ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS FOR THE 2001 CIMCIM CONFERENCE

Barcelona, Spain, Sunday 1 to Friday 6 July 2001

Web URL: http://cimcim.icom.museum/ixbta.html

This meeting will be held in conjunction with the 19th General Conference and the 20th General Assembly of The International Council of Museums.

Musical Instruments on Display :: Mounting, Security, Labelling

In times of change in the museum world, with different expectations of visitors and often tight financial restrictions, the display of musical instruments presents a new challenge. The trend towards the museum as an adventure park, mass tourism, and the cutbacks in security personnel need to be reflected in the mounting and labelling of the objects.

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The Brussels Museum of Musical Instruments: a Year of Experience in a Renovated Building

Mia Awouters, Curator,
Museum of Musical Instruments, Brussels

By the time of the Conference in July 2001, the Brussels Museum of Musical Instruments (MIM) will have been open for one year in its new location at Place royale. The historic, attractive building and the new display of the collection have created a massive turnout of the public. This is a huge contrast with the former location, and the MIM has to cope with new challenges. The three-part building (in entirely different styles) presents some difficulties, as there are the differences between the floor levels of different parts and rather complicated visitor circulation.

The mounting of the instruments seems to be satisfactory in general, although the open access to keyboard-instruments is very tempting to the public.

During the first seven months, the MIM often had the problem of too many visitors at one time, too few security personnel, too few headphones, difficulties of cleaning and thus of good conservation for instruments not on display in glass cases. The control of light intensity and of humidity (a system not adapted to sudden changes in climate), the cloakroom (which visitor's bag is so big as to be a danger to the objects?), the control of access to the restaurant (same staircase, same lift) already have been improved.

The text of the labels can be a problem for elder people (most find them satisfactory); the explanation of the iconographical documents is often illegible (too great a distance, or because of the coloured panels).

The museum is not at all an adventure park, although the use of headphones and the presence of a sound-laboratory seem to satisfy even the younger visitors. Animated guided tours and the "Jardin d'Orphée" for the youngest make this museum an all-round experience.

 

Visitors first! - Object labelling in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg

Frank P. Bär, Curator of the Musical Instrument Collection,
Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg, Germany

Most musical instruments are not comprehensible for the "average visitor". Simple examples are the basset horn or the Hammerflügel, names which without further explanation are not sufficient. On the other hand, object labels are texts which are normally read by persons not sitting comfortably in a rocking-chair taking their time.

For more than 60 years it is has been known that the time spent in front of an object in big museums is about nine seconds. How can curators furnish the essential information about an object within this time? Or, how can labels be made interesting and comprehensible in a manner that the visitor takes more time and pleasure to read them? Finally, what can a label look like which is at the same time flexible and not too costly? This paper shows how the Germanisches Nationalmuseum is trying to solve these problems, not only for musical instruments but also for objects from all domains of the cultural heritage - and what their consequences can be for the arrangements of displays.

 

Azerbaijani Musical Instruments: Correct Labels

Alla Bayramova, Director,
State Museum of Azerbaijani Musical Culture, Baku, Azerbaijan

Nowadays the most characteristic among traditional musical instruments of Azerbaijan are the tar and the kamancha. Presented in the museums of different countries they are often incorrectly labeled as the Armenian instruments. Indeed, they are also widespread and popular in Armenia, neighboring country to Azerbaijan, and can be, thus, mentioned as the Armenian ones too. That is why, being aware of popularity of the tar and the kamancha in both countries, the State Central Museum of Musical Culture in Moscow, Russia, displays the same above mentioned instruments in both Azerbaijani and Armenian windows as well. Nevertheless the question of their origin is essential. The contemporary kinds of the tar and the kamancha, spread in Azerbaijan, Armenia and in the Middle Asia, have their roots namely in Azerbaijan. This paper will focus attention on historical facts demonstrataing this.

