Muro Box: My Perfect Musical Instrument I composed 100+ songs via the Muro Box App!
Yen-Ting Chen (Tim)
Muro Box: My Perfect Musical Instrument I composed 100+ songs via the Muro Box App!
Yen-Ting Chen (Tim)
Hey guys, my name is Yen-Ting Chen (Tim). I’ve posted and shared some works here and enjoyed that pretty much, but I found I never introduced myself, so I decided that this time I’ll tell you something about me and how I became a music box fan!
I’m not a music major, but I like music for sure. Before my encounter with the music box, like many kids in Taiwan, we took musical instruments as a hobby. Some may take it as a class to fill the after-school time, but I did enjoy that pretty much. First at a children’s percussion band, I had a wonderful kindergarten time, and then I practiced piano for several years but never took it seriously. Guitar was a cool gadget at high school, and I finally found it easier at the choir. Music was never absent, but neither played a major role. Having nothing to perform, I would describe myself as a recessive music liker.
Because I have relative pitch in my ear,
Muro Box becomes the perfect musical instrument for me.
Thank God I still have good ears and a good sense of hearing——or perhaps not as good as I thought. I have relative pitch with a movable “Do”, allowing me to comprehend melody in an easier way but the paragraphs would sound the same to me even if the tone had been shifted. Another major drawback is that I won’t be able to identify the note I hear, nor to communicate precisely. In this setting, music stays in my head and has difficulty expressing itself.
Using the song “Sunny Day” by Jay Chou as an Example:
Fortunately, I don’t make a living on music. The “defect” in the way I comprehend music does not affect my life as life goes on. Then I settled in central Taiwan, found a job in the middle of the farms and started strolling around. Soon enough I found the Taiwan Modern Music Boxes Museum and discovered Muro Box in the gift shop. This can be recognized as my first encounter with this delicate little boutique.
Note 1: Perfect pitch is the ability to identify and reproduce specific musical pitches, while relative pitch is the ability to distinguish between different musical pitches.
Note 2: Solfege (movable-do) naming convention: Singing the tonic note of the current key as “Do”. The corresponding convention is “fixed-do”: Using absolute pitch to sing all notes.
As you all know——and maybe know better than I do——this app-controlled mechanical music box is capable of a lot of things, but it is also born with limits. The comb and the mechanical speed limit basically marked the border of its performance. No semitones, no continuous notes faster than 20 bpm, and most important of all, songs compatible with the Muro Box have to fit within the range and have to be converted to C Major.
C Major….Wait did I just hear C Major? You can say that again! After all those 35 years I finally found exactly what I am looking for. Although I don’t have what it takes to play an instrument promptly and precisely, I can however polish my arrangement over and over again then leave it to Muro Box to play it out. Best of all, I can have my work debut till I’m satisfied, no rush, no pressure because it’s my stage, my pace!
I found my own way of composing music after arranging a lot of famous songs.
I seldom compose my own pieces; instead, I arrange songs that already exist, mostly famous ones and classics ones. What I do is to recognize the melody, and process what I hear with what’s wired in my ear: comprehending them in C Major. Then it turns out to be a natural adaptor for Muro Box. Most songs need trimming, selection and sometimes style adaptation to fit in Muro Box. They may appear quite differently after modification, so I guess they may somehow count as “my composition”?!
The range of song selection is, um…. wide, I guess. Mandarin and Taiwanese pop, folklore, ballade, Western pop mostly English, movie scores, animation aka. J-pop, K-pop, and sometimes classical. There’s a category that may be a bit interesting to you, that’s my “Etudes”. They are not classical ones but some TV commercial’s melody, shore’s chimes and some catching clips inspired from radio. Hilarious they may seem to be, it’s actually great fun when arranging them.
I’d like to hereby share about my routines for checking whether a song can be converted to Muro Box or not.
1. Convert the melody to C key and check if there are many unavoidable semitones.
2. Does the converted melody fit within the N20 comb?
3. Are there repetitive notes that come in intervals too short?
4. Are there any sentences solely rhythmic without tones?
5. Do I have enough passion and faith in arranging this song?
Cultivate composing energy with my ears and let time settle the inspiration for new creation.
There are of course exceptions, but in most cases, there’s always a solution. It takes time and trial once and once again, but the effort will remain and each time it gets closer to completion.
On the other hand, when it comes to playing the music box as a hobby, it’s also important to find an efficient method to increase output. When starting to play the music box, it’s natural to begin with the most favorite and familiar tunes. However, after completing these initial pieces, I occasionally find a situation: I want to play a tune, but don’t know which song to arrange. What happens more commonly is that I heard a tune I could play a few days ago, but now I can’t recall which song it is.
From time to time, the compositions come to a halt, and it feels like being trapped. That’s perhaps one common thing every one of us experienced on our way of composing music box works. These works may be buried deeply but oftentimes after a while they make sense again when I review them, just like the Muse comes to me all at a sudden; to be practical on the other hand, it’s likely to attribute to some hearing sedimentation.
Thus, in conclusion, it’s the hearing that matters the most, at least it works that way to me.
From Selecting a Song to Arranging and Sharing it with Other Users, I Love Each Step of the Music Creation Process in the Muro Box App!
One of my favorite parts of composing is to debut a song. As you can see now on the app, the interface has become compact and pretty. The sound texture of the simulated music box ding-dong has also improved a lot so it’s quite an enjoyment to hear my works on the app. It’s also challenging to introduce the works in the user group, as it’s an official review of the content, but it’s worth it since it triggers more opinions from other users.
Arranging Muro Box Melodies Has Become a Fun Part of My Family Time
Arranging music to play on the Muro Box has become a decent way to “properly use” my trivial times. It has become a birthday song special for my family, and kids look forward to my next work. I sometimes take orders from them (challenge accepted!) and most of the time they are satisfied. As to my wife, a piano major, that’s…. not so easily persuaded, but she indeed gave me lots of technical support and has been a reliable consultant. Lucky me!
My Comment about the Muro Box
It’s hard to tell how happy I am to have encountered such a nice, delicate and technically stunning machinery boutique. It’s both relaxing and challenging, quite a contentment seeing my works being produced one after another one, and it gave those in-mind music a chance to be realized. Sincerely wish this magical Muro Box can be introduced to more people, see you at my next song!
