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This gallery was created by Julian Pacella. This piece displays a group of Indian performers playing music. Portrayed in the piece is a variety of instruments: a keyboard, hand drums, a sitar, and flute. It is clear that these people are happy. This is an oil painting of several instruments laid out.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has included musical instruments in its collection since soon after it was founded. The Luigi Palma di Cesnola collection of antiquities included many ancient instruments when it entered the Museum in 1880. Museum trustee Joseph Drexel later donated forty-four mostly European instruments, and personally installed ...
Gallery 684: The Art of Music through Time. The gallery is punctuated throughout with related objects and paintings that illustrate the universal presence of music and instruments in art and society. Read more about the instruments featured in this gallery. Click below to explore videos and Audio Guide stops for instruments in the gallery.
- Overview
- General characteristics
The principal types of musical instruments are percussion, stringed, keyboard, wind, and electronic.
How long have musical instruments existed?
Archaeology has revealed musical instruments such as pipes and whistles in the Paleolithic Period and clay drums and shell trumpets in the Neolithic Period. Ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, India, East Asia, and the Americas all possessed diverse and well-developed assortments of musical instruments, indicating that a long previous development must have existed.
musical instrument, any device for producing a musical sound. The principal types of such instruments, classified by the method of producing sound, are percussion, stringed, keyboard, wind, and electronic.
Musical instruments are almost universal components of human culture: archaeology has revealed pipes and whistles in the Paleolithic Period and clay drums and shell trumpets in the Neolithic Period. It has been firmly established that the ancient city cultures of Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, India, East Asia, and the Americas all possessed diverse and well-developed assortments of musical instruments, indicating that a long previous development must have existed. As to the origin of musical instruments, however, there can be only conjecture. Some scholars have speculated that the first instruments were derived from such utilitarian objects as cooking pots (drums) and hunting bows (musical bows); others have argued that instruments of music might well have preceded pots and bows; while in the myths of cultures throughout the world the origin of music has frequently been attributed to the gods, especially in areas where music seems to have been regarded as an essential component of the ritual believed necessary for spiritual survival.
Whatever their origin, the further development of the enormously varied instruments of the world has been dependent on the interplay of four factors: available material, technological skills, mythic and symbolic preoccupations, and patterns of trade and migration. Thus, residents of Arctic regions use bone, skin, and stone to construct instruments; residents of the tropics have wood, bamboo, and reed available; while societies with access to metals and the requisite technology are able to utilize these malleable materials in a variety of ways. Myth and symbolism play an equally important role. Herding societies, for example, which may depend on a particular species of animal not only economically but also spiritually, often develop instruments that look or sound like the animal or prefer instruments made of bone and hide rather than stone and wood, even when all the materials are available. Finally, patterns of human trade and migration have for many centuries swept musicians and their instruments across seas and continents, resulting in constant flux, change, and cross-fertilization and adaptation.
Musical instruments have been used since earliest times for a variety of purposes, ranging from the entertainment of concert audiences to the accompaniment of dances, rituals, work, and medicine. The use of instruments for religious ceremonies has continued down to the present day, though at various times they have been suspect because of their secular associations. The many references to instruments in the Old Testament are evidence of the fact that they played an important part in Jewish worship until for doctrinal reasons they were excluded. It is also clear that the early Christians in the eastern Mediterranean used instruments in their services, since the practice was severely condemned by ecclesiastics, who insisted that the references to instruments in the Psalms were to be interpreted symbolically. Although instruments continue to be banned in Islamic mosques (but not in religious processions or Sufi ritual) and in the traditional Eastern Orthodox church, they play important roles in the ritual of most other societies. For example, Buddhist cultures are rich in instruments, particularly bells and drums (and in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, wind instruments as well).
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Belief in the magical properties of instruments is found in many societies. The Jewish shofar (a ram’s horn), which is still blown on Rosh Hashana (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), must be heard by the congregation. The power of the shofar is illustrated by the story of Joshua at the siege of Jericho: when the priests blew their shofars seven times, the walls of the city fell flat. In India, according to legend, when the deity Krishna played the flute, the rivers stopped flowing and the birds came down to listen. The birds are said to have done the same in 14th-century Italy when the composer Francesco Landini played his organetto, or portative organ. In China, instruments were identified with the points of the compass, with the seasons, and with natural phenomena. The Melanesian bamboo flute was a charm for rebirth.
May 22, 2020. MIM celebrates the art that musical instruments produce (music!) and the roles those sounds play in cultures around the world. Contained in our collection is a wealth of instruments that are works of art in their own right. From a sculptural drum to a sousaphone with ornate engravings, get an up-close look at some instruments that ...
This insightful appreciation of musical instruments features more than one hundred extraordinary pieces from the Metropolitan Museum’s collection. Whether created to entertain a royal court, provide personal solace, or aid in rites and rituals, these instruments fully demonstrate music’s universal resonance and the ingenuity various cultures have deployed for musical expression. The ...
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Watch and listen to performances played on the instruments on view in The Met's new Musical Instruments gallery. Listen to curators introduce The Art of Music through Time. Still playable after 450 years, this spinetta embodies the spirit of Italian humanism in its sophistication and elegance.
