National Museum van Speelkok tot Pierement

...or the National Museum from Chimes to Barrel Organs.

It is a wonderful museum that concentrates on mechanical music machines - they have over 600 of them on display. The collection ranges from tiny jewelry music boxes to huge fairground barrel organs.

The museum finishes with a children's room, where they can explore how the machines make music. With your ticket the front desk hands you a music card strip for every child. This music card strip allows you to punch holes in it and play a medley in the music box. After seeing the activity in action, I just had to participate. Armed with my "I'm an elementary school teacher" line, I marched up to the front desk to request two strips for Matt and me. The amused front desk attendant kindly handed over two strips with chuckle.

And off we went...

First we marked the notes on our cards using song templates, like "Teletubbies", "Flintstones", "Bonnie over the Sea", and what I think was the Dutch national anthem. I chose "Flintstones".

Next, we punched a hole for each note we just marked.


And then, we stuck our music card into the player.


And whalaa! Music!

Matt, unsatisfied with the assortment of children's songs, decided to compose a tune himself. Fortunately for you, the camera was on hand to capture his music box debut performance.