Behold “La joueuse de tympanon” (“The Dulcimer Player”), one of many musical automata from the late 18th century.  Then, as now, such creations provoked powerful responses:

“The attempts of mechanicians to imitate, with more or less approximation to accuracy, the human organs in the production of musical sounds, or to substitute mechanical appliances for those organs, I consider tantamount to a declaration of war against the spiritual element in music.  The more perfect this sort of machinery is, the more I disapprove of it…” — E. T. A. Hoffmann, The Automata (1814)

June 04, 2010, 9:41am