Music box

How the comb sings

Each tooth of the steel comb is a little cantilever, clamped at the heel and free at the tip. Its pitch falls with the square of its length, so the bass teeth reach furthest back into the comb.

A tooth's overtones are not harmonics. Its second way of bending rings about 6.3 times higher than the first, and its third about 17.5 times. That out-of-tune shimmer above the note, dying away much faster than the note itself, is the sound of a music box.

Every hole in the strip lets a star wheel rise and flick its tooth. Punch the same note twice in quick succession and the second pick catches the tooth still swinging: listen for the buzz.

Hold a music box in the air and it is thin and quiet. Set it on a table and the wood becomes its soundboard.

This comb runs from C3 to B5: chromatic in the upper two octaves except for the D-sharps, and a plain scale with a B-flat in the lowest.

At the bench

• Click the paper to punch a hole. A hole cannot be unpunched; click it again to tape it over
• Drag the crank clockwise, or hold Space. It will not turn backwards
• Drag the strip, scroll, or use the arrow keys to slide it along
• Share copies a link that carries the whole strip

The strips

Arranged for this comb from Johannes Brahms (1868), Erik Satie (1888), and an English tune of the 1580s.