At the same time we face some examples of unequal labelling of national instruments in their native land. For instance, before the contemporary tar found its complete form from the end of the 19th century, there had been another kind, spread through Azerbaijan and Iran. Greately transformed by the Azerbaijani folk musician Mirza Sadikh, who changed its form, way of playing and number of strings, tar in its modern modification ousted previous kind of tar from Azerbaijan, but in Iran the old kind survived. In present time the old kind of tar in Azerbaijan is known as "Iranian tar" and can seen only in museum displays, although for a long period of time up to the end of the 19th century it used to be one of local traditional instruments. Now forgotten, the "Iranian tar", this instrument which used to be a part of native music, is now perceived by the Azerbaijani as part of a strange culture. The museum's role is to introduce this information through commentaries and true labelling, helping the people to recognize the old tar and to reintroduce it to present-day musical life. This poses a new challenge: not from life - to museum but, vice versa, from museum to life.

 

Two exhibitions, two approaches to displaying musical instruments at the Canadian Museum of Civilization

[video presentation]

Carmelle Bégin, Chief Curator of Folk Culture Division and Curator of the Ethnomusicology Programme, Québec,
Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull, Canada

Two recents exhibitions at the Canadian Museum of Civilization gave us the opportunity to explore the presentation of musical instruments to the public, with two different approaches for mount making, labelling and security.

The musical instruments in these exhibitions are from all categories and represent musical traditions of four continents. The video documentary focus on mount making : a) how to realize an efficient presentation with a small budget and a minimum of material; b) making mounts for a more elaborate exhibition showing the position an instrument is held while being played; labelling will present two levels of textual information: minimal information labels and extended labels used in a thematic exhibit; and a third level of information which is the sound samples available in the exhibition and their labels; security: behind glass presentation and open air presentation with security control.

 

Keeping musical instruments secure I

Henry Berner,
Ceberus Security, Maennedorf, Switzerland

Musical instruments can be tiny or huge, delicate or rather sturdy. Some are kept under glass, others left open to the public. The most prominent threats are fire, theft and vandalism, but it is impossible to predict what really will happen and when.

Quick fixes often fail to protect the most important assets against the most likely threats. In order to be effective, security must be planned. We must first think about what is to be protected, what are possible threats and how much access shall the public have to a specific object.

The most important basics about security planning as well as the importance of balancing physical protection, electronic detection / surveillance and guarding / intervention are explained in this paper. Physical protection and human intervention must be part of a security plan. While electronic devices are very good for detection and surveillance, they can not actually protect an object.

False alarms must be avoided. Alarm verification takes time, and timing is a critical factor, lest the fire will suddenly be too big to be extinguished or the thief has already disappeared with an object when the guards arrive.

The most important possibilities of electronic detection are explained. This includes up to date solutions for fire detection which allow eliminate the false alarm problem. Thieves or vandals can be detected when breaking into a building, moving around within a protected space or when approaching an object. Individual objects can be monitored for their presence and integrity.

A CCTV system is ideal for quick verification of incidents, but it is not sufficient as the only means of security. Access control is a good possibility for securing the non-public parts of a museum.

Security must always be assigned high priority. It is too late to implement security measures after the unlucky event has already

 

Keeping musical instruments secure II

Günther Dembski, President of ICOM ICMS (security), Director of the Coin Cabinet,
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

[abstract to follow]

 

Want to hear more? Mounting and Labelling is not Enough

Peter Donhauser, Director,
Technisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

In a future-oriented museology, exhibitions and galleries are understood as a "multimedia communication medium" and a place of information transfer. It is a difficult task to convey the intended subject matter in an effective way given the non-unified visitor structure. Each of the artefacts is able to tell many different stories: the main information is defined by the story-board of the whole gallery; the broad variety of additional information has to be provided by a number of museological methods at different levels of information (in the case of musical instruments, e.g., technological, cultural, economical and above all acoustical information). Mounting and labelling (if understood as printed material besides the artefacts) as a part of the presentation is only one part of the communication process. Understanding "labelling" in a universal way means: making all of the primary information besides the artefacts accessible to the visitor. Besides the basic information this could be (for example) acoustical or technological information: that is why a "label" in this general sense could be a video or a sound sample.

