Making a Music Box: A 5 Year Anniversary Present

This is a little music box I made for my wife as a gift for our 5 year wedding anniversary. We agreed not to get each other gifts but I had to make an exception for the "wood" anniversary! The wood comes from the old floors of our wedding venue and is dade county pine, or slash pine, which is very rare these days. The hinges and knob come from Horton Brasses.

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[alexclark]

I love handmade keepsake items like these - you must really be in love with her to dismantle a walnut box in order to make a memory!

[AwesomePowerCat]

Using the wood from the wedding venue is so sweet. I love that!

[andrewbrown]

Very nice, John~! So cool that you were able to get the wooden floorboard from the venue where you were married. Great sentimental connection~!

[MasonR]

That little jingle is so beautiful I love it so much

[justinnaramor]

Warning: this comment might get a little long :))

I've been listening to a lot of music-box-related Youtube videos today and just now found this one. This was really nice to listen to, and what a great little gift for your wife!

One interesting little observation I made:

During the playing of the song on the music box, I could hear that some of the notes of the melody were duplicated. This is actually a good thing: the sound of a music box is produced by pegs on a rotating cylinder thing which pluck little strips of metal to allow them to vibrate (similar to the strings of a guitar or something). If the melody for the instrument is programmed in such a way that the same strip is triggered several times in a row (which means the same note is repeated), what you hear is a very noticeable "dampening" effect on the sound. That's because the little peg on the rotating cylinder thing has to first touch the strip of metal and then finally slip off the strip to cause it to vibrate, and when that strip is touched by a peg it stops the strip from vibrating; this is akin to a musician's finger plucking a guitar string. So, to get rid of the dampening effect and thus create more of a "sustaining" sound, some of those metal strips can be tuned to the same pitch. This means that if 2 different strips play the same pitch back to back and the contact of a peg with one of those strips stopps it from vibrating, the other strip playing the same pitch is still vibrating and therefore it sounds more sustained... hope that makes sense. So, talking about the "Make You Feel My Love" song: if you analyze the melody closely (particularly at the chorus, which the music box was playing), you can hear something like 5 instances of the same pitch, one immediately following the other. So whoever made the mechanism shown here was smart to have some of the metal strips tuned to that same pitch to accommodate for this fact. Those 2 or so strips may not've been "absolutely" tuned to "precisely" the same pitch though, as there was a very, very slight "chorus" effect when those 2 or so strips were played, so I think that makes my point even more obvious :)). All this stuff is really quite interesting to me. I have a bit of a fascination with music boxes and sound, as you can probably tell I also have a pretty good ear for music, so I think that also helps when making an analysis like this.


Anyways, feel free to reply if you'd like to (or if you don't, that's fine too, I won't force you to do so and I won't get offended either

[dimitriostheodorides]

Awesome brother ❤❤ the only thing I'll say and it's not a criticism. As a musician I can't help but wish the box was deeper so the acoustics would ring the notes out with a natural reverb effect. That's all and totally a preference 🎉. Super awesome and thanks for the tip!!!!

[Numocron]

Wow man this is such a lovely gift you've made for your wife I love it.😃👍❤️😍🥰🎶🎵

[whitexeno]

Paying customers: expensive Sapele
wife: salvaged pine floors for free.

JK nice work on the box.

[joshuaglassman]

Holy crap is that the cutest speed square I've ever seen! :-P

[BigDaddySays]

Yeahhhh not what I was expecting lol I’m like where is the part where he MAKES one not just cut wood ? 🤪 🤣🤣

[dacueba-games]

5:03 did anyone else instantly think it was gonna play the Luigi's Mansion theme

[elliadzn]

thats really a nice project i was thinking to make a box as well but it will be with something i can use not a box only but thank you for sharing it with us

[Shaunicus.]

Thats the most romantic thing I've ever seen!

[MCsCreations]

Beautiful work, John! It turned out fantastic! 😃
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[jr-vqvj]

I appreciate the box build. It's encouraging to see your techniques. Hardwood is supposed to resonate better and provide a richer tone. Might have been informative to you to compare the sound before and after the change of mount.

[icemen]

Как всегда все превосходно! Молодец!👍👏

[viorsa]

Excelente proyecto muy bien desarrollado y mejor ejecutado, una caja de música magnífica, gracias por compartir, un saludo cordial y por supuesto un gran like desde Narón, Galicia ( España) 🤓😜

[hoists]

John, I love it, you may need a wireless electric hoist to help you.

[CMack]

Great minds think alike. I'm getting a music box for my wife, but I thought it would be better if I made the box myself. So to YouTube I went and your video I saw.

[coleve]

I think I would have robbed the feet off the other one as well. Great video.