The history of musical instruments may be traced back in Europe for some 25,000 years. As far back as the early Stone Age man learned…

The Oliphant was an instrument made of an elephants tusk, and were often richly decorated. In England the Oliphant was also a symbol of dignity…

Metal strings were often used in Ireland in the thirteenth century and were played with ‘nayles scharpe’, a method that continued for several hundred years…

The infant god Hermes on an expedition to steal 50 of Apollo’s cows, picked up a tortoise shell, stretched ox hide over it, and attached to…

This bizarre-looking instrument is called a Stroh violin, named after  its German designer, Johannes Matthias Augustus Stroh, who patented it in 1899. The stroh violin…

Why is the player wearing a white glove in this video?  Many instruments in museums are very old and delicate.  We have to be careful…

Trumpet players were used as signallers on battle fields.  This was a very dangerous job, as the enemy would usually try to aim at the…

Musicians who played in the courts in medieval times were called minstrels.  But being a minstrel wasn’t always an easy job.  They were expected to…

Here’s a few activity sheets for kids – to be used in and out of the museum! Making Music Making Art – decorate instruments Making…

Playing a string instrument during the Baroque period was not a pastime for vegetarians! Unlike modern strings, which are made from wire, strings for instruments…

On the 19th July 1545, whilst leading an attack on a French invasion force, the ship Mary Rose sank in the Solent. It was rediscovered…

The small ‘pocket cornet’ has six feet of tubing coiled into a very compact space – much tighter than the average cornet.

One of the smallest instruments in the collection is the ‘picco pipe’. It is played like a recorder, but only has two finger holes. The…

The oldest dated instrument in the collection is a single-manual harpsichord by Bernardinus de Trasuntinis of Venice? It was made in 1574, over 430 years…

The Musical Instrument Museums have a collection of 1,009 clarinets. The bulk of the collection, over 800, was bequeathed by the late Sir Nicholas Shackleton,…

The dijeridoo, an Australian wind instrument, is traditionally made by Aboriginal craftsmen with the help of termites! The craftsmen spend a lot of time looking…

The pochette, a small bowed instrument like the violin, means ‘pocket’ in French. It was used by dancing masters in the 17th century and was…

The Ocarina, a musical wind instrument made out of clay, is also known as the Sweet Potato?

According to Greek mythology, when goddess Athena saw her reflection on the water while playing the double aulos she threw the instrument away because she…

If a French horn was uncoiled its tubing would be 6-7 meters long? That’s half the length of a bus!

The English Horn is not a horn at all? It is a woodwind instrument, and has a double reed like an oboe. It is usually…

In the middle of 19th-century Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone, made a tuba whose total tubing was 17 meters long, so as to…

Some instruments which are classified as brass instruments are not made of brass? The serpent, seen below, is considered a brass instrument, but is made…

Did you know that the viola da gamba was so named because in Italian ‘viola da gamba’ means ‘leg viol’, differentiating it from violin family…