Browse Items (18 total)

Steel, brass, PVC pipe, paper roll, sewing machine belt, electronics.

This machine demonstrates the method used by Grainger and Cross to control oscillators through the use of connected ‘tone arms’ and cut paper ‘scores’. Whereas Grainger and…

Large, upright wooden frame with cross beams at side. Two vertical poles / tubes at each side divided into four sections with acetate discs. Paper reels (cut to represent pitch) are fed through a series of metal poles - a roller runs along top (cut)…

This photograph shows the Grainger and Cross's Kangaroo Pouch Tone Tool Free Music machine installed in the Grainger Museum, probably in the late 1950s. The machine was not fully complete when it was installed, and Cross visited the Grainger Museum…

Metal, electronics In 1932 Percy Grainger attended a concert of musical pieces performed on a new instrument called the theremin. This instrument, invented in 1920 by Russian physicist Lev Sergeyevich Termen (known in the USA as Léon Theremin) was a…

Watercolour and ink on paper.

Photograph of Free Music experiments with Grainger's Duo Art player piano, and types notes by Grainger describing the experiment

Steel, brass, wood, accordion reeds, blower fans, linear bearings.

In their original Reed box experiments, Grainger and
Cross approximated the effect of gliding musical
pitches by using closely-spaced microtones. They
detuned harmonium reeds to…

Masonite, wire, string, tape

This invention was Grainger's first attempt at constructing an instrument which could glide smoothly from one tone to the next and which was controlled by a 'musical score' rather than a player. The sound was produced…