[ Editor's Note:
 [
 [ Walter reminded me that he sent this in last September.
 [ Many of you are new here and have probably not seen this
 [ posting.
 [
 [ Jody

* * *  G S M  * * *

The abbreviation GSM stands for
"Gesellschaft fuer selbstspielende Musikinstrumente"
which may be translated as
"Society for selfplaying musical instruments".
It was founded in 1975 under another name and bears the
mentioned name since 1984.

Today GSM has more than 700 members, that have joined in order to
"investigate, preserve and take care of the cultural good of mechanical
music in the scientific-technical and the musical field". This covers
the instruments with all their challenging aspects as well as the music
that is dedicated to these devices.  Nearly every European museum, that
has specialized on musical automata, and a lot of important libraries
are among the members of the society.

GSM is associated with important societies in Europe and the US such as
AMICA and MBSI.  During last years annual meeting Frank Metzger (New
York) gave a very interesting talk about the subtle things in small
music boxes, that are only revealed to a sharp eye.

GSM is publishing a journal DMM
"Das mechanische Musikinstrument (The mechanical musical instrument)",
that is printed about three times a year.

The annual meeting of this year is held in Markneukirchen (Thuringia)
on September 16-17.

The actual president is Dr. Juergen Hocker, who is living near Cologne.
The vice president is Siegfried Wendel who runs a prime museum of
mechanical music in the ancient village of Ruedesheim on the romantic
part of the Rhine. Some of you may have heard the name of
Hans-W. Schmitz from Stuttgart who is an expert for Welte pianos and
serves as a secretary in our society.

                Walter

W.Tenten@kfa-juelich.de