ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS FOR THE 2002 CIMCIM CONFERENCE

St Petersburg, Russia, 8 to 16 September

Web URL: http://www.icom.org/cimcim/ixrta.html

Musical Instruments : Do They Have to Sound ?

Public interest in the past and its artefacts is generally increasing as indicated by an ever-growing number of museum visitors. Musical instruments, being personal objects, are part of this trend. One of the most important characteristics of a musical instrument is its sound. How can the public experience the sound  ? How can we, as museum professionals, balance the expectations of visitors, funders and administrators with concerns for the preservation of the objects in our charge  ?

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Voices of the Living and the Revived Instruments, or, Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Musical Museum

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

The staff of the State Museum of Azerbaijani Musical Culture is also pondering over the question how to unite two different (and sometimes even opposite) aims:
  1. to make musical instruments more available for visitors, let them sound, and
  2. To preserve them in accordance to museum curator's demands.
Trying to solve this problem we have reached some success and at the same time have faced certain difficulties and also done some mistakes. Sharing museum's experience I shall be glad if it is helpful for other musical museums and if our mistakes can warn our colleagues of making the same wrong steps in this way.

The ways used by museum to present the sounds of musical instruments:

  1. The open storage of some musical instruments (the natural lithophone - the ancestor of the percussive instruments, used by early people, some percussion instruments, such as nagara, memorial grandpiano of famous Azerbaijani composer Gara Garayev, horizontally lying stringed plucked instruments such as Azerbaijani kanun and Chinese, etc.) providing the opportunities for the visitors to produce sounds of musical instruments.
  2. Some musical instruments (not exhibits but their copies), such as the most popular Azerbaijani instruments the Kamancha (bowed stringed instrument), the Tar (the plucked instrument) and the Gaval (the tambourine-like instrument) are played by the museum employees - skilful musicians during or after the excursion as a little concert.
  3. The thirteen of the exhibited instruments may be listened to at the concert of Museum Old Musical Instruments Ensemble. Musicians play on the copies of the exhibited instruments. Nine of the Ensemble's instruments are recreated old Azerbaijani instruments, which used to be spread in Azerbaijan and some other neighboring countries during the Middle Ages and with the passage of time they disappeared. Such medieval instruments as the chang, the gopuz, the rud, the barbet, the shirvan tanboor, the rubab, the santoor, the chagane and the chogur were recreated during the last quarter of the 20th century by museum's employee Dr M. Kerimov. He, collecting the data, studying medieval musical treatises, book miniatures with images of medieval instruments, and Azerbaijani medieval poetry where musical instruments were mentioned, could do his researching and recreate 9 of forgotten instruments. Since 1980s, the State Museum of Azerbaijani Musical Culture began to purchase these instruments step by step. They are shown in museum windows. Besides forgotten recreated instruments there are also four other instruments in Ensemble, which were also peculiar for old times but have survived till nowadays (the gaval, the ney, the dumbek, the kanun). Of the Ensemble's instruments, two (chagane and chogur) are museum's property bought especially for Ensemble, and the rest musical instruments belong to M. Kerimov, who acts also as a chief of the Ensemble.
  4. Audiorecordings, videorecordings, CDrom are available for museum's visitors.
The paper will be accompanied with video-recordings and CD-ROM.

 

Changing Museum Practices: Playing Instruments Made by Contemporary Canadian Makers

Carmelle Bégin, Curator,
Ethnomusicology Programme, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Canada

After closing an exhibition entitled Opus, Musical Instrument Making in Canada, shown at the Canadian Museum of Civilization between 1992 and 1994, a loan programme was launched to allow musicians to borrow instruments made for the exhibition. This paper presents an account of the eight years old Opus Loan Programme.

  1. Implementation of the programme. Conservators, musical instrument makers and curators have made statements in relation with playing the instruments of the collection. These different approachs were influencial in the decision taken by the museum. An analysis made by R. Barclay will support this section presentation.
  2. Management of the programme: responsibilities of the curator of the collection and accountability of the musicians. A difficult apprenticeship.
  3. Was it worth the effort? The outcomes of the programme.

