ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS FOR THE 1999 CIMCIM CONFERENCE

Paris, France: Thursday 10 to Monday 14 June 1999

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

Musical Instruments or Music ?
What is the role of a museum in a changing society ?

The focus of the meeting will be on recent achievements and potential for the future in presenting instruments as material culture, and music as performance tradition to the museum public.

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The Laboratoire du Son Project

Gretel Dumont,
Musée des Instruments de Musique, Brussels, Belgium

Four museums are co-operating to develop public sound areas (the "Laboratoire du Son"), co-ordinated groupings of interactive devices laboratories through which visitors can gain understanding of ways in which musical instruments work. The partners are the Musée des Instruments de Musique, Brussels (Belgium), the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, Paris (France), the Musikinstrumentenmuseum der Universität Leipzig (Germany) and the Edinburgh University Collection of Historical Musical Instruments (U.K.). The project is being supported by the European Union as part of the Raphael Programme. This paper describes how the four partners are developing the units in close co-operation to meet each other's requirements.

 

Co-ordinating Live and Recorded Demonstrations in the Musical Museum

Heidrun Eichler,
Musikinstrumenten-Museum, Markneukirchen, Germany

In considering the question "Music instruments or music ?" we must realise that the two concepts are not mutually exclusive, but are closely connected. The question is important for museums of musical instruments, especially where few or no instruments are restored and played. Many visitors to a museum of musical instruments arrive expecting to hear music, but live playing of the instruments cannot be replaced by anything of the equal value using the technology available today. Since for conservation and other reasons demonstrations are not always possible, a compromise has to be made. The use of recordings has to show integrity in the use of genuine instruments.

This paper explores the possibilities for acoustic presentation according to gallery size, visitor numbers, and budget. The Markneukirchen Museum's experiences in co-ordinating live playing with CD recordings of some of the more vulnerable exhibits are described. Means are suggested for reconciling the contemporary roles of the museum of musical instruments in facilitating organological reseach and in giving lay visitors a better understanding of music by means of music instruments.

 

Acquiring musical instruments for museum collections and selecting musical instruments for museum exhibitions

Jim Fricke,
Experience Music Project, Seattle, U.S.A.

Musical instruments are acquired for musuem collections for different reasons, and the instruments can serve different purposes when incorporated into an exhibition. When considering new instruments for acquisition, the place of the instrument, either in the context of the larger collection or in a planned exhibition, dictate the criteria for selection. The search for and acquisition of two musical instruments will be discussed to illustrate the operation of some of these selection criteria. These instruments were acquired to support the development of two exhibits planned for the Experience Music Project's opening next year: an exhibit on the development of the solid-body electric guitar and an exhibit on hip-hop culture. The place of these two instruments in their respective exhibitions will be described, along with the messages they are used to convey. The process of acquiring various other instruments for EMP's opening day exhibits will provide further illustrations of our collecting priorities and process.

The presentation will include a rationale for considering the 12-inch vinyl disc as a "musical instrument" in hip-hop performance practice.

 

Music Exhibited in a Museum

Florence Gétreau,
Musée National des Arts et Traditions Populaires, Paris, France

Planning the Musée de la Musique over a period of about 20 years was a powerful experience. Looking back at the different steps, the staff, and the procedures, and taking into account the decisions necessary in moving from the past to the future, for or against the collections and the public, one can sum up ones experinces. The results have been judged by the public and by specialists. Thier reactions provide strong motivation to go forward in other projects. Recently, working on an exhibition devoted to street musicians in Paris, I experimented with very different ways to present music in a museum. This paper will outline the decisions that were made and describe the outcome.

 

Music Instruments AND Music - Using computers in the Interpretation of Music Instruments in Museum Exhibits

J. Richard Haefer,
School of Music, Arizona State University, U.S.A.

The use of computers in music instrument collections is slowly moving from the domain of administration (registration, cataloguing etc.) to the realm of exhibition. Such exhibits take place in two very different yet intimately connected venues: the "traditional" gallery and the World-Wide Web.

I begin with an examination of the websites of several music instrument collections. There follows suggestions for additional ways to represent music instruments, their sounds, and their use within cultures on the web and the incorporation of similar presentations (especially interactive ones) in the more traditional museum gallery setting.

The chief software application demonstrated is QuickTime, a program that is available in both Windows and Macintosh environments. Using QuickTime one may incorporate sounds, pictures, motion video, and even virtual reality, thus a perfect environment for presenting information about music instruments to the public.

