Entertainment

Wintergatan’s Wooden Machine Makes Beautiful Music Using 2,000 Marbles

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8 years ago

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Mar 04, 2016 06:15am EST

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Mark Andrew

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Whoever believes you need advanced technology to make good music is absolutely wrong.

As proven by this viral music video by Wintergatan, one can actually use good old marbles to make a cool-sounding tune. Well, some marbles and this awesome-looking music machine, at least.

Built by Swedish musician Martin Molin, the Wintergatan Marble Machine is a handmade wooden music box powered by 2,000 marbles. It has a kick drum, bass, vibraphone, and several other instruments.

Swedish musician Martin Molin built the Wintergatan Marble Machine, a hand crank-operated music box powered by 2,000 marbles.

Source: Wintergatan

The machine is operated using a hand crank. The marbles then “travel” around the instrument through the pulleys and funnels. In short, it’s an absolute work of art!

The marble machine has several instruments such as bass, vibraphone, hi-hat, snare, and kick drum.

Source: Wintergatan

In an interview with WIRED, Molin confessed he originally scheduled two months to build the machine – but it took 14.

Molin said the project was a result of his fascination with marble machine culture.

Source: Wintergatan

Molin shared “I drew out the dimensions in 3D software” beginning with an 80cm cube which became the machine’s foundation. The artist also pointed out that the project was directly inspired by the marble machine subculture.

“I stumbled over the marble machine culture — it’s a whole subculture — and was always interested in gears, and the future of gears…”

“The marbles… they behave like water.”

Source: Wintergatan

Speaking about the marbles, the craftsman-musician has this to say:

“The marbles, you know, they behave like water. The nature of water is that it just breaks through everything. After 100,000 years it can make a hole in stone. The marbles act like that, it doesn’t matter what I’m doing to try to tame them. They are just flooding every wall I’m putting up. … I’ll have to fix some escaping marble issues in order to tour.”