 

Sound at Museums or The Sounding Museum

Stefan Bohman and Anne-Marie Österberg,
Stockholm, Sweden

A challenge for music-museums of today is to mediate both visual and sounding history. We would like to start a discussion on this subject.

Why do we collect and display music and musical instruments in general ?  And what kind of sounds shall we mediate at our museums? The instruments or even other sounds ?  A generalisation is that we mediate sounds in an exposition for:

Aesthetical reasons. Should it be the "original" sound or... ?  We also want to discuss the concept of "taste". Functional reasons. About musical instruments and their sound in order to communicate, as a part of a ceremony etc. Symbolic reasons. Musical instruments and their sound as a gender, class, generation or national symbol. Musical instruments as handicraft and commercial products.

We will show some examples from expositions that we have produced in our Museum and tell you a little about the different ways and techniques that we have been working with.

 

The Musical Instrument Collection in Lisbon: A Matter of Time

Susana Caldeira,
Lisbon, Portugal

The importance on having a museum for musical instruments was initially mentioned circa 1905. In 1911, Michel'angelo Lambertini, musician and musicologist, was incumbent, by the government, on collecting the instruments existent on extinct convents, museums and some privately owned collections. For political reasons he was exonerated in 1913. After that the collection was maintained by him, and almost forgotten after his death in 1920.

The collection switched from place to place, often under very bad environmental conditions, as it can be testimony the state of conservation from most of the instruments.

In 1994, the Ministry of Culture in association with the support of subway company Metropolitano de Lisboa, found the possibility for the location of the museum, now at the subway station Alto-dos-Moínhos.

There is a small laboratory which physical space was conceived for the maintenance of the collection. It had never being used until July 2000. There was almost nothing, respecting to working tools.

The policies of the conservation and restoration concerning decision-making have been conditioned by the inherent difficulties of the pioneer work. Looking back, the little attention given to the collection allows now having many instruments in its original condition.

As a conservator of musical instruments I find that our biggest problem is to call the attention for the attitude we have concerning the preservation of the musical patrimony. It will take time and strategies. This year is being prepared a temporary display about Lambertini. The instruments were all photographed for the catalogue before any conservation treatment, and will be displayed after cosmetic restoration mainly. There will be a text in the catalogue explaining the reasons of this attitude. Hopefully the visual results will be strong enough to start a "way" of looking to the musical instruments.

Their sound will be the next step, already started.

 

Sound versus Conservation: Concepts for a Balancing Act

Peter Donhauser,
Museum of Technology, Vienna, Austria

Objects in museums are documents and provide information for scientific research but also for the general public. Musicologists, instrument makers, musicians, composers and laymen are interested in different aspects of these instruments. Trying to communicate these various aspects to the general public in a museum, we are confronted with a balancing act: the main purpose of a musical instrument is to produce sound. But: a considerable part of museum instruments are not in a condition to fulfill that without major restoration. Restoration causes a loss of material or information even if it is done in a responsible way. So we have to decide, which aspect is more important for our job. In a museum gallery we have a broad palette of possibilities to demonstrate sound: audio and video samples, copies of instruments, computer animation and some selected original instruments in adequate technological condition (which can be demonstrated without major repair) provide sufficient sound samples. Musical automata like barrel organs or flute clocks which carry their main information in the cylinder (which is unique) should be considered separately (Ingrid Prucha will discuss that proplem in her presenation).

 

Les instruments du musique au Musée ethnographique Alexandre Sènou Adandé : objet de délectation ou patrimoine en usage ?

Patrick Effiboley, Historien,
Musée ethnographique Alexandre Sènou Adandé de Porto-Novo, Bénin

L’étude des instruments de musique au Musée ethnographique Alexandre Sènou Adandé de Porto-Novo voire au Bénin est une entreprise récente malgré les trente années d’existence de ce musée.

En effet, bien que la collection des instruments de musique soit constituée, les travaux d’envergure réalisés par ce musée sont sa contribution à la construction du site Internet « Accords francophones : Traditions et Instruments de musique » (Instruments) initié par le Réseau Canadien d’Information sur le Patrimoine (RCIP). A la suite de ce projet qui s’est déroulé en 1998-1999, une nouvelle occasion s’offre pour parler des instruments de musique du Musée ethnographique de Porto-Novo.

