The Collection of the Museo del Paesaggio Sonoro di Riva presso Chieri
- Universita Degli Studi di Torino
Part of the collection of the Museo del Paesaggio Sonoro in Riva presso Chieri has been recently integrated into the MIMO website. Founded in 2005 and completely renovated in 2011, thanks to Guido Raschieri and the Municipality of Riva presso Chieri, the Museo del Paesaggio Sonoro (Soundscape Museum) is located in Riva presso Chieri (Torino). It hosts the collection of musical instruments and sound devices gathered in Riva and neighbouring areas by Domenico Torta, a traditional musician, a teacher and a composer. The word Soundscape in this Museum refers to the relationships between humans and non-humans and between humans and the environment that – until not many decades ago – were constantly recreated in Riva presso Chieri through the act of making and playing musical instruments. Moreover, it refers to the possibility of living a musically organized life, in continuity with local traditions of singing and of making use of sound, as well as through the knowledge of the sonorous properties of materials and the sounds of animals. Divided into seven sections, the Museum displays flutes, reed-pipes and horns made of bark and vegetal stems, the zither or musical bow called torototela (whose resonator is made with an inflated pig bladder or with a gourd), clay whistles, hunting calls, bells, noise makers for the rituals of the Holy Week and musical toys. A special section is dedicated to the instruments intended for dance: clarinets, accordions, brass instruments, mirlitons, violins, harmonicas, together with the idiophonic voice disguiser made of two valves of gourd called the cusa, and the wooden scraper called the fruja. A section with mechanical instruments and sound reproduction devices introduces the last one, dedicated to musical instruments (both industrial and hand-made) made of plastic, renovating the traditional morphologies of flutes and other sound devices.
Thanks to Domenico Torta (External link), who considers the traditional practices documented in the Museum a never ending source of inspiration for his works as a composer (External link) and his musical activities, the Museum collaborates with the local band I Musicanti di Riva presso Chieri and with the local school Istituto Comprensivo Chieri I, where an innovative teaching methodology is being tested in collaboration with Guido Raschieri (External link.). With its great variety of typologies, the Museum is the ideal place to test the Hornbostel-Sachs classification and more generally the terminology used for musical instruments, from the names in local dialect to more technical typological definitions. It is also thanks to the musical instruments collection of the Museo del Paesaggio Sonoro that Febo Guizzi achieved his translation and revision of the Hornbostel-Sachs classification (forthcoming in the proceedings of the conference Reflecting on Hornbostel-Sachs Versuch a century later, Venezia, Fondazione Levi), which was used for the cataloguing process, together with the MIMO’s revision of Hornbostel-Sachs. The catalogue of the Museum’s musical instruments has been undertaken within the project Sound Archives and Musical Instruments Collection, based at the University of Torino, realized by Ilario Meandri, Cristina Ghirardini and Giorgio Bevilacqua (External link).
The collection of the Musée de la musique in Ouagadougou and of the Musée Panafricain de la musique in Brazzaville
- Muziekinstrumentenmuseum
Recently the collections of two African musical instruments museums have been integrated in the MIMO website: the collection of the Musée de la musique in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and of the Musée Panafricain de la musique in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. The publication of their inventories was the outcome of a close collaboration between both the African museums and one of the MIMO consortium member (MIM-BE), focusing on a continuous exchange of information and know how in the fields of (ethno)musicology, conservation and restoration, musical heritage, linguistics and digital collection management. As a result 129 new African keywords are added to the MIMO thesaurus, most of them not appearing in reference works such as The new Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments (London, 1984/R2014; www.oxfordmusiconline.com/public/). The actors’ list is augmented with nearly one hundred new names of African makers, collectors, musicians, donors and sellers. In addition, worldwide publication of the objects of the concerned collections with photos and detailed metadata will help to better protect against theft and loss. Should the collections physically disappear, source material will remain available thanks to MIMO which then serves as a digital archive.
The Musée de la musique in Ouagadougou, inaugurated in 1999 as an offspring of the Ouagadougou Musée national, is a dynamic museum focusing on dissemination of Burkinabe patrimony through exhibitions and workshops for children. Efforts have been made to considerably improve the conditions of conservation. The museum houses 232 musical instruments, which have been gathered from the early 1960s onwards, in order to offer a survey of musical culture in Burkina Faso. Up till now 26 out of the sixty ethnic groups of Burkina Faso are represented. Instruments are gathered during collecting forays into the countryside. Data on builders, musicians, terminology, localization, population and function are carefully assembled. A central register lists the objects with their metadata.
The Musée Panafricain de la musique in Brazzaville has a collection of 188 instruments from all over Africa. In 1976 the initiative was taken by several African ministers of culture to organize a biennial African music festival (FESPAM), hosted by the Republic of Congo. One of the objectives of the Festival was to create a museum in charge of the conservation and promotion of African musical instruments. It was said that ‘the constitutive elements of African musical patrimony were threatened with disappearance and deterioration’ and that ‘action was needed’ (Kouloufoua 2012 : 23). Shortly after its foundation in 2000, national missions took place, aimed at collecting items from the 73 different ethnic groups. During the biennial festival, delegates of participating African countries donate instruments that are representative of their culture. A card-index system contains information on makers, users (musicians), sellers, terminology, function, dates and places. However, due to a difficult organizational situation and unfavorable conservation circumstances, this unique and valuable heritage is under threat.