 

Hearing music in the Musée de la Musique: the Case of the Violin Family

Anne Houssay,
Musée de la Musique, Paris, France

In our museum, an amphitheatre with appropriate climate control and access has been built to allow some of the instruments from the collection to be heard by the public. Also, since the museum opened, musicians play inside the museum in two specially-designed spaces. As a bowed instruments specialist, I am very regularly asked to declare if such or such instrument is in playing order or not, the question being most of the time applied to instruments of the violin family.

This paper will first discuss the physical transformations that the violins have gone through in response to different musical tastes, taking as examples violins by Nicolo Amati (1639), Jacob Stainer (1669), Stradivari (1708), Guarneri del Gesu (1742) , François Lupot (1772), and Nicolas Lupot (1802) and the implications for their preservation. On one hand, the museum wishes to take into account the sound of the instruments to illustrate to the public the history of repertory and playing techniques. On the other hand, it is clear that the cultural and emotional relationship of violinists with their instruments have strong links with « old » violins, especially from the Italian school, whatever music they play.

It will be seen how the question of what music is demonstrated for which specific musical aim towards the public is important for the playing of these instruments, and what answers have been given on specific occasions since the museum opened.

 

Policies and Practicalities in Exhibiting Musical Instruments

Peter Andreas Kjeldsberg,
Ringve Museum, Trondheim, Norway

In the past the displays at the Ringve Museum were geared to group visits, with all visitors being conducted around the main rooms of the museum. Tour guides were recruited, trained and employed on a seasonal basis. This allowed certain possibilities for bringing the objects to life with live demonstrations, since many of the guides were music students. The opening of new galleries this year had led to a modification of this policy. Visitors are still conducted through the old rooms of the museum, but are free to browse in the new exhibition areas.

This paper examines the factors which have affected policy decisions, and describes the problems which had to be overcome in implementing the policies. In particular, the difficulties of striking a balance between presenting musical instruments as artefacts and examples of design and presenting music-making traditions with instruments as adjuncts are discussed.

 

The University Musical-Instrument Museum as an Educational Resource

John Koster,
The Shrine to Music Museum, University of South Dakota, U.S.A.

The Shrine to Music Museum, as an academic support unit of the University of South Dakota, shows the many ways in which a musical-instrument collection can be an important asset in the educational and cultural life of a university and its community. The primary function of any university is undergraduate education. Many students gain valuable experience working as assistants in the Museum. Original research projects may be done for academic credit. High-school, college, and graduate-level students come from other institutions to serve as interns or volunteers. Our Master of Music degree with concentration in the history of musical instruments has prepared graduates for careers in museum work. In addition to research and teaching by the Museum staff, faculty in other University departments use the Museum's resources. For example, art and design classes come to the Museum to draw and study the varied shapes seen in instruments; and a professor of music has explored the distinctive repertoires associated with early pianos in the Museum's collections. In a sparsely populated region far from any major cultural center, the Museum is the only place within hundreds of miles where artifacts from a wide variety of historical and ethinic origins can be seen. The Museum's concert series also significantly enriches the cultural life of the larger community.

 

Music as a Contextual Component of a Museum/Archive

Sisir Kumar Mukherjee
Madral, India

Music and its associates, the various instruments, are essential components of human culture, used from time immemorial for exorcising evil spirits or to avert impending disasters. The museum, deemed to possess the cultural heritage of a nation, is the best responsible repository that a society is proud to own. Members of society, undergoing obvious social and cultural evolution, are amazed to see their own legacy in a museum wich is committed to preserve their cultural objects.

Indian soil, even in the Vedic period, witnessed musical instruments, heard musical hymns. Prehistoric artefacts of the Indus Valley culture, preserved in Indian museums, have much reserach potential. This country can offer ample evidence of music in the form of melody (i.e. ragas and raginis with instruments), and iconography of instruments in miniature paintings and manuscripts of the middle ages.

The Indian Museum in Calcutta can offer real instruments and objects of musical relevance on paintings and sculpture. The Sampradaya in Chennai is the only music archive in the country, carefully preserving and documenting Karnatic music through electronic media. Both have the same motives and are committed to presenting the rich legacy of the nation to society. Science and technology bring about a tremendous thrust on society with new genres which are assimilated by the younger generation, making them forget their own cultures. The employment of science and technology is desirable in conserving, presenting and documenting these performing arts for posterity, warding off hands of destruction.

