"The automatic violin, playing music with all the skills of the most 'trained' human hand, is now a perfect fact, although musicians and even scientists have declared that this will never be achieved."
Thus began an article in Technical World, Feb, 1909, by EK Hall. Further more. The author said that everything is subject to the device! Amazing performances: solos by Paganini, Wieniawski, Kubelik … As well as all possible "tricks" characteristic of playing the violin: legato, staccato, spiccato, pizzicato, arpeggio, shake, trill, portamento, thirds, quarters, sixths, octaves, tenths etc.
Invention patent dated 1905.
The main inventor of this device was most likely Henry Conrad Sundell. And the production was handled by the Mills Novelty company. As well as the next, improved invention known as the Model Violano-Virtuoso - violin plus piano.
The violin was placed in the upper part of the machine and was very ordinary. But the mechanism underneath it was wonderful. After turning it on (with a coin - if used in music salons, or from a button - at home), the electric motor and a mechanism from shafts and cylinders were turned on. The contact cylinder, carrying the special paper, rotated. When the holes in the paper passed the contact group, a current was applied to one or more phosphor bronze plates.
And here is the Deluxe version with two independent violins.
Then the magnets attached to the neck come into play. The magnets attract the armatures connected by a rod with "fingers" acting on the strings of the violin. The bowed magnets are mounted on a bracket that extends over the violin body. The bow is formed by four rotating conical celluloid bows, one for each string. The same current that drives the "fingers" acts simultaneously on one or more of these magnets.
Promotional video:
There was even a special violin tuning mechanism! In the upper part of the case there were three buttons: "AE", "D" and "G." Each button sounded a couple of notes. Then you had to turn the key on the violin in accordance with the letter on the pressed button until the two strings sound like one.