A Music Box at Takashimaya Shinjuku

After I bought the Tokyo-Sendai bus ticket at Shinjuku bus terminal, I then took a stroll to the Takashimaya shopping center which was located right beside the terminal. This shopping center, which was built in 1996, consisted of 14 floors with its’ own category for each floor. One of the floors was the stationery and kids toys department. On this floor, I encountered the sound of one of the music box samples, from a shelf to be precise. The sound of the music box was so melodic among the hustle and bustle in Shinjuku. Several tourists from Europe were chatting while looking through the line of music boxes.  

A brief history about music box, it was created by a watchmaker from Geneva, Swiss named Antoine Favre-Salomon in 1796. He created a box with a spinning metal cylinder. Inside the cylinder there are gears that would pick the metal plates. The vibration of those metal plates are the ones that caused the beautiful and brilliant melodies unique to a music box. Music box can play various type of melodies from many music compositions, including parts of a theme from work of famous componists like Debussy, Strauss, Mozart, Beethoven, and others. Music box then became known worldwide, including Shinjuku that evening.