Musical box

“ I can in the same way make the jet play a tune by simply making the nozzle rest against a long stick, which is pressed upon a musical-box. The musical-box is carefully shut up in a double box of thick felt, and you can hardly hear anything; but the moment that the nozzle is made to rest against the stick and the water is directed upon the india-rubber sheet, the sound of the box is loudly heard, I hope, in every part of the room. It is usual to describe a fountain as playing, but it is now evident that a fountain can even play a tune. ”

“ Musical quotations in halves may designate partners. For prizes, musical pictures in brown coloring, burnt wood plaques of famous musicians, a Flemish musical stein in brown and yellow, a brown leather music roll tied for the occasion with yellow streamers, musical novels, an upright piano candy box with the key board movable to show the candy inside, etc., may be used. Toy music boxes and grotesque musical instruments make amusing booby prizes. ”

“ If there is a musical box in the room, it will doubtless be set going as a pleasant accompaniment to conversation, and the same applies to striking or chiming clocks, for which the Moors have a strong predilection as objets d'art, rather than to mark the march of time. ”

“ Machinery has spoilt many minor arts; even the choir-stalls and the screens of our day are often “turned” instead of carved, and in the place of wrought-iron we have cast-iron in our grates and railings. Even the domain of music has been invaded, and we have barrel-organs, orchestrions, and musical boxes. Some new mechanism in a Geneva box will command thousands of dollars, and for a musical canary with jewelled eyes, caged in a tiny gilded cage, people will give any sum ”

“ The revolving motion of the cylinder is effected by a spring and clock-work which on some modern instruments will work continuously for an hour and a half without winding, and the rate of revolution is regulated by a fly regulator. The headquarters of the musical-box trade is Geneva, where the manufacture gives employment to thousands of persons.
The musical-box is a type of numerous instruments for producing musical effects by mechanical means, in all of which a revolving cylinder or barrel studded with pins is the governing feature. ”

“ In hospitals where the majority taste is for modern popular music, there will be a few who will hunger for classical. If a musical aide is available this may be accomplished by the use of a music cart. A box-like device on wheels such as is used for many purposes on hospital wards [Pg 95] may be fitted with a record player and a rack for records and record albums. The music cart may carry some small instruments and other materials for bedside use. Music can be wheeled to the bedside for instruction, appreciation, diversion, or entertainment. ”

“ A Music Box
I am a little Music Box
Wound up and made to go,
And play my little living-tune
The best way that I know.
If I am naughty, cross, or rude
The music will go wrong,
My little works be tangled up,
And spoil the pretty song.
[212]
I must be very sweet and good
And happy all the day,
And then the little Music Box
In tune will always play.
Abbie Farwell Brown.
If Ever I See
If ever I see,
On bush or tree,
Young birds in their pretty nest,
I must not in play,
Steal the birds away,
To grieve their mother's breast. ”

“ The narrow box should be placed about where you think the keyboard belongs. (See Diagram Six, F, page 179, for making a piano from two boxes.) The music-rest is a bit of folded box rim glued to the central part of the piano above the keyboard. The keyboard is marked off with ink upon a strip of white paper and pasted upon the top of the narrow box. You can easily draw the first part of some music that you know, and place it on a tiny sheet of white paper to make a “piece” for the piano’s music-rest.
A mantel for the living-room may be made from a flat letter-paper box. ”

“ With59 prominent citizens, or other people who like to keep their attendance at the music hall a secret, this is an advantage not to be denied. Occupants of stage boxes, far from being denied the privileges of quenching their thirst, are granted every facility for so doing. There is a neat table in the rear of the box and an obsequious waiter stands steadily at the door ready to minister to the wants of patrons. ”

“ Like the hall they had just quitted, it was pleasantly illumined by candles in silver sconces, and had evidently been arranged to serve exclusively as a music-room, for it contained practically no furniture beyond a couple of chairs, and a beautiful mahogany cabinet, of which the doors stood open, revealing sliding shelves crammed full of musical scores.
A grand piano was so placed that the light from either window or candles would fall comfortably upon the music-desk; and on a stool beside it rested a violin case. ”

“ It could be heard in every corner, high and low, and if a medium or friend was carrying it, said person must have been exceedingly lively, climbing over chairs, a bed, etc., without making any noise. It was claimed that when the box ran down it was wound up by those who took it through the air.
“Whenever songs were sung, or selections were played upon the instruments, soprano or bass voices joined in plain to all present. Members were delicately touched in the face and body. The tolling of a great bell was most cleverly imitated, and a little one was rung frequently. ”

“ One end of the room is devoted to the arts, and bears unmistakable evidence of the presence of woman in the dwelling. A green guitar-box, from which peeps a broad pink ribbon, occupies a place in the corner, half hidden by a little table, on which, most carefully arranged, appear several small articles of vertu. ”

“ A small stage limits the choice of plays considerably.
A pretty and useful theatre can be made thus. Get a wooden box 83⁄4 inches wide, about 1 foot long and 21⁄4 inches deep. (The theatre described in this chapter was made from a wooden box containing Fry's Nut Milk Chocolate—this box is exactly the right size.) This box forms the basis of the platform; stand it bottom upward, nail to the back of it a piece of wood, G H C D, which is 1 foot square (see Fig. 548) . The platform, A B L M, is a piece of stiff cardboard or wood, A B is length of box, L M is 2 feet. ”

“ They can make a whole toy shop full of toys from nothing at all but some cardboard boxes.
The fairies that I know are called Happy Thought, Nimblefingers, and Play. They have so much magic that they can transform even dull days and make them jolly ones. All three of them came to see me one very rainy day, and each of them sat upon a cardboard box while they all told me in chorus about the fairy art of boxcraft.
“Have you ever noticed how much an ordinary shoe-box looks like a little building with a flat roof?” ”

