Musical Machine Produces Melody With 2000 Marbles

Swedish band Wintergaten’s member Martin Molin finally debuted his huge musical marble machine. After tweaking, prototyping and building the machine for nearly two years it is finally complete and producing melodious music.

The huge wooden musical instrument carries a vibraphone whose bars are hit by the falling marbles which amount to nearly 2000. It also includes cymbals, percussion, and a bass guitar neck. It has a breakdown arm responsible for maintaining the time of the marble machine accurately. Martin has programmed it to play a song which is extremely interesting.

The gigantic machine starts off when the performer moves the main crank which starts to move the wheels. It pushes many of the marbles up to the top. After the marbles have been positioned, the performer moves the lever the marbles start to fall on the vibraphone bars one by one. A pinned cylinder which opens different slots decides the order in which the marbles will fall. The balls fall directly on top of the vibraphone bars, bass guitar strings, and electronic percussion pads.

The machine is really mind boggling as well as awe inspiring. One wonders how much hard work and precision has gone into designing it in such a way that along with a melody the percussion parts and accompanying bass is also created. "Marble machines always make music, but I was thinking maybe I can make a programmable marble machine, that doesn't make chaos but is actually controllable in the sounds it makes," Molin had said.