 

An Attempt to Interpret Japanese Traditional Musical Instruments by Videotape in Gakkigaku Shiryokan, Kunitachi College of Music

Kazue Nakamizo,
Gakkigaku Shiryokan, Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo, Japan

To interpret musical instruments, audio-visual media are very useful. Recently we can get easily some videos concerning Japanese musical instruments, most of which are produced for self-taught players and certainly they would be important and useful. But we feel the need for another interpretation and for our own production. At my presentation I would like to explain the reasons why we feel the need.

Gakkigaku Shiryokan has tried to produce a series of interpretation of Japanese musical instruments on videotape. We have prepared a program which could be used for all instruments. Fortunately some professional players give lectures in our college. We have planned to ask some of them to participate this project annually.

In 1997 we began this project and recorded 12 musical instruments separately on videotapes. These instruments are all used for "Gagaku", Japanese court and ritual music, and are never used separately. We asked three lecturers in our college to cooprate our project. They are all professional "Gagaku" players. Though we are not ready to open these videotapes to the public, some examples will be demonstrated at the presentation. This year we are planning to record Shamisen, a plucked stringed instrument with neck.

 

Policy Questions for Gallery Planners

Frances Palmer and Margaret Birley,
The Horniman Museum, London, U.K.

The Horniman Museum opened its Music Room in September 1993, its design incorporating the best means available at the time of presenting musical instruments in a lively and contextualised manner given that the collection is essentially of non-playing instruments. For various reasons, a complete re-display has become necessary already.

This paper will present the policy decisions for the new gallery made in the light of six years' experience of operating a modern display with the same collection and similar constaints, and will discuss how technical advances in the last few years have opened new opportunities.

 

Three Hours in one Room: the way I show my Instrument Collection to the Public

Zami Ravid,
Metula, Israel

Unless visitors have a professional level of interest, looking at silent collections of instruments such as harpsichords in a museum display is likely to be very superficial, and important instruments can be passed by with little attention. The differences between apparently similar instruments can mean almost nothing to the general public. Seeing instruments without hearing them does little to attract a non-specialist's attention. In most museums, listening to live music played on each instrument is impossible, and written or electronic explanations are of limited value. Concerts also appeal to a limited section of the population.

For visitors to my collection in Metula, the visit - or rather, the performance - is a mixture of (1) story, (2) showing the instruments, (3) short examples on 30-40 instruments, and (4) "good music" played on piano, harpsichord, clavichord, harmonium and organ. Such a performance would not be possible with expensive, historic (and thus un-playable) instruments. However, it is possible if a number of instruments are displayed in one room, and if a guide (perhaps a music student) demonstrates a number of playable instruments (which can be modern reconstructions of old instruments). In my case almost every visitor, from people have never been to a concert to professional musicians, has been influenced by this combination of live explanation and performance, and the interest of visitors is regularly sustained for three hours.

 

The Handel House in Halle: its Rôle as a Music Centre and the Rearrangement of the Musical Instruments Exhibition in 2001

Christiane Rieche,
Händel-Haus, Halle, Germany

The Handel House was planned from the very beginning not only as a memorial museum of Handel, but also as a more general local music museum and as a centre for playing and studying the music of George Friderick Handel. Concerts, conferences, lectures, the publication of the Hallesche Händelausgabe edition and not least the famous Handel Festival has all been part of the museum's work. The complexity of these activities gives the museum a secure position in society and supports its chances of survival in times of financial difficulties and cultural indifference.

The Museum itself has three permanent exhibitions: the Handel exhibition, the local music exhibition, and the exhibition of musical instruments. Recorded guided tours are available for the Handel exhibition in a wide range of foreign languages, giving information about Handel's like and times along with exemplary interpretations of the music. Some parts of the recordings are played on instruments which are included in this part of the exhibition. In connection with the move to a new building for the musical instrument exhibition in 2001 there is an opportunity to think about new information systems. Our positive experience with recorded guided tours will be explained and the pros and cons of various other systems will be considered.

 

Introducing Music in a Temporary Exhibition

Jeanne Villeneuve,
Musée de la Musique, Paris, France

Among the different sorts of exhibition in all kinds of museum (sculpture, contemporary art, drawing etc), musical instruments occupy a very special position. This is because, they were not primarily designed to be looked at, but to be used, i.e. to be played upon. In an exhibition running for say three months, it is not feasible to play all the instruments.

The diversity of approaches of how music can be introduced during an exhibition poses problems. This paper will discuss the approach of the Musée de la Musique in the temporary exhibition Violon, Vuillaume, un Maître Luthier Français du XIXe Siècle and will perhaps provide guidelines for dealing with these problems.

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