Music Box

Song spinning now: Mariah Carey - Music Box

This song is the inspiration behind my virtual name "Musixvox". What comes to your mind when you come across the word 'Music Box'? To me, it represents feminineness, elegance, poise and beauty.

I think the good old music box, especially those with dancing ballerinas, is on the brink of extinction now. I still remembered when I was a child, watching the little ballerina dancing to a crystal-clear classical tune in that Victorian-styled box always fancinates me, it feels just like watching a little performance.

History of the Music Box

Antoine Favre, a watchmaker from Geneva, first incorporated a gadget in watches, perfume bottles, pendants in 1796. This gadget, a “music comb”, if you will. The music comb is a comb shaped device that is made from steel then hardened and tempered to produce a number of 'springy' teeth varying in length. Pins set into a revolving cylinder pluck the teeth. As each tooth is plucked it produces a musical note. The note produced by each tooth is determined by, the length of that particular tooth. Each tooth, a different note. The pins in the cylinder are arranged in such a way that a melody arises from the comb as the cylinder turns.


I have to say this person is extremely talented to think of a way to bring live music to homes without the need of performers. In fact, the ancestor of radio is not the gramaphone, it's the music box!

Well..sad to say that the ballerina music box that added color to my childhood had already been thrown out. I think its because I lost the ballerina after I played with it :P , so my mum thought its quite meaningless to keep this useless junk and hence decided to get rid of it.

If only this thing is still with me now, it will be a valuable antique 20 years down the road..so the moral of the story is...don't throw your junk away!