Hi all,  My one great problem with the idea of preserving mechanical
music through museums is that these instruments were never intended
to sit in a museum.

And let's face it: most museums are stuffy preservationist places where
they would never dream of actually playing the instruments because
mechanical parts wear out over time and they're there to preserve them.
What you end up with is at best a video of the instruments playing and
more likely just sitting around decaying on the insides, cloth
stiffening and the leather valves losing their seal through lack of
use.

A hands-on museum where the instruments would be played is an
improvement on the idea, especially one where there is a restoration
studio inside is a great improvement on the idea, but I highly doubt
that it could generate the same type of enthusiasm as even Disneyland
where you could put in a coin and watch the roll turn, see the piano
keys depressed and listen to the loud and exciting music.  (I haven't
been to Disneyland in several years, but I remember as a kid going into
the penny arcade on Main Street and playing their exciting Welte --
it was definitely one of the highlights of my childhood visits.)

Even these are only a way of displaying loud instruments.  I shudder
to think of playing a musical box before a group of 30 people and
having the music drowned out over the noise.  I once demonstrated
three of my musical boxes before my company.  It was at first supposed
to be with video and proper amplification, but in the end I was in the
corner of the patio with a small guitar-type amp and microphone; it was
barely heard over the constant conversations.

The best public display I have seen still remains the Nethercutt
collection in Sylmar, California.  I applaud Lynn Bullock's idea of
building a museum but I doubt that investors would be attracted to
it, from a practical sense.  I hope I'm wrong.

Eli Shahar