I Have Seen Some Strange Musical Instruments Before,

and this is the most way out one of all,

the machine above is called “THE PLANTYFLUTESIZER”, Bichopalo is an artist based in Valencia, Spain, and states that this is still a work in progress, "I can’t really tell how many hours, days and months I've spent working on this. The entire structure is a combination of different instruments but the main one is a sort of sequencer with 8 notes limit that can be combinated on different patterns. An electric impulse actives a motor with an arm connected that hits a sensor running a pre-recorded note, there’s a lot to speak about this but on this particular post the real rockstars are my little partners: Pico and Verdi, this two little fellas have been with me from a while, making me laught and giving me incredible presents every single day," what a fantastical instrument or is it a work of art? you can see more of Bichopalo's work at Instagram, at the beginning of the post I mentioned strange looking instruments,

this was the one I had in mind, the Wintergatan band of folktronica musicians/inventors brought us this instrument, we made a post about it back in May last year, and strange it was too!

As I Asked,

in a previous post,

 'What is it?',

 the answer is that the Wintergatan band of folktronica musicians/inventors are showing us the latest developments in their ongoing Marble Machine project, 

 the Marble Conveyor Belt, which uses ratchets and pistons to move dozens of marbles around and through the Marble Machine,

there are full notes on the band’s YouTube channel explaining how it all works, Wintergatan’s loyal following on YouTube and Patreon, which follows these intricacies at every turn, has helped support the complex and long-running invention process, once the full Marble Machine X is complete, Wintergatan will embark on a world tour performing music with the finished musical machine, 

the video above is absolutely amazing, You can find free scores as well as records and merchandise in the Wintergatan online store, and you can stay up to date with the Marble Machine’s progress on Instagram, what an amazing machine, or should we call it a musical instrument?

I Have Not Posted Many Posts Today,

I have been too busy watching the ones featured today!

like this one of an orchestrion, which is a machine that plays many different musical instruments, most often including a piano with other instruments added, the music is programmed on rolls of paper like a player piano, the Philipps Paganini orchestrion was built by Philipps & Son’s in 1921, and is now at the Speelklok Museum in Utrecht, Netherlands, this orchestrion pays 17 instruments,

in this video, Martin Molin of the band Wintergatan visits the museum to show us the Philipps Paganini and how it works, as an aside you may remember we have featured Wintergatan before, the overriding consideration when building a machine like this was that it should sound just like the real instruments, popular until the gramophone started to appear, they are a marvel of engineering, another two mug of coffee job!

Some Time Ago,

we featured a huge complex instrument,

called the Wintergatan Marble Machine, using 2,000 marbles Martin Molin created a masterpiece, well today here is his latest offering, the first looks and sounds like a music box with a punched paper tape playing the tune of All Was Well, the second instrument second is something he calls a Modulin, the Modulin sounds a lot like an electronic theremin but seems to have an interface like a stringed instrument, Molin has also started releasing additional videos that explains how he built the music box, what will he think up of next?

After A Few Moments,

it was 'OK I give up, what is it?',

then it became obvious, 

 it was the Wintergatan Marble Machine, using 2,000 marbles Martin Molin created a machine I guess in some way inspired by the Radeon 9700 Pipe Dream, Molin spent 14 months producing the Wintergatan Marble Machine, it's building is documented on YouTube,

and if you want to hear what the 3,000 part hand cranked music machine sounds like hit the play button above, and keep a lookout for the one black marble after a change of tempo, I have to say I have watched this video more than a few times, fascinating.