My idea for my final project is to make a very large scale music box; these little trinkets were always beautiful to me as a kid.

My idea is to make a wall art version of these, mounting it on a canvas or something similar. One of the neat things about these things is the fact they use no electronics. Without offending anyone, I think a lot of design beauty has been lost with the incorporation of arduinos and motors. Mechanical creativity is often substituted with a simple code wired into a motor, offering an easier, though in my mind less elegant, solution. Imagine the difference between a grandfather clock and a digital watch; both have similar function, but the grandfather clock’s beauty is actually derived directly from how it achieves its function. That’s going to be an important part of my project; making the entire thing electronic free.

I plan to have a circular pattern with 30-40 tensioned guitar strings around the perimeter all tuned to different notes and a pick attached to a chain in the middle that turns around plucking the strings and making a tune. By making these strings individual, I can space them and tune them all individually and customizable, allowing for any song I want. I think I can make the entire thing work with a crank and gravity, we’ll see.

Sticking with the music theme, I’m going for and old record player/jazz guitar aesthetic. Dark woods, subtle tones and soft colors (if any). I’ve attached a few images below, I think I’m going to make the guitar string mounts from walnut or something and then add some bronze material somewhere in there. I want to mound it all to a white canvas just to drive home the art aspect of the piece.