Today I went to visit a new exhibition ant the Museum of Ethnography, that I had my eye on from the beginning of the year. It's a particular one that I wanted to visit because seeing century old instruments in original is not something you bump into every day.
The exhibited items were brought to Targu Mures from Hungary, as these are property of Museum of Ethnography of Budapest, Hungary. The exhibition is open till the 30th of April, if you're passing by and you can find the museum at the interior of the medieval fortress, 5 minutes walking distance from the city center. Ticket is 3€.
Photo of the leaflet I got at the museum
As soon as I stepped into the first room I knