Jack Perron interview

What is a music box ?
Jack Perron : Well, according to the Musical Box Society International a music box is "an instrument which plays music via the plucking of teeth on a tuned steel comb. Teeth may be plucked directly as by pins on a rotating cylinder, or indirectly as by projections beneath a rotating disc."

The music boxes Bjork used in Vespertine were disc musical boxes. She has three differently-sized boxes: a single-disc 15.5" box, a double-disc box (two 15.5" discs playing simultaneously, each disc with slightly different scoring), and a smaller 7" disc box for her lap.

The single disc 15.5" box was used for the Vespertine recordings, I believe. Disc musical boxes can be very large, and can play quite elaborate arrangements. Interesting to note that many reviews of Vespertine described Frosti as being "a number of music boxes" layered upon each other. In fact, the recording is a direct, live recording of a single music box.

About your job
JP : Manufacturers of large disc musical boxes had a very brief « heydey » from the 1880’s to the 1920’s. Consequently, very little music written since then has found its way onto the larger tune discs. Some manufacturers are interested in producing discs of newer music, and for the past 30 years or so, I have been creating « master discs » for these companies.

This involves creating an initial adaptation (most often working from a familiar arrangement... music box companies nearly always prefer familiar, standard settings of pieces which the listener can immediately identify), then modifying it to physically fit on a particular music box disc. Because a disc can usually play only 1 minute of music, I’ve already had to make major decisions in choosing which part (or modified parts) of a piece to use.

In the beginning (pre-computer days), I used a homemade metal guage, a large magnifying glass, a very large protractor, and whatever piano I could find. (I did not have a studio, and would sneak into Church basements or vacant town dance halls to use the pianos there.) After creating a score, I would calculate note locations, and physically mark the locations of notes on a blank master disc. Marking the disc could take two or three weeks. I could not hear the completed work until an actual disc had been « punched out » (projections are created on one side of a disc by a punching process.), so that correcting a mistake would be a time-consuming and costly process.

Today, I use computers to aid in most of the work. I do not use any commercially available software. I found it better to write my own programs dedicated to the special requirements of musical box arrangements.

Can you explain the process of the music box adaptation for Björk’s songs ?
JP : Initially, Bjork or her collaborators contacted a music box manufacturer in Randolph Vermont, for whom I had done much work. The music box company sent me three scores initially (Frosti, Blueprint - Pagan Poetry - , and Aurora). (Later, Cocoon was added.) I spoke once with Bjork over the phone after that, which gave me a clear sense of what Vespertine was supposed to be.

The work I did for Bjork clearly were « adaptations » : she had created full, complete arrangements written with music box in mind. Her music was inventive and beautiful as it lay, and it was a shame that it wouldn’t fit on a music box disc as it was. (Frosti was longer than the 1 minute which could fit on a disc.) So, I knew my task was to get it to fit without wrecking it.

An additional problem I had was that these pieces were to be accompanied by vocals (Frosti, I believe, originally had Vocal.) This restricted any transposing. Transposing is a very useful tool when doing music box arrangements because most music box combs aren’t chromatic... there are many missing notes, especially in the bass. Music box combs are designed to have maximum notes in only one or two key scales. (For the 15.5" box that Bjork has, this happens to be the key of F#.)

Another difficulty that occured (especially in Blueprint - Pagan Poetry - and Cocoon) was reproducing important, prominent bass lines essential to the piece. Disc music boxes are designed with the bass notes located towards the center of the disc, where there is much less space. You just can’t fit in a lot of bass notes. Also, as mentioned, the bass part of the comb is not chromatic, and important notes just weren’t there. And in addition, there is the added problem that the same note can’t be repeated right away on a music box... the mechanism doesn’t allow it. The required « wait time » is especially long for bass notes. All this means that it’s very tricky to get a complicated bass line on a music box. Sometimes you just have to leave a note out, or find an alternative note that doesn’t destroy the musical concept.

I think I got lucky on most of the work for Vespertine... things seemed to fall into place more easily than I expected. (Each piece is a puzzle at the beginning, and you never know for sure how things will work out until the very end.) Jake Davies faxed me once during the work (to change a single note!).

Every songs from Vespertine could be converted into music box versions ?
JP : Well, It’s in Our Hands would be fun, especially trying to reproduce some of those sound samples. I like the rhythm of the opening theme, it would work well on music box.

Unison could also work well. I like the rhythmic theme that starts about 50 seconds in. I’d probably use the part from there until about 3:15 in, and then maybe a little of the ending. It would be a trick to get the sound and feel of the « bent notes »... that kind of oriental (?) sound in there.

Sun in My Mouth has a chimes line which could easily be played by a music box.

Harm Of Will and Undo have accompaniment lines which could be played by music box, but wouldn’t be my first choices.

Do you know why she used music box compositions for Vespertine ?
JP : I would be guessing. I did meet Bjork, in Boston, before her Wang Center performance, and we did get to talk for a while about music boxes. (Aside: She took me onstage before the show ...beautiful, ornate, vacant concert hall... and we played through all the discs. When we finished, I think we forgot to put the right disc back on the box to be ready to play as the opening piece...on her lap, with snow falling... not sure, but I think the wrong disc might have been played to start the show. Blame me.)

Now for my guessing about why she used music boxes in Vespertine:

I think she has said in interviews something along the lines that the mood of Vespertine was intended to be cozy, « homey », a « Wintertime around the fire » type of feeling. That would fit with music boxes, I would think. A music box is one of a few musical instruments with an intimate sound quality meant for an audience of one... perhaps best heard in quiet, private moments.

Links

 Henstoothdiscs