“ In order still further to heighten the effect of the trick, the handkerchief is sometimes caused to reappear in the innermost of a nest of boxes which has throughout the entertainment been hung up in full view of the audience, and the outermost of which is carefully corded and sealed. The performer in this case, after firing at the supposed box (for the audience are, of course, ignorant that there are more than one) , directs his assistant to take it down from its elevated position, and to place it on the table. ”

“ When this box was pressed against the ear in front of one of the revolving disks that threw out blending colors, or in the presence of a "singing" bird, the most divine harmonies seemed to awake in the brain. I cannot make the slightest approach to a description of the marvelous phenomenon. One felt his whole being infused with ecstatic joy. It was the very soul of music itself, celestial, ineffable! The wonder-box also enabled us to catch many sounds peculiar to the atmosphere of Venus, formed of vibrations, as Edmund had explained, that lie outside our gamut. ”

“ These boxes, like those of a typical Japanese theatre, do not contain chairs, but are floored with thick straw mats on which are cushions for the occupants to squat on. The only division between the boxes is a railing about a foot high. Above the main floor are two galleries running all the way around the building. The Imperial box is in the first gallery. People in the galleries sit in chairs, in front of which are narrow shelf-like tables from which luncheon may be eaten—for wrestling matches, like the old-style theatrical performances, last practically all day. ”

“ No one can dispute that the best theater seats are those in the center of the orchestra. A box in these days of hatlessness has nothing to recommend it except that the people can sit in a group and gentlemen can go out between the acts easily, but these advantages hardly make up for the disadvantage to four or at least three out of the six box occupants who see scarcely a slice of the stage. ”

“ A figure is seen habited as a Turk, and seated, with its legs crossed, at a large box apparently of maple wood, which serves it as a table. The exhibiter will, if requested, roll the machine to any portion of the room, suffer it to remain altogether on any designated spot, or even shift its location repeatedly during the progress of a game. The bottom of the box is elevated considerably above the floor by means of the castors or brazen rollers on which it moves, a clear view of the surface immediately beneath the Automaton being thus afforded to the spectators. ”

“ As for the curtains, they are neither a French nor an Italian, but exclusively an English peculiarity. What possible use can they serve? They have absolutely no effect but to deaden the sound.
An interesting feature in every American Opera-house is the young ladies' box—a sort of omnibus box to which young ladies alone subscribe. The gentlemen who are privileged to visit them in the course of the evening are also allowed full liberty to supply them with bouquets, which are always of the most delicate and most expensive kind—costing in winter from £4 to £5 a-piece. ”

“ If it gets wet it is ruined, so that he seldom ventures to stir abroad without a waterproof cover for it in his capacious sleeve, and it is so easily broken and crushed, that when not in use it must be kept or carried in a wooden box, usually much decorated, as obnoxious in transit as a lady's bandbox. ”

“ They were annoyed at the intrusion that packed the box insupportably tight, so that the woman had to sit on the men's laps, but the air soon cleared in laughter that caused people in the orchestra to stare angrily at the box full of noisy men in khaki. ”

“ HOW TO MAKE A TOY MERRY-GO-ROUND Material Required to Make a Toy Merry-go-round: two round bandbox covers, or the two halves of some large round box, a sheet of penny cut-out pictures of horses or animals, and a cardboard mailing-tube or a hoop-stick.
Everyone may own a merry-go-round. It is made from two large round bandbox covers and a mailing-tube. You will also need some pictures of animals or horses to use on the merry-go-round. Four or five animals are enough to use. A small box will require less. ”

“ This is the regulation orchestra and chorus, so they say, in all the Japanese theatres, but it is sometimes differently made up. If a theatre is small and poor, it may have only two performers in each box, and sometimes one box may be empty, but this is not often. ”

“ Your own music box is made on the same plan. When you breathe out, the air is pushed from your lungs up the pipe that we call the windpipe. In the upper part of this is the little box, a 91corner of which you can feel with your thumb and finger. Across the box, inside, are stretched two folds of skin and muscle, just as the rubber is stretched across the opening of the balloon. Whenever you like, you can blow out your breath between these folds of skin in your voice box. ”

“ In the first place, the light you require for your picture may be dissimilar to the light of your studio; and, secondly, one of the principal advantages of the box system is that the sides of the box represent the sides of the hall or room of the picture, so that you see at a glance how the shadows of the groups are cast, you see which portions of the figures stand out dark, and which light, against the background. In short, you get a much more complete idea of what you propose painting than you could possibly manage in any other way. ”

“ Many set-up paper boxes, which are made for heavy usage, such as for holding hardware, tools, toys, glassware, etc., are wire stapled at the corners instead of having the corners strengthened with Kraft paper, or stay paper. Some box manufacturers are making all of their set-up boxes with wire-stapled corners. ”

“ No one but himself is permitted to return the precious rubber disk to its envelope. Later in the week the eldest child, as a reward of good behaviour, may be allowed to adjust the record on the revolving [Pg 169] base and to pull the starting lever, while mother watches anxiously from the dining-room. At intervals grandma puts her head in at the door to make sure that the proper needle has been inserted. The modern musical cabinet does not eliminate the personal factor. People can put all of their individuality into the music by choosing between a fine needle and one with a blunt point. ”

“ A ventilating shaft now served as a chimney for the wood stove Brian had salvaged from a mainland farmhouse. The door could be tightly locked; there were no windows. You do not want windows in a cave.
Outside was the Hall of Music, an entire floor of the Museum, containing an example of every musical instrument that was known or could be reconstructed in the 21st century. The library of scores and recordings lacked nothing—except electricity to play the recordings. A few might still be made to sound on a spring-wound phonograph, but Brian had not bothered with it for years ”