A minute repeater is a percussion instrument. A series of (most frequently two, sometimes three or four) hammers strike gongs that have each been tuned to produce a certain note, composing a melody that can be translated into a report of the time by those initiated into the discipline of repeating watches. Its matched hammers and gongs recall the marteaux and strings of a piano. The bright stretches of polished metal forming the gongs most resemble the sprightly attitudes of the musical triangle. The variety of tones produced by this most emotional of timepieces, however, far exceeds the boundaries of the percussion section. The chime of a minute repeater may possess the sonorous majesty of an English horn, or it can sound as ethereally light as the delicate piccolo. Cased up, the chime takes on additional color — its vibrations can emulate the round, full tones of a flute, and the achingly sweet throb of a cello yawn. Because a repeating watch is, essentially, singing time, its voice must be capable of expressing the entire gulf of human emotion associated with it. And if you had to choose only one way in which to mark out all the moments of your life, wouldn’t you choose to do it in song