[ I asked Devon for more details about the toy musical box
 [ and inquired if a blind man would recognise it as an organ.
 [ I wondered if the reason that it plays only one note is simply
 [ that it is under-winded.  -- Robbie

I just took one of mine apart again.  You can only see two pipe mouths
on the back, and the rest of it is hidden from the mechanism, which
I don't wish to dismantle.  The keyboard has twelve keys, and each one
distinctly plays a clear pipe note.  If there is a slide anywhere, it
is not visible.  Instead, it looks as if holes open on the pipe to gain
the new pitch.

The discs have raised dots and dashes for the lengths of the notes,
so that the duration of the note is determined.  What's even weirder
is that it takes four "tracks" to make the proper notes from the discs,
but that's probably the stoppering needed to get the proper pitch.
When you push a key, it sometimes pushes up to four levers at once, so
that probably duplicates the four-track disk.  I experimented and tried
to play two notes.  It will play two notes on a few intervals, evidence
that there are two pipes involved.

A blind man would hear sound as if a 2' pipe organ stop were being
played; the pitches are right on and clear, with no sliding in pitch.
If you play the keys slowly, the pitch will "step" once in a while.
Playing firmly creates the sound of 8 pipes!

When the batteries are fresh, it sounds far from under-winded.  I can
take pictures if you like.

Devon Hollingsworth

 [ It seems that the disc that plays the instrument employs data
 [ encoding to play 8 different notes from only 4 data channels --
 [ a multiplex control scheme!  But should it be called an organ
 [ or a player penny-whistle, or what?  -- Robbie