whitney music box - var. 17 - hand cranked

Note: This site was originally implemented in 2006 using Flash, a technology which is being increasingly deprecated across devices and browsers. I am in the process of converting each variation to video, but it will take some time to complete this conversion. You are viewing a variation which is still using Flash.

in this interactive variation the notes are arranged in a pentatonic scale and only move when you turn the crank

the notes are stored as individual samples which were generated using my own jsyd synthesis software

because of sound limitations in flash, you will not hear all the notes when lots of them are triggered at the same time

the crank illustration was provided by ophelia chong

Here's a fun 20 minute video that ends with me demonstrating an audience-participation version of the hand-cranked Whitney Box at the GEL conference in NYC.

A musical realization of the motion graphics of John Whitney as described in his book "digital harmony"

Animation and music by Jim Bumgardner of krazydad.com and the wheel of lunch. Jim makes free puzzles, including sudoku, killer sudoku, kakuro, mazes, and thousands of other puzzles.


Music box variations:

var. 0 - chromatic - 48 tines
var. 1 - harmonics of 55hz
var. 2 - harmonics of 20hz
var. 3 - harmonics of 48hz, reversed
var. 4 - harmonics of 48hz, palindrome
var. 5 - chromatic - 88 tines
var. 6 - microtones
var. 7 - harmonics - 120 tines, reversed
var. 8 - chromatic - 88 organ pipes, rev.
var. 9 - chromatic - 88 bars, rev.
var. 10 - chromatic - 64 pipe crypto calliope
var. 11 - minute waltz - 60 keys, 60 seconds
var. 12 - chromatic - prime numbers only
var. 13 - chromatic - non-primes only
var. 14 - stereo
var. 15 - stereo - 120
var. 16 - stereo - 210
var. 17 - hand cranked
var. 18 - stereo drone
var. 19 - stereo sonar
var. 20 - bell carol

Creative Commons License
Whitney Music Box by Jim Bumgardner is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

More detailed information can be found in this post

Here is a git repository of sample source code / reference implementations in a variety of languages, including Flash/Actionscript, ChucK, Pure Data (PD), SuperCollider, Nyquist, pyo, Processing, Perl, and Syd. You'll also find MIDI files in there. Email me if you'd like to contribute.

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