Musical Mad Maestro’s Marble Music Machine

Okay, I was going for alliteration on that headline, but...this Marble Music Machine is well worth taking a look at.

Knowing that I'm a tech and gadget geek, my wife just passed along a video of Swedish musician Martin Molin's hand-built unit that can sound like an entire band at the turn of a crank. And, it's pretty amazing.

From Wired.com:

The Wintergartan Marble Machine is a hand-made music box that powers a kick drum, bass, vibraphone and other instruments using a hand crank and 2,000 marbles.

The machine has to be seen to be appreciated: with dozens of beautifully carved wooden parts, tracks, pulleys and funnels for collecting and rerouting spent marbles, it's a true work of art. And though marble machines as an art form of their own have a long and complex history, this might be one of the best.

And, like people sometimes do, Martin Molin thought this would be a quick and fairly easy concept to put together. He budgeted 2 months to make it, but it took over 14 months to reach this point: