What automated musical instrument did Leonardo da Vinci design with rotating rollers?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a mechanical drum that could play rhythms automatically with rotating rollers.

The device used a drum and mechanical control elements to produce percussion without a musician striking the instrument by hand. Leonardo’s design work on automated machines shows his interest in making repeated actions occur through cams, pins, gears, and rotating shafts. Such mechanisms were especially useful for demonstrations, entertainment, and courtly displays.

The instrument is sometimes confused with a barrel organ or a music box. Those devices can also automate musical performance, but they normally produce pitched tones through pipes or tuned metal parts. Leonardo’s mechanical drum focused on percussion and rhythm. It was an automaton concept, not a modern electronic instrument and not evidence of recorded sound.

Leonardo’s notebooks include many studies of automation, including mechanical figures and theatrical machines. These projects reveal that his engineering interests extended beyond weapons, buildings, and flight. As with many of his inventions, the drawing is stronger evidence of the concept than of a completed, continuously operating machine.