ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS FOR THE 1998 CIMCIM CONFERENCE

Melbourne, Australia: Monday 12 to Wednesday 14 October 1998

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

Cultural Diversity and Museums of Musical Instruments

The focus of the meeting will be on the significance and classification of musical instruments in various cultures, and papers will discuss these cultural aspects and how we interpret the material in our museums.

See also the Details of the Meeting

Percy Grainger's Past-Hoard-House (Museum)

Naomi Cass
Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) The University of Melbourne, Australia

Upon entering the Percy Grainger Museum in Melbourne, visitors are enveloped by one of the few autobiographical museums in the world, created, built and provided for by Grainger and a number of fellow travelers. Mysterious and challenging, the architecture of this small building is more akin to a laboratory or safe-house for the serious and open-minded visitor=BEwhich Grainger was sure would exist some time in the future.

Of extraordinary musicological and cultural value, the collection has accrued additional meaning because it was collected by Grainger on the basis of his highly idiosyncratic views on life, art and the composer.

From the onset Grainger was interested in the existence or ontology of composition and to place composition within an interdisciplinary context. The collection consists in archival documents and correspondence, instruments, ethnographic material culture, furniture, garments, library, photographs and personal items.

Indeed Grainger seemed to have been unable to distinguish between life and art, and herein lies his extraordinary museology. Perhaps the subject of this Museum is the nature of creativity.

While his racial views are now controversial, his love of other cultures is borne out not only through his own composition, but through the collection, which gives primacy to the music, art and language of other cultures, particularly Nordic and South Pacific communities.

Since its inauspicious opening, closure and reopening in 1938, the Museum has traveled a difficult path. Situated within a University context this environment has not always been supportive of the Museum and the endeavors of its dedicated staff.

Through institutional neglect, the Museum is greatly underachieving on Granger's own vision. It is a little down at heel, needy of late Twentieth century comforts of conservation, interpretation, education programmes and new technologies. In many ways, it has remained safe but static since Grainger visited for the last time in 1956.

In my paper I will outline the Grainger Development Project and how we will tackle the sensitive preservation and development of Grainger's vision, a fitting compliment to CIMCIM's visit to the Museum during the ICOM conference.

Musical Instruments in Sri Lanka: Issues of Context and their Impact on Museums

Tony Donaldson
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

References to musical instruments are found in early Lanka chronicles such as the Mahavamsa, Culavamsa and Thuparamsa. The Thuparamsa, which dates from the 12th century, lists over 50 instruments, including drums, lutes, flutes and cymbals. The Culavamsa classifies musical instruments into five types: atata, atatavitata, vitata, susira and ghana.

An important indigenous conceptual distinction exists between the view that the designated name of an instrument refers to an instrument itself and the view that it denotes a specific rhythm and context. For instance, while the gata bera is often played as an instrument of this name, this drum is also known or referred to under special circumstances as the magul bera, or 'auspicious drum' when played in certain specialised contexts.

This paper also re-examines and considers some of the earlier musical instruments of Sri Lanka and suggests why some of these instruments may have fallen into disuse. A broader discussion of musical instruments in use from the Kandyan period to the present day will also be included. The paper concludes by suggesting how some of these issues should inform displays of Sri Lankan musical instruments in museums.

Gelsomina's Trumpet: Thoughts about a New Conception of a Museum of Musical Instruments by way of Brass Instruments

Martin Elste
Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (SIMPK) Berlin, Germany

How do we appreciate music? What does a musical instrument stand for? In order to reach a wider audience, a museum of musical instruments should present its objects within the framework of diverse cultural phenomena - such as Fellini's movie "La Strada" in which the trumpet plays such a distinct role. Whenever feasible, the museum should aim to exhibit more than just musical instruments, but a variety of objects that display the position of music and of the musical instrument within a range of cultures. A collection of musical instruments thus becomes a museum of music. The presentation discusses this approach by way of the trumpet and related objects.

The Significance of Classification in Museums and Collections of Musical Instruments

Sumi Gunji
Japan

Classification is the act of dividing things into their different types by arranging cognition into systems. The classification of the musical instruments have been formulated frequently from the time of the ancient Chinese and Greeks to the present. For each classification system the criteria for classification reflect the classifier's concepts originated with individual culture to which he belongs. In fact there was no universal classification adaptable to every instrument of all the different cultures in the world until establishment of the "Systematik der Musikinstrumente" in 1914 by Curt Sachs.

