Tuning Music Box Combs
By Beatrice Robertson
Hi gang,
I hope Nancy and Chuck Walker both respond to the question about tuning music box combs. And you are certainly right about the "don't attempt this at home" unless you really want to experiment with a music box you don't want to save.
The first point I'd like to make is that the music boxes were tuned by ear abviously. But a "tuning comb" was used as a master, probably for many different boxes. I acquired two "tuning combs" in Switzerland this summer. (Try explaining a comb that weighs over 5 pounds, with no mechanism, to the customs people!) These combs have a sliding brass bar over them, marked with a chromatic scale in do re mi. This bar can be slid over the comb to place any note over any tooth. Obviously, no thought was given to A=440, although A is marked (and is not 440, but my testing gear is in Florida. I'll be home by the end of the month. Expect to hear more then about these combs.
What is obvious about both of these combs is the stretch over the length of the comb. This is so pronounced that I can hear a music box that has been tuned using a Strobe or other electronic tuner from across a large room at a large antique show. (And often identify the restorer, unfortunately.) I plan to do some research on these particular combs, and also to study some of the research on music box tuning that has been done, notably by the late George Worswick.
I would like to stress one thing about music box combs. They do not go out of tune without some external action: corrosion of the leads is the most common problem, but missing dampers and/or damper pins can affect treble note tuning. The tuning of music box combs only becomes necessary when replacing a tooth (or teeth) or leads on a damaged comb. Other than that, it will stay the way it was originally tuned virtually forever. The old adage "If it's not broke, don't fix it!" applies to music box combs. For this reason, sanding a comb to make it shiny is usually not a good idea. Removing metal changes the tuning, and not evenly across the scale. A rusted comb presents some very special (and painstaking) techniques. It is fairly easy to damage a comb with a file in nimble, but uneducated fingers. And part of what makes the wonderful, distinctive sound of particular music box makers may well be their particular tuning. Comb tuning changed (as did piano tuning) over the years, and the early boxes have a different stretch than later boxes.
If anyone wants a blow by blow description of the process involved in tuning combs, let Nancy, Chuck or I know, or one of us will reply to the group. It is a lengthy process!
As I have been told many times "Don't ask me time it is, I'll tell you how to build a clock!"
Beatrice
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(Message sent Mon 7 Oct 1996, 13:24:40 GMT, from time zone GMT-0400.) |
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