In science and technology museums didactics are fairly advanced. "Public understanding of science" is well known, "public understanding of music" not yet. In the Vienna Museum of Technology, the musical instruments gallery was set up in a new way during the renovation of the museum. In this process a wide selection of communication channels with the visitor was consistently utilised. In this paper the principles of the conception and the multimedial components will be demonstrated; in the presentation of Dr Klaus the innovative labelling system will be explained in detail.

 

Display Support System for Instruments at the Paris Musée de la Musique, Characteristics and Limits

Joël Dugot, Conservator,
Musée de la Musique, Paris, France

La présentation d’objets aussi multiformes et aussi fragiles que les instruments de musique requiert la prise en compte de nombreux critères et contraintes parmi lesquels les plus déterminants sont les précautions liées à la conservation (fragilité) et ceux liés aux aspects esthétiques (mise en valeur de l’objet, soins apportés à sa visibilité et à sa lisibilité ).

Cette présentation détaillera, avec des diapositives, le système d’accrochage qui a été mis en oeuvre au musée de la musique de Paris, sa conception modulaire , son adaptibilité aux différentes formes d’instrument, ses limites.

 

Objects and Visitors - a Leipzig Report

Eszter Fontana, Director,
Musikinstrumentenmuseum, University of Leipzig, Germany

The Bach exhibition and the Piano exhibition in 2000 offered us the possibility to try new methods and to gain experience with display case construction, mounting of musical instruments and labelling objects. The exhibitions were a "test run" for the new galleries of the museum, to be opened after the reconstruction of the building. Briefing was given to the designers, who were experienced in museums design but not in musical instruments exhibition design. Technical and conservation aspects, questions of readability, durability and security will be discussed and experiences reported.

 

Sound producing devices as Results of Music-Archaelogical Research: Problems of Mounting and Labelling

Ellen Hickmann, Curator, Department for Ethnology,
Landemuseum Hannover, Germany

As this is a joint of meeting of CIMCIM, ICMA and CIPEG, I decided to discuss questions on music-archaeological topics that will be of interest for all the three groups. Music-archaeological objects are sound producing devices of all subclasses within the current classification of musical instruments.

They have been discovered whereever large archaeological excavations were carried out, specifically in China, Latin America, the Near and Middle East and in some parts of Europe. The pieces are mostly unique and never fabricated as mass products, they are part of many different cultures and dating from different periods.

Some are well preserved, some exist only as remnants. The following problems will be discussed in this paper:

  1. Are the original finds to be exhibited or/and replicas of them ?
  2. What information about the objects should be given to the public? How far should descriptions of them go regarding that many of them will seem very strange and not comparable to any well-known instrument ? How far should the archaeological context be included in the labelling - if known at all ?
  3. Should the sound be exposed to the public, and what way ? The music of ancient culture is lost forever - what can be achieved to give at least an impression of the sound capacities ?
  4. What about pictorial evidence ? Of most of the instruments no iconographic parallel is existing. Shall we study ethnographic analogies of similar sounding tools of the world ?
Examples from specialized exhibits of music-archaeological instruments will be given to illustrate the topics discussed.

 

The Images of Ancient Egyptian Instruments in the Collection of the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

Svetlana Hodjash, Head of the Department for Egyptology,
Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia

[abstract to to follow]

 

Want to know more? An informative labeling system at the Museum of Technology, Vienna

Sabine K. Klaus
America's Shrine to Music Museum, University of South Dakota, Vermillion

[to be read by Peter Donhauser]

Science and technology museums focus on the transmission of knowledge in an entertaining form, unlike art museums, which intend to offer the enjoyment of works of the arts. To fulfill their educational mission many different kinds of sources for information are required in the former type of museums. The Museum of Technology, Vienna, tries to meet those requirements by a labeling system on various levels for the needs of many different groups of the public. This system and its benefits for the visitor will be delineated, and its use in the musical instrument department will be demonstrated.

 

Polish Visitors' Expectations Towards the Display in the Museum of Musical Instruments

Alicja Knast, Curator,
National Museum in Poznan Department of Musical Instruments, Poland

On the occasion of bi-centennial anniversary of Polish museums, the history of instrument display will be briefly introduced.