Although the classificatory system of Curt Sachs is the most widely used in the world, I would like to discuss following two subjects:

The Musical Instruments and Singing Voice of Rebetika Music in Melbourne: Criteria for Classification, Tuning of Instruments and Ergology (making) of Rebetika Instruments

Kipps Horn
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; also the University of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

Rebetika music is a form of Greek popular urban music which in its early stages of evolution reflected life-style aspects of the lower classes. Its assimilation by broader social groups led to transformations of its musical style and attitudinal changes towards its performance and composition. The music is still performed in Greece and throughout the Greek diaspora including Melbourne , the focus of Kipps Horn's doctoral studies at Monash University.

Linked with the history of Greece's urbanisation is the country's long history of internal and external emigration: factors which have long echoed in the traditional rural music of Greece (demotic music) and which continues to reverberate in the urban popular music of Greece this century, particularly rebetic music.

Rebetic music is an aspect of Greek-Australian migrant culture. The music has travelled with the people, its musical style signifying the meeting of a number of cultures and it relates to issues of identity in term s of what it means to be a Greek-Australian. An important part of Horn's doctoral studies will be to attempt to ascertain to what extent changes in rebetic music in Melbourne reflect wider cultural changes associated with the Greek-Australian community during the last forty years.

Instruments used in Melbourne rebetic music have been either imported, made by local instrument-makers or handed down as family heirlooms. An examination of their origins, physical characteristics and classification may tell us more about rebetic playing practices (including improvisation) and cultural meanings derived from the instruments.

Presentation and Representation in Japanese Museums of Traditional Musical Instruments

Henry Johnson
University of Otago, Japan

During fieldwork in Japan it became increasingly necessary to conduct research at institutions that collected or displayed traditional Japanese musical instruments. Not only were instruments examined within manufacturing and performance contexts, but instruments that were for one reason or another collected in other contexts also became an important source for looking at historical aspects of the study.

It was through studying at institutions that house these instruments that the present research was initiated. Not only was I looking at instruments, but questions were raised about the very existence of instruments in institutions in the first place: Why were instruments collected? Who decided which instruments to collect? What were the socio-political influences on these institutions? What did the instruments represent? What did the institutions represent? How were the instruments presents?

Traditional Japanese musical instruments are collected or displayed in a range of contexts for a variety of reasons. This research focuses on major Japanese collections that are open for public viewing, and examines the significance of the instruments, the collections and the institutions in terms of presentation and representation. In this particular discussion three case studies are given.

Interpretation of the Musical Instruments in Two Iranian Collections

Laleh Joshani
Tehran, Iran

The musical history of Iran can be divided into two periods: pre-Islamic and Islamic period. Farabi classified musical instruments thus:
StringWindPercussion
with fretswithout frets
Nowadays each of the tribes living in Iran has its own special instruments, and the instruments are played with different techniques according to the culture of the tribe. There are two collections of instruments in Iran - in the SABA Museum and belonging to the Organization of Cultural Heritage. Unfortunately there is no special museum of musical instruments.

This illustrated paper will describe the methods of interpreting instruments in these two collections.

The Gamelan Digul: an Historical and Organological Account of its Instruments, their Use, and their Planned Restoration

Margaret Kartomi
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Made from any materials to hand in the jungle-surrounds of the Netherlands East Indies' political prisoner camp at Boven Digul (or Tanah Merah in what is now Irian Jaya) in the late 1920s, the Dutch colonial government sent the Surakarta-born maker (Pontjopangrawit ) of this gamelan slendro-pelog and his fellow prisoners to Australia after the Japanese had invaded Indonesia in World War II. From Cowra (NSW) it was brought to Melbourne where it was played weekly by the prisoners in the Hotel Metropole (until 1945 when they returned to the independent Indonesia which they had helped create by liaising with Australian waterside worker union to boycott Dutch ships headed for Indonesia). The gamelan was then deposited in the Museum of Victoria and finally, from the 1970s, at Monash University, where it has been played in public and is now being retuned and having its woodwork, metal components and original paint restored for eventual travelling exhibition in Australian and Indonesian cities. Of particular organological interest are its gong kemodong, the two metal keys of which rest over a bowl resonator, and the fact that despite its bonang kettles having been made from iron kitchenware, its tuning still resembles that of a good Surakarta-made gamelan.

