TARGET 160406
THE MARVELOUS MARBLE MUSIC MACHINE
A company called "Animusic" put out a compter-generated music video of a machine that would shoot balls up into the air, which would then land on musical instruments. The balls, having caused the instrument to make a musical would then bounce into a funnel to be used again by the computer-generated machine. For a look at this fascinating video (3 minutes, 28 seconds), click here .
Inspired by the Animusic video, Swedish musician Martin Molin spent a year building a machine that uses marbles to make music in the same manner. His machine is shown in the first picture, above, and is very confusing to the unaided eye. Maybe a labeled picture will make it less confusing.......
To make it less confusing
Molin built the machine himself, even taking on the expense of buying various woodworking tools, including a bandsaw, table saw and drill press. almost all the parts of the machine are hand-made by Molin out of wood.
Of course, you can't just have the balls falling at random. The music has to be programmed in. Using the principle of the old music boxes, Molin made belts into which he could place pegs that would trip the release of the proper balls at the proper time, according to the notes of the music being played. Because there are times when multiple instruments are playing together, more than a single programming belt was required.
In order to design all the gears, wheels, belts and pulleys, Molin started with a programming wheel and then designed and built the rest of the machine around it. Since he was building a machine he had never played, his first composition was a bit of a challenge. A lot of learning and design took place after it was built.
Molin says that songwriting for his Marble Machine is a small problem because the programming wheels are a specific circumfrence, and therefore only allows for a certain lengh of song.
The power for this contraption is Molin, himself. It works whenever he cranks the handle and stops when he doesn't.
Cranking the handle causes the conveyor belt to lift the balls to the top of the machine.
Once a ball reaches the top, it takes its place with others, each waiting their turn to fall and make a note.
That's when the programming belts become important.
Pegs placed strategically in the programming belt trip levers corresponding to the note to be played.
Each lever lifts a corresponding wire that has been blocking the ball from falling.
As it releases the ball, the ball falls onto the musical instrument, playing the next note in the song.
Molin made levers that guide the balls to the different instruments. He can turn on, for example, a snare drum or a bass drum, cymbol, guitar, or other instruments found somewhere in the maze of wood. The following video allows you to see this marvalous machine in action. It is an exerpt of the full video that can be found on YouTube by clicking on the last link, at the bottom of this page.
The sound of the music in that video is not an added track. The machine has microphone pickups attached to each instrument. In order to make sure that no note goes missing, he stocks the machine with 2000 balls.
Molin, who plays with a band called Wintergatan, would like to take the instrument out on the road with him, but that’s not going to work. It's just too big, too bulky, and too fragile to travel with the band. But he has named his machine the "Wintergatan Marble Machine ". Molin says, "Right now I can not get it out through the door from the place I built it in without deconstructing it." (In a way, we're grateful for that because it allows us to have a dowsing map for this Target of the Week.)
He adds, "I will (someday) build a smaller, motorized music box that we will take with us on tour and it will act as a fifth member of the band."
FEEDBACK MAP
If you got impressions for which this feedback is insufficient, more information,
pictures and videos can be found at the following web sites:
Wintergatan Band's web site (lots of pictures)
Huffington Post
High Snobiety web site
Full video of the machine being played