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Sweet, sweet music - beautifully made
Written by Geraldine Cardozo
20.07.2008
Don’t you
love an inspirational quote? I often find
a choice sentence can justify most actions – such as purchasing an
extraordinarily expensive child’s toy while being reassured that I am indulging
in my little one’s educational and developmental needs.
The website for Swiss
manufacture Naef Toys – the master craftsmen behind the stunning hand-crafted Gloggomobil
musical instrument – has a page of quotations which embrace the importance of
play, such as “When you play, nothing is impossible” (apart from eating
perhaps, if you’ve blown the monthly budget on a super-duper glockenspiel-cum-xylophone-cum-barrel
organ).
But if you
have an inkling that your baby or toddler could be the next Mozart, and you’ve
already gone through the gamut of usual toy instruments (electronic keyboard,
annoying toy guitar, various shakers and tambourines, tiny violins and excrutiatingly
noisy trumpets, grand piano…) then perhaps this aesthetically pleasing,
sophisticated and educational music machine could be next on the list.
Designed
in 1983 by Herbert Bahli for Naef Toys the Gloggomobile uses the principle of
the barrel-organ – as studs on the barrel are struck, tunes are created and
carried through a simple mechanism to the metal keys of the glockenspiel. The
wooden xylophone can also be played directly with sticks.
It
is a stunning piece of craftsmanship in itself and I bet parents will have as
much fun playing, admiring and displaying this top-of-the-range toy, available online through
Fawn and Forest which ships internationally, which is entirely hand-made in
Switzerland and designed to last. And when your paying to the tune of US$900 a
pop, you would hope so.