Recreated Ancient Azerbaijani Musical Instruments as Museum Exhibits

Mejnun Kerimov
State Museum of Azerbaijan Musical Culture, Baku, Azerbaijan Republic

Azerbaijan was home to a rich musical culture from as long ago as the 10th century, when more than 60 string, wind and percussion instruments were in widespread use. Descriptions of these instruments are to be found in the works of the poem and philosopher Nizami Ganjavi (12th century) and the poem Muhammad Fizuli (16th century), in the studies of eastern musical theory by Sefaddin Wimevi (13th century) and his 14th century disciple Abdul Kadyr Maraghi, and later in the works of Mir Movsum Navvab of Karabakh. These instuments are also depicted in miniatures by artists working in the 16th-17th centuries, such as Sultan Muhammad Aga Mirek, Mirza Ali and Muzafar Ali and Mir Said Ali.

I have been researching and recreating ancient musical instruments since 1973 and have reproduced instruments such as the chang, barbet, chagane, Shirvan tambur, rud, ney and rubab, which can now be heard once more. The scientific laboratory for Restoration and Improvement of Ancient Musical Instruments, of which I am the director, is currently working on an instrument called the gopuz or gobuz, in preparation for the UNESCO - supported celebrations to mark the 1300th anniversary of the "Dede Gorgud" epic.

In our work, we rely greatly on the rich resources and research of Azerbaijani museums such as the State Museum of Azerbaijan Musical Culture, where many of the instruments we have recreated and restored are now exhibited. Under the museum, too, I have set up and direct an ensemble of 12 musicians who play some of these instruments.

The State Museum of Azerbaijan Musical Culture has important collections from the beginning of the 20th century, including oil sound recordings and the first gramophone records of Azerbaijani music. These we use to retrieve folk melodies which we have included in the repertoire of our ensemble. We have also deciphered and performed the melodies of the Azeri musicologist Abdul Kadyr Maraghi, who used a tonal notation system based on the alphabet.

Ngaramang Bayumi: an Exhibition about Indigenous Australian Music and Dance

Michael Lea
The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia

The very nature of musical instruments and the context and cultures in which they are used present many challenges to museums with collections of musical instruments. Not only are issues of conservation and housing of the stored collection important but the question of how to exhibit and interpret them as effectively as possible needs to be considered at length. The challenge open to museums is to present their collections in a dynamic and exciting way without compromising their condition. Not only do musical instruments have the dimensions of height, width and depth found in most other museum objects but they also have the dimension of sound and their ability to produce music. This distinguishes them from many other objects.

The presentation of indigenous cultures in museums, like the presentation of musical instruments, has traditionally often been presented in a very static and stereotypical way. This has begun to change in recent years and the Ngaramang Bayumi exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia, is an attempt to present both indigenous culture and musical instruments in a very dynamic and exciting way. With the involvement of and collaboration with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands communities, the exhibition has celebrated these vibrant and dynamic cultures through music, dance and the spirit of reconciliation. This paper looks at how the exhibition was developed as a collaboration between many cultures and the issues that had to be considered in order to represent the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their music in an appreciative and respectful way.

Instrument Classification and Museum Misinformation

Arnold Myers
Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments, Edinburgh, U.K.

This paper examines the relationships between instrument classification and identification and the text of museum showcase labels for displays which include musical instruments.

Museum showcase labels are one of the principal means whereby museum curators communicate with their audience. For various reasons, label texts frequently contain erroneous information, often resulting from the limitations of classification systems, whether rationally formulated or intuitive.

This paper draws on recent research work on brasswind taxonomy.

Developments within the Dresden Hofkapelle, 1728 - 1745

Janice B. Stockigt
Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne, Australia

The Dresden Hofkapelle was an ensemble that drew high praise from Rousseau, and Charles Burney. It also provided Quantz with the orchestral experience upon which he drew when he compiled Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen (Berlin, 1752). This orchestra performed the secular and liturgical works of a number of significant Dresden-based composers of the late-Baroque, and early-Classical eras.

Examination of lists of players, and numbers of instrumentalists in each section of this ensemble during the years 1728 - 1745, reveals that foundations of the Classical orchestra were established in Dresden during the Baroque era.

Investigation of those rare sets of parts to accompany scores which survive in Dresden discloses information of significance, providing further understanding of the performance style for which that city became so highly regarded.

See also the Details of the Meeting

Comments on this page to Arnold Myers, Vice-President CIMCIM, or to Margaret Kartomi who is the programme co-ordinator of the 1998 CIMCIM Conference.

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