Re: Chordephon Zither Music Box
By Robbie Rhodes
Dear Gerard, you wrote:
> Your wagering of tuning the Cordephon like a music box may be
> right. I will ask my former colleague. He is the man constructing
> the 60 string Cordephon, a disk-music-box. The Cordephon is
> playing automatically with a big punched-metal disk, if the
> spring-motor of the instrument is activated.
>
> An original 40-string metal-disk playing Zither is in his
> possession. He knows the meaning of " Die Zitherwirbel tragen das
> bezuegliche Notenzeichen". ["The tuning pegs bear the the relevant
> note-data."] On the 40-strings Zither you see the tuning
> character on each tuning peg for the string tension. What are the
> characters for the 60 strings box?
>
> Het allerbeste van
> Gerard Arkenbout
> uit Den Haag (is ook s'Gravenhage) in Nederland (The Netherlands).
I'm sorry I don't own the big reference book, "Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments", by Q. David Bowers, but I saw in it a photograph of the 60-string Chordephon. The photo appears to be post-1950. Unfortunately, this book gives no data about the tuning. Somebody, somewhere, owns this fine, original instrument. Have you inquired at the museums in Utrecht and Munich? This man is seeking Chordephon disks -- perhaps he knows:
Harry Natuschka, Lange Weihe 63 C, 30880 Laatzen, tel:0511/820945.
Best regards, Robbie Rhodes
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| Robbie Rhodes |
| rrhodes@foxtail.com |
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(Message sent Thu 1 Aug 1996, 03:33:35 GMT, from time zone GMT-0700.) |
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