L ‘objet de cette communication est de présenter le contexte d’utilisation des instruments de musique du musée, de donner un aperçu de ceux d’entre eux qui sont joués ou qui peuvent l’être tout en évoquant les conditions ou exigences auxquelles ils sont assortis.

Enfin, j’évoquerai les différents problèmes liés à l’impossibilité de jouer certains d’entre ces instruments, l’absence de centre de transmission de ce savoir ; ce qui fait de ces instruments des objets de musée sans vie au lieu d’être des moyens d’expression des peuples qui en sont les propriétaires.

 

The Role of Musical Museums within Musical Life

Martin Elste,
Berlin, Germany

The problematic issue of using musical instruments within a museum embraces aspects of

  • performance practice
  • restoration and conservation
  • educational attitudes
  • general appreciation.

    Organologists should educate the museum visitors by explaining that instruments have no objective and stable sound that can be reproduced at a given time. Instead, the phenomenon of musical sound encompasses an anthropoligical system in which the musical instrument, as a tool, is only one part of it.

    To answer the question Do musical instruments have to sound?, we have to assess the tasks of museums. One of them is undoubtedly to preserve cultural objects for the sake of study by future generations. In order to fulfill this task, instead of allowing the playing on old instruments, museums should make use of the whole range of available media to document the current anthropolitical systems of music-making. E.g., they could produce video documentations of performance practice of both historical and modern instrument playing.

    The musical life of today is in fact a virtual museum. Here, in this virtual musical museum any collection of musical instruments is only a tiny part of it, other parts include the concert hall, radio, and the music business as understood as CD production, manufacturing, marketing, and selling (including modern media transfers via Internet).

     

    Playing Musical Instruments from Museum Collections - Myths and Fact: East-European Gloss

    Alicja Knast, Curator,,
    National Museum, Poznan, Poland

    Transformation deriving from perception and reception of an artifact in general is a crucial reason for the pressure upon museum curators and curators of musical instruments in particular. The transformation results not only from increasing and broader knowledge of certain performance practices and their relationship with instrument-making; rather, they depend on some processes to which a modern society is subject.

    Due to political changes which effectively accelerated economic innovation - such as introducing free trade, not present till 1989 - Eastern European communities focus on all possible trends of cultural heritage application, whether constructive or not.

    Awareness of constantly flourishing expectations (and their source) in relation to museums (instrument collections in particular) is a vital pre-condition in considering the question: Do they have sound ?  or can they be played ?  An attempt to uncover those processes is the subject of this paper.

     

    Sounding Musical Instruments in Museums & Public Expectations: An Australian Experience

    Michael Lea, Curator, Music & Musical Instruments,
    Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia

    Like many museums around the world the Powerhouse Museum's collection of musical instruments is faced with ethical dilemmas on the use of musical instruments. Being a public museum with a commitment to "inspire diverse audiences by using the collection and scholarship to provide informative, spirited, innovative and well-researched exhibitions, programs and services in the fields of science, technology, industry, design, decorative arts and history", there are many competing and conflicting pressures and demands that arise from a variety of constituents or interest groups both within and outside the museum.

    The question of whether to play certain musical instruments with minimal interference has lead to alternative solutions which many museums are familiar with. Methods that attempt to accommodate the visitor's desire to hear what certain instruments sound like have been tried at the Powerhouse and met with varying degrees of success both in terms of delivering desired outcomes for the museum but also in considering the expectations of the visitor audience.

    This paper looks at some of these methods and experiences of the Powerhouse Museum in trying to meet public demands and expectations of hearing or playing musical instruments whilst still adhering to ethical practice in museums. The paper will specifically cite examples of exhibitions, concerts and public programs, the commissioning of new instruments from local makers and innovative special projects and partnerships.

     

    Is Instrument Conservation a Universal Ideal?

    Laurence Libin,
    The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, U.S.A.

