Videotaping a Musical Box: An Attempt to Transcribe and Analyze Its Music

The pictured musical movement is featured in an article in the January/February 2012 issue of Mechanical Music. In the article, Helmut Kowar describes an interesting method of transcribing and analyzing an unknown tune by making a video recording of the movement playing it. Helmut gives the detailed steps of the video analysis and concludes the article with an image of the completed transcription.
The movement was made by Franz Einsidl in Vienna (ca. 1860/1865). The two air movement has a cylinder of 101mm length; the comb is 98mm long and has 81 teeth. The tonal range runs from f to g', five octaves plus one tone. The movement is built into the base of a Viennese mantel clock.