time. I get round to the main theme after perhaps just one minute.

I'll refer to the Ruling Pigs legislative wording from Orwell's '1984'.........the sound produced by all those various mechanical devices isn't LIVE music.

At home here I have a truly amazing device which uses shiny little disks slid into a little drawer in the front. These have everything from soloists to full orchestras on them.
....But all those sounds were originally made by real people. :cheese:

Tom
Carpe Diem......Seize the Day !
pelmut
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1923
Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2014 10:36 am
Location: Somerset, England

Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by pelmut »

Kirbstone wrote:........the sound produced by all those various mechanical devices isn't LIVE music.
In the case of a reproducing piano or reproducing organ, it is an exact copy of the key touches of a live musician taken from a live performance. The signals going to the piano hammers or organ action during playback are merely delayed (sometime by several decades) from the original performance, but are nevertheless exactly what the performer would have created if he/she had been present.
There is no such thing as a normal person, only someone you don't know very well yet.
User avatar
Caultron
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 4122
Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2013 4:12 am
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by Caultron »

pelmut wrote:In the case of a reproducing piano or reproducing organ, it is an exact copy of the key touches of a live musician taken from a live performance. The signals going to the piano hammers or organ action during playback are merely delayed (sometime by several decades) from the original performance, but are nevertheless exactly what the performer would have created if he/she had been present.
I'm aware of reproducing pianos and organs, and it was once my pleasure to hear a genuine recording of George Gershwin playing Rhapsody in Blue, played back on the same piano that created the recording. The location was the drawing room of the Wrigley Mansion here in Phoenix, a winter home of P. K. Wrigley, of newspaper, Chicago Cubs, and chewing gum fame.

But it would certainly be possible to mechanically convert any piece of sheet music to a piano roll.

And there's still the music box to consider, and maybe even the jack-in-the-box. Not music?

BTW, Wrigley Field in Chicago is a fake. I once spent an entire day watching and it didn't wriggle once.
Courage, conviction, nerve, verve, dash, panache, guts, nuts, balls, gall, élan, stones, whatever. Get some and get skirted.

caultron
pelmut
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1923
Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2014 10:36 am
Location: Somerset, England

Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by pelmut »

Caultron wrote:...But it would certainly be possible to mechanically convert any piece of sheet music to a piano roll.
There are loads of examples on YouTube, most of them are just note-for-note copies and they sound flat and expressionless. The best piano and organ roll cutters of the past really had a feel for the music and could 'lift it off the page' and turn it into something with all the spirit and expression of a live performance. Some Polyphon discs also show this flair for expression, but others are just accurate-but-dull transcriptions.
http://www.poppyrecords.co.uk/lifebeforevinyl/P09.htm
http://www.poppyrecords.co.uk/lifebefor ... (1-09).mp3
There is no such thing as a normal person, only someone you don't know very well yet.
User avatar
Caultron
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 4122
Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2013 4:12 am
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by Caultron »

pelmut wrote:
Caultron wrote:...But it would certainly be possible to mechanically convert any piece of sheet music to a piano roll.
There are loads of examples on YouTube, most of them are just note-for-note copies and they sound flat and expressionless...
So, bad music, but still music?
Courage, conviction, nerve, verve, dash, panache, guts, nuts, balls, gall, élan, stones, whatever. Get some and get skirted.

caultron
pelmut
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1923
Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2014 10:36 am
Location: Somerset, England

Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by pelmut »

Caultron wrote:
pelmut wrote:
Caultron wrote:...But it would certainly be possible to mechanically convert any piece of sheet music to a piano roll.
There are loads of examples on YouTube, most of them are just note-for-note copies and they sound flat and expressionless...
So, bad music, but still music?
Some of it is good music, but badly expressed. You really do need human intervention to make music work properly, but in my experience it does not always have to be entirely at the point of delivery.
There is no such thing as a normal person, only someone you don't know very well yet.
User avatar
crfriend
Master Barista
Posts: 14432
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2004 9:52 pm
Location: New England (U.S.)
Contact:

Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by crfriend »

pelmut wrote:You really do need human intervention to make music work properly, but in my experience it does not always have to be entirely at the point of delivery.
I'll second this. Music as we know it is fundamentally a human endeavour -- and if it's too "perfect" it can sound mechanical and dull. Contemplate an ace performance of the Moonlight Sonata and all the human-induced variables into it that make it such an expressive work. Sure, the written sheet of music gives clues as to how to perform the piece (pitch, pace, volume, &c), but most of those are variable with pitch typically being the least variable as a consequence of the way that musical instruments are constructed (the trombone being a counterexample). It's up to the performer (or conductor) to interpret the written sheet and to put nuances into the piece as played.

It's worth noting that no matter how good the original recording, or how precise the playback mechanism, recorded music is only reminiscent of a live performance.
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
Post Reply