Robbie remarked in 080822 MMDigest:

>[ Most mechanical music videos I've seen are boring -- they show
>[ only a static instrument while a song is heard playing.

Robbie, how right you are.  I used to buy video tapes of the band
organ rallies but, after viewing three or four of them, I realized
that whoever made them didn't know how to make them interesting.

They would station the camera head-on to whatever organ they were
taping and clear away any live people who might want to stand and
listen.  Then you watch four or five minutes of the same unchanging
view of an organ façade while some organ -- it wouldn't even have to
be the one being videoed -- cranked out a tune.  Then on to the next
organ, with the same setup and same boring results.

Even showing people stopping and enjoying the music would be some
relief, but the thinking is apparently that live people interfere
with the show.  It's as if the façade and the music is everything.
Not a speck of interest in the mechanicals or in audience reaction...

Today's computer-savvy generation is more interested in how things
work than how things look.  So a video that shows a static view of
an unmoving mechanical music façade is not going to generate as much
interest as a peek into the inner workings of the machine will.

We need to show how, in many regards, mechanical music machines are
the forerunners of modern day technological wonders.

Matthew Caulfield
Irondequoit, New York