Whilst some of us look at that title Horniman and imagine that Lance and Mike are indulging in youthful, if rather crass, humour rather than serious art blogging, you might be right. But we have been doing some further research on how to make ceramics that make sound. Nothing like a wonder filled museum to go check out.
Museum visit
We visited the amazing Horniman Museum in Forest Hill, South London. The musical instruments room is so full of incredible music making implements that was all we could manage, other than a cup of tea and cake in the wonderful glass conservatory If you’ve not been to this free museum then put it on your bucket list. Some of the enjoyment came from children seeing these musical instruments for the first time and great ways of using projector tables to select and hear instruments.
One slightly harassed and endlessly patient care worker was apologising for her young charges on the autistic spectrum she told us, but she need not have worried, children had every right to enjoy as much as we did, and just to see how these children interacted with the “console” to hear sound was a pleasure and unexpected delight and made the museum far from stuffy. Somehow after that kneeling on the floor to see lower “shelf” exhibits and reading about them in the gloom seemed quite reasonable behaviour as our inner child came out, well Mike’s in particular this time.
Sound research – musical instruments
The visit specifically was to explore the Horniman Museum’s Musical Instruments room for research into the range of musical instruments that have been developed throughout history for our sound research. We were not disappointed with many weird and wonderful things to see and hear! After some daunting earlier research, which we may dwell on later, on how sound affects us and also how sound is made from objects, this research visit was hugely encouraging. People with far less knowledge and even access to technology have, with passion, made and played all sorts of things of varying shapes. Often only taking organic grown things (like gourds, for example) to hand, to make an instrument. So over a glass of whisky we have been overflowing yet again with ideas that could keep us busy for the next few years, this time in all sorts of directions with our own sound, no not musical, making instruments.