http://acravan.blogspot.com/2012/09/player-piano-new-abnormal_18.html
Even a puppy can play a player






AMICA: Automatic Musical Instrument Collectors' Association

 

April 15 - May 10, 2014

Reception April 27, Noon - 5pm

119 Gallery will showcase a selection of automated instruments from the collections of AMICA's Boston Chapter. Hand cranked musical boxes and organs dating from the mid-1800s to present will be on view April 15 through May 10, with a guided tour and demonstrations on Sunday April 27, at noon conducted by restorer Chris Christiansen, collector Tom Ahearn, and chapter president Kirk Russell.
 
200 years before the iPod, music boxes brought the first reproducible entertainment to homes that could not afford the services of a musician for social entertainment. Popular tunes were distributed on paper rolls, discs of metal or paper, or rollers with wire pins that plucked tuned combs or opened air valves to create a tone. From tiny wind-up music boxes to massive pipe organs, mechanical instruments came to life when their knobs, cranks, and bellows set them in motion. Their history is also fraught with patent infringements, curious advertising, and brilliant experiments in development and production.

 

On view will be an 1880s Gem Roller Organ, one of the first mass produced organs to use a cob roller instead of a paper roll to open its 20 valves; a Mechanical Orguinette Co. direct action music box; a 10 song cylinder box; a player piano; and samples of bellow materials, reeds, valves, and children's toys.

 

Admission is free - all ages.

 

AMICA Boston Chapter website


Other upcoming events:

5/20 - 24  ::  UML Perspectives

6/3 - 28  ::  Guest Curator Duy Hoang

7/8 - 8/14  ::  Members Exhibitions

119 Gallery promotes contemporary and new media art, innovative ideas and cutting-edge techniques with a rich and diverse program of exhibitions, performances and community-based arts services.