MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Music making around the world is represented by the Horniman's collection of musical instruments, one of the most comprehensive in the UK. The museum has over 7,000 objects made to produce sound. The oldest instrument is a pair of bone clappers in the form of human hands made in Egypt around 1,500 BC. Electric guitars and synthesizers dating from the 1990s are among the most recent acquisitions.

The Museum aims to acquire sound and video recordings with the documentation for each new instrument. Recent collections of instruments commissioned from makers in Belarus and Uzbekistan, and the newest collections associated with traditional music in India, are supported by a rich archive of such recordings.

Normally instruments are not played in order to ensure that they are preserved for future generations. The music that the instruments make will be made available to visitors via accompanying recordings alongside the gallery displays, recitals and performances.

The following pages summarise the musical instrument collections by type (wind instruments, stringed instruments, percussion instruments and keyboard instruments). The major collections from Europe, Asia and Africa are also listed by geographical area.

Designated as an outstanding collectionSome of the instruments are housed at the Museum's Study Collections Centre, where they may be viewed by appointment

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Further information