It is proposed to broaden the term labeling, which so far has included the information about the item, so that it also involves communicating its audial features (sound samples), as only these are able to completely describe a given instrument.

The visitors' reception of the sound of the 17th and 18th century instruments will be introduced, as well as some preferences in this group of research objects. The method to be applied for collecting the research data is a survey carried out on a group of one hundred people: 50% competent musicians and 50% laymen in this field. The results of the survey illustrate Polish visitors' expectations of displays in the Museum of Musical Instruments and they also record current tendencies as far as the perception of the sound of old instrument is concerned. The examples to be used are some instruments from the Poznan Museum's display. The research results will also show the correlation between musical competence and preferences of the people to be questioned.

 

Security in Instrument Museums: a Conservator's View

Tom Lerch, Conservator, Musical Instrument Museum,
Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung PK, Berlin

Instruments in Museums are endangered in three ways:

  1. by damage from surrounding conditions
  2. risk of theft
  3. through wear and tear
Everyone knows about these problems and the basic requirements which are consequences of these facts. But if we go open-eyed through our collections, we will learn that in many cases these requirements are from time to time more or less ignored. This may be a result of the lack of money, time or the individual circumstances. But as we are responsible for our objects, we have to find a way to enable a secure storage of our heritage. Even when the literature about object security is limited, we may be able to use our own experiences to create a secure atmosphere. The combination of the multiple materials provided by the great conservation institutions and the communication with our colleagues spread over the world, we have a solid basis to prevent our objects from damage. A short introduction to sources of information and to basic aspects of object security will try to help us to manage this challenge.

 

Pictures of Dance and Music in Ancient Egypt


[abstract to follow]

 

Dancing with the Dwarf? A Special Old Egyptian Motif

Gabriele Pieke,

[abstract to follow]

 

The Musical Instrument Museum of the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence

Gabriele Rossi-Rognoni, Curator at The Musical Instrument Museum,
Galleria dell'Accademia, Firenze, Italy

The musical instrument museum of the Conservatory of Florence opens to the public in May 2001 in new rooms of the Galleria dell'Accademia. All the instruments on display come from the granducal collection of the Medici and Lorena families and were regularly used for the musical activities of the court until the 1850s. The display will aim both to give access to each instrument of the collection as a specific object, and to help the general visitor to understand the cultural and musical habitat in which these instruments have been used, and how and why they have been modified and transformed through two centuries of regular use.

The display has been designed to satisfy both the specifically interested visitors, and the very large number of people who come to the Accademia attracted by the sculpture collection, and who could become interested in musical instruments, but have no specific knowledge.

All instruments (including keyboards) are displayed in climatised cases that make possible examinination of objects from all sides. Short panels and a series of computers system adjacent to each group of instruments give information about the objects (both general on the typology and specific on this exemplar), the cultural (mostly but not only musical) ambience of the court, the specific repertory that was played, and give the possibility to listen to recordings of some of the music found in the court archive played, whenever possible, on the very instruments displayed. Paintings from the granducal collection portraying the court musical life will also help to focus on the subject in the intention of giving an informative and attractive aspect to the collection.

The paper will give a general overlook on the characteristics of the display and will discuss the reasons for the different choices.

 

"Plucking the harp" and "playing the flute"? musicians on a tomb relief in Baltimore

Regine Schulz,
Institut für Ägyptologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universiät, München, Germany

[abstract to follow]

 

Mounting Musical Instruments: Methods and Materials

Corinna Weinheimer, Conservator,
Ringve Museum, Trondheim, Norway

One of the basic tasks of a museum conservator is to ensure the safe display of the objects. That is why their involvement in planning an exhibition is of vital importance. There are many invisible factors that can cause damage to a musical instrument on display and it is important to become aware of these factors. Conservation laboratories around the world gather more and more information about the properties of the different materials used in exhibitions. The intention of this paper is to show the main disturbing factors and to give advice on how to avoid them, using the research results published by those laboratories. It includes a selection of materials that should and should not be used and demonstrates secure ways of mounting musical instruments. This is mainly based on the author's own experiences during the production of a new exhibition at Ringve Museum in 1999.

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