[ Visitor Pam Zimmerman wrote in 990129 MMDigest ]

> I would like to build some kind of mechanical rhythm machine with
> gears, pulleys, linkages, levers, etc.  Please advise if you know
> of any type of old machine like this.

The French jazz musician/composer Pierre Bastien has been constructing
music machines for live performance, improvisation, recording and
exhibition, since circa 1976.  Some of these machines are percussive
in nature, some are not.

All of them use as a sound source either "conventional" musical instru-
ments, or else "found objects" such as teakettles, pot lids and such.
The mechanical part of the constructions are made of Meccano, the con-
struction system (a.k.a. "toy") invented in England about a century
ago.  (Aside: Meccano is still being produced today, although more
emphatically a children's toy.  In the USA it is marketed as Erector.)

Bastien and his various human collaborators and machines perform and
record under the name "Mecanium", which is also the name used to
describe collectively the machines themselves.  Apparently, there have
been 10 Mecanium recordings issues -- I know of only three.

Detailed information on Bastien is hard to find, and I've yet to find
any good, clear photographs or drawings of his constructions.  Well-
documented Meccano "mechanical music" constructions have been purely
representational in nature, and don't actually produce any sound by
mechanical means.  There exists a Meccano "bouteillophone" (bottle-
phone) in France, which is a barrel-played instrument, but construction
details don't exist.

regards,

Colin Hinz
Toronto, Canada

 [ A delightful Meccano bouteillophone constructed by M. Roger Charnoud
 [ is displayed at Philippe Rouille's web site, Musica Mecanica:
 [ http://www.cnam.fr/museum/musica_mechanica/a/coeur/bouteille.html
 [ -- Robbie