I want to thank Alison Biden for the better explanation of the term "gamme"
posted in the 20.01.27 MMD in response to the my amateur explanation in the
20.01.24 MMD.   The clarification Alison made by quoting fellow MBSGB
member  David Worrall convinced me that "gamme," the French word for
"scale" refers not to the tunes used on a particular musical box but to the
set of notes employed in its play

I then made a connection in my mind between the games used by musical box
makes and the scales used by Wurlitzer and other roll-making companies for
their band organs, fairground organs, orchestrions, and similar
roll-playing/book-playing instruments.   And the compendium *"Treasures of
Mechanical Music" *came to mind as the gamme-bible for mechanical music
instruments other than comb-playing musical boxes.

But after contacting Arthur Reblitz, co-author with Q. David Bowers of
*"Treasures of Mechanical Music,"* I learned that it is not that simple.
Art explained it thus:

"In light of the fact that 'gamme' refers to a comb tuning scale for a
specific music program (which would vary from one cylinder box to another,
depending on the requirements of the specific music played by each box), I
don't recommend using the term for standardized music rolls that would play
on every example of a certain model of instrument -- say, for example,
every Wurlitzer organ that played 150 rolls, which all used the same musical
scale.  A Wurlitzer 150 tracker bar layout is *not* a gamme.  

"In contrast, Mortier made many organs having the same number of key frame
keys and identical or very similar musical functions, but with the key
frame layout different for each organ, to induce organ owners to each buy
their own music, rather than swapping amongst café owners. In that case,
the original scale for a certain specific Mortier might be called a
'gamme' even though a Wurlitzer scale isn't." 

Art did say that *"Treasures of Mechanical Music"* does includes some of
the more common disc music box scales.

Matthew Caulfield
Irondequoit, NY