Josh Mueller | Mechanical Engineering | Maker | Artist

This unique music box was created over winter break of my senior year of high school.  The piece received numerous awards and eventually went on to win an American Visions Nominee in the National Scholastic Art & Writing Competition and would have been on display in New York City.  Tragically, the piece was utterly destroyed during shipping despite taking every preparatory and cautionary measure to ensure its protection.

Traditional music boxes produce music when pins on the programing cylinder plucking fingers on a tuned metal comb. The movements in this music box are fundamentally the same as a traditional music box.  The pins are replaced by ball bearings and the tuned comb by copper chimes.  The programming cylinder lifted a ball bearing and released it, in time, down a track to strike the copper chime and produce a note.  

​

I wanted the aesthetic of the music box to be reminiscent of a clock but posses an overall eerie mood.  The chimes were purposefully made to be out of tune and the timings slightly off.  14 chimes were used to play the eerie melody inciting intrigue in the audience as well as a sense of discomfort, as if they heard music playing in an abandoned theme park and came across this music box playing in a deserted courtyard.