[ Mark Williamson wrote about the 8-note player organ of paper:

> I did think that maybe visitors to the museum could purchase a kit
> to build there and then take the finished organ home with them,
> but at 22 pounds sterling (plus postage), it's not cheap!

Yeah, but it's beautiful.  Far better than I could build.  It's very
much in the tradition of the paper clock, which I suspect a number of
us have seen for years.  My level of skill is orders of magnitude below
that of others in mechanical music, and I'm afraid I'd have endless
difficulties with just the pipe organ part of it.

Other ideas:

A slide whistle operated with a camshaft, plus some means of controlling
the airflow to separate notes.  For that matter, you could have two or
eight slide whistles, each controlled by an individual cam.  Think of
the chords you could make!  Think of the multitudes of systems you'd
have to coordinate to get a sound out of the thing!

I suppose nobody would want to hear mechanical bagpipes.  A shame, too:
there are only a few notes on that chanter.

There's always the Rolmonica, or whatever it's called.  I'll have to
look this one up.  And, for that matter, there are always steel-disc
music boxes for display.  It's amazing how few people have seen these,
or contemplated how they might work.

 [ Mickey Sadler wrote:

> Mark, how about a thumb piano (kalimba) as the musical device? ...

This has a great deal of appeal for a kid-assembled instrument.

I should have defined my problem a bit better to both this group and
myself.  Except for the programming of the disk/roll/drum/belt/little
track, the construction of a big instrument would be pretty
straightforward.  One for little kids is another story altogether.

I'm afraid the development of our outfit's kid construction activities
is at a very early stage at this point, so we've had little opportunity
to test various activities with different age groups.  Therefore the
constraints are impressive and probably mutually-exclusive at this
point:

1. The materials must be cheap, unto free.  The reason for this is that
nobody has figured out a mechanism whereby customers might be charged
for certain activity kits; our place isn't set up to collect money
anywhere but at the main desk.  The museum store (a good outfit,
I might add) is semi-independent and considers itself short on shelf
space.

The kalimba, or mbira, or thumb piano would seem to be the best bet
In this category thus far.

2. The thing must be fairly easy to assemble.  This isn't a severe,
because there are always staff people around to help.  The staffers
themselves aren't always as dexterous as they might be, but a crack
of the whip usually serves to remedy that sort of thing.

3. Sturdiness shouldn't be much of a problem as long as it'll last
until they get out of the parking lot, though it would be nice if
the guests could have an everlasting keepsake of their Experience.
At least until their little brother busts the thing.

4. The framework would be the toughest part.  It has to be strong
enough to provide a firm 'stop' (in the stringed instrument sense of
the term) to the reeds, and it'd need to be sounding-board-like as
well.  Tin cans come to mind.  The reeds themselves could be relatively
trivial.

5. The programming drum will be a real trip to design.  I'll work on
this.  Nails are cheap enough, but thick pieces of wood are not.

I'll let everyone know how things progress, and thanks.

Mark Kinsler