    Whether or not museum instruments should play depends not only on practical considerations but also on ideology. Different kinds of museums and museums in different societies and subcultures have various attitudes toward preserving their collections. Curators are often pressured, justifiably, to use functional objects for educational purposes or to attract visitors and contributions. "Living history" museums in particular depend on live demonstrations, and it can be less expensive to restore an original instrument than to commission a good copy. Not all museum instruments are important enough to preserve untouched, but few curators are qualified to make this determination.

    The idea that museums exist primarily to preserve objects or information is fairly recent. In nineteenth-century England, some authorities maintained that it would be preferable even for paintings to deteriorate through exposure if, in so doing, they served the urgent purpose of educating and civilizing the population. Ideologies are thus plastic rather than rigid, and depend on changing perceptions of social needs and hierarchies of value.

    Our current concern with conservation reflects understanding of great losses, but in situations where whole cultures have been devastated or fear for their survival, the idea of historic preservation might seem futile - why not use scarce resources for whatever benefit can be gained now, since the future is so uncertain? (The situation is mildly analogous to starving people eating animals in zoos.) Secure societies can afford the luxury of scientific conservation, but whether this standard should be universally imposed is worth discussing. Such discussion has been taking place in Mexico, where the recent Oaxaca Protocol addresses politically sensitive issues concerning baroque organs that are increasingly seen by the elite, but not necessarily by villagers, as part of the nation's cultural patrimony. I have proposed that the first priority should be documentation, which offers an objective basis for decisions about long-term conservation versus use.

     

    Beating our Own Dum: Presentation of Musical Heritage in Zimbabwe

    Jesmael Mataga,
    Harare, Zimbabwe

    The paper looks at the history of collection and presentation of musical instruments in Zimbabwe. It looks at the traditional methods of preservation and presentation of music instruments in traditional (pre colonial ) society as well as the efforts at collecting of the instruments since the establishment of the museum in Zimbabwe. The collection has created an opportunity for preservation of the musical heritage by collection and presenting some unique instruments , some of which are rare since the skills to manufacture them have since disappeared. Problems and constraints such as lack of equipment and funding limit adequate presentation for the public at the museum. The Zimbabwe Museum of Human Sciences is the only museum in Zimbabwe with a comprehensive collection of traditional musical instruments.

     

    Old Wind Instruments

    Ton Moonen,
    The Netherlands

    I intend to focus my talk on old wind instruments. The musical instruments: do they sound ? The answer is 'yes'. Do we have to play on old instruments ? For various reasons, the answer is 'no'. The concern that should be foremost to us is the protection and conservation of old instruments.

    The solution is making good copies. This is not easy; I have never come across a good copy. I have done research in the field and I shall expand on the very expensive mistakes that one can make. The principle is known to us: size equals sound. The question is what accuracy of measurement is necessary to obtain the same sound. I shall address that question as well as the different techniques of measurement. I shall show in a schedule the possibilities that open up to us when we have obtained good measurements. In the end, I shall argue for the necessity of normalising this type of research with protocols for measuring and calculating, which will ensure the efficient use of time and resources.

     

    Calculating Resonance Frequencies of Wind Instruments

    Kees Nederveen and Peter van Velsen,
    The Netherlands

    This paper matches the one by Toon Moonen, in which he proposes a protocol for measuring and drawing of old wind instruments. Current knowledge on acoustics provides ways to calculate the pitch and timbre of wind instruments, given its dimensions. A computer program has been developed to do this conveniently. The human ear can hear differences in pitch of approximately 0.2% (3 cents). These differences result from variations in diameter that can be as small as 0.01mm. Current measurement equipment is (within reasonable risks and costs) not able to provide such accuracy. The computer program can assist in the determination of the dimensions of ancient instruments. In combination with a protocol on how to measure wind instruments and the availability of sound samples from the original instrument, it can help the builder to make copies of old instruments while protecting the original ones from unnecessary damage by intrusive measurements. The lecture consists of a brief explanation on the subject and a demonstration of the use of the computer program.

     

    Musical Events arranged by the Metropolitan Museum's Department of Musical Instruments during its September, 2001- June, 2002 Season

    Stewart Pollens, Associate Conservator,
    Department of Musical Instruments, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, U.S.A.

    The Metropolitan Museum has a very active music program. Last year, the Musical Instrument Department organized nearly fifty concerts, most utilizing instruments in the permanent collection. The regular use of instruments that are two, three, and even four hundred years old does take its toll, but the problems that have arisen are more often due to the lack of climate control in the museum's concert venues, logistical problems encountered in moving instruments, and careless handling. A list of 2001-2002 concerts is given as well as a short description of the type of work required to ready the instruments for use. The author does not recommend the curtailment of concerts but advocates more restricted use of the rarer and more delicate instruments.

     

    Sounding Musical Automata: Problems, Restoration, Limitations

    Ingrid Prucha
    Museum of Technology, Vienna, Austria

    In principle the same criteria are relevant for musical instruments and musical automata: they are documents and provide scientific information. The difference is the way how the instruments are played: the musical information normally is stored in sheets of music (which are independent of the instrument). Automata carry their musical information within their "hardware". If we want to access that information, we have to make the automaton play (computer-scanned surfaces do not work properly). Good examples are the 4 flute clocks by Niemetz which play pieces of Haydn (but never in the same way: interpretation is also stored in the cylinder). There is no way to read the information other than by restoring the barrel and the clockwork!

    It is obvious that instruments which play mass products like piano rolls are less interesting than unique specimens like barrel instruments. Problems and limitations related to restauration will be demonstrated using examples of the Vienna Museum.

     

    Degradation of Musical Instruments through Usage

    Corinna Weinheimer, Conservator
    Ringve Museum, Trondheim, Norway

    The modern museum visitor expects to experience the sounds of the instruments on display. It would seem a simple matter to play the instruments to satisfy this expectation. However these instruments are built of both organic and inorganic materials which all deteriorate for a number of reasons. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the materials and the changes in their properties over time and through usage.

     

    Sound in a Conservatoire Museum: Issues of Conservation, Research and Education at the Royal College of Music Museum, London

    Elizabeth Wells,
    Royal College of Music Museum, London, U.K.

    Every curator of historic musical instruments faces the challenge as to how best to preserve them and, where feasible, to enable the public to gain some idea of their original sound and use. Beyond the sound that an instrument emits in non-expert hands is the complex area of the appropriate repertoire, technique and performance practice associated with it when it was first made and in any subsequent states. At the Royal College of Music, an institution that trains performers as its main objective, the curator meets an overriding interest in the sound, feel and repertoire of the instruments in the Museum rather than in their construction or history.

    This paper will survey the policy and practice that have been developed since the opening of the Museum in 1970 to keep conservation as the first priority but to investigate the sound and playing characteristics of a few carefully selected instruments that are maintained in good playing condition, and to make the recorded results available to students, researchers and the public. The gains from copies of instruments, conservation reports, working drawings, the prototype CD-ROM "virtual tour" and on-going acoustical research in collaboration with Imperial College and the Open University will be discussed, with slides and recordings of concerts and lecture-tours. Most of the collection, however, remains "silent": the Museum's solution is to collect recordings of related instruments and to seek funding for the making of further copies, recordings and videos.

     

    Some Considerations on the Sound of Two Restored Mexican Ethnographical Musical Instruments

    Miguel Zenker,
    Escuela Nacional de Música, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

    This paper deals with the restoration of two ethnographic plucked string instruments. First, a vihuela de la montaña, from the state of Guerrero, built in the fifties of last century, with a carved body with neck of one piece, whose belly was severely damaged by the earthquake of 1985. The belly, with cracks across the grain, had to be strengthened with pads, for which acoustical analysis before and after inserting the pads was undertaken. The responses of the belly proved very similar shapes. Secondly. a conchero guitar, a mandolin shaped instrument, with an armadillo shell for the back of the body, used in the dances of the concheros, near the city of Mexico, with two cracks near the bridge, whose belly had shrunken, and for which had to be made an "extension" of the belly to fit on the sides. The acoustical analysis of several conchero guitars, the one restored and the others in use today and in good shape, proved that they all have significant dissimilar responses. The questions that arose is: how much of the sound of an old instrument today is the sound of the instrument when it was made? What do we search of the sound when we want an old instrument to be played?

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