So there is a sort of keyboard instrument, a Carillon, which uses bells to make noise, or perhaps music if the controller is a musician. These are sometimes installed in a church to control the church bells.

A music box is a device using pegs on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth on a metal comb or similar.
If you're lucky it plays a few bars of "Singing in the rain".

I propose a combination of these two concepts. The latter obviously needs to be scaled up significantly. I suggest that power be supplied by the decent of a large weight on a chain, regulated by a ratchet - in the manner of a "grandfather" clock.
Perhaps re-purposing an old stand-up piano for the weight would add to the aesthetic.

The cylinder would of necessity be changeable, to avoid ire from those living nearby.

Some may say that in this day and age the device could be controlled electronically. Of course it may - but that being so why not just replace the carillon, the bells &c with a set of speakers? And if that were so one could further ask why do it at all? At this point we now have created a perfectly general argument which should prevent them from doing anything ever again.
-- Loris, Mar 04 2019

Suitable for: All_20Request_20Belfry
All Request Belfry [Loris, Mar 04 2019]

4pm tune https://www.youtube...watch?v=6JM4uN4KfCs
Clockwork tune mechanism installed 1772, played a tune every four hours. Replaced in 1950 by an electrically driven tune mechanism. A different tune on each day of the week. [pocmloc, Mar 06 2019]

You know this is how tower clocks play their wee chime tunes every quarter of an hour, already?
-- pocmloc, Mar 04 2019


//You know this is how tower clocks play their wee chime tunes every quarter of an hour, already?//

The distinction is one of scale, really.

I mean, the popular Westminster Quarters sequence is five four-note sequences, which gets played through twice in an hour.
Five bars, four different notes. It's not enough.
-- Loris, Mar 05 2019


Chuch walls + church bells + the people

There has been audio installations to listen and portray a building's movement and sounds into a piece of 'music'. Doing it, including individual emotional movements of parishioners as a holy symphonic entity, would be an exceptional nuanced translation. I would very like to listen to that soundscape, even if my ears don't quite have the Corti organs.
-- wjt, Mar 06 2019


How does a Carillon differ from a Celesta?
-- hippo, Mar 06 2019


//The distinction is one of scale, really//

Yes I know, but some towers have a pinned cylinder and plays a hymn or two on the hour.
-- pocmloc, Mar 06 2019


//Yes I know, but some towers have a pinned cylinder and plays a hymn or two on the hour.//

Huh, what do you know?
It's a pity they run it electronically now, though.
I thought for a moment I might've lived near that church for a bit, but it was a different Hillsborough.
-- Loris, Mar 06 2019


Pity they don't play the 5 note greeting from Close Encounters.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 08 2019



random, halfbakery