Abstract
Mechanical music-playing automata have been made to play music or simulate animal sounds for several thousand years, the combined products of music and technology. This study introduces the musical elements and mechanical design parameters of such objects. Three types of wind-instrument automata are classified based on the sounds they make, namely the whistle, pan flute, and slide whistle type. A structural analysis of the mechanisms of four typical ancient mechanical devices is also provided.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to the Ministry of Science and Technology (Taipei, Taiwan) for its financial support of this work under Grant MOST 104-2221-E-006-007-.
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Chen, YH., Lin, JL., Yan, HS. (2016). An Introduction to the Ancient Mechanical Wind-Instrument Automata. In: López-Cajún, C., Ceccarelli, M. (eds) Explorations in the History of Machines and Mechanisms. History of Mechanism and Machine Science, vol 32. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31184-5_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31184-5_8
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