You've Got a Friend in Me - Music Box Collection

Hey everyone! Jamie from Fong Songs with another Disney cover to share with you. The wikipedia article on music boxes explains "that the tone of a musical box is unlike that of any musical instrument," which works perfectly for Unconventional Instrument Week. I chose this music box cover of You've Got a Friend in Me from Toy Story as recorded by MUSIC BOX COLLECTION, though I'm not sure whether that's one artist per se or some company that churns them out along the lines of those Rock-a-Bye Baby compilations. Apparently in Japan, cover albums in the music box or "orgel" style are their very own popular (or at least prolific) subgenre of music. This cover comes from the descriptively named HOSHINI NEGAIWO ITSUKA OUJISAMAGA ORGEL COLLECTION. The same people even put out music box cover albums of songs from Hayao Miyazaki films.

The music box as a genre somewhat fascinates and baffles me. As I understand it, one doesn't exactly "play" the music box as an instrument since in its most basic form it consists of a prefabricated metal disc or cylinder with bumps that "pluck" the notes of a sort of metal comb as they rotate. So I imagine the arrangement of such a song would be quite the involved and complex process unless they have some sort of automated process that facilitates the conversion of written music to mechanical discs. The abundance of music box recordings seems to suggest as much, though I couldn't really satisfy my curiosity regarding modern day music box recording techniques despite some obsessive googling and I suspect its less complicated than I'm making it out to be. Though I do find this particular recording quite charming, perhaps such covers are more mechanical than artistic in nature. I mean, this isn't even the only music box cover of You've Got a Friend in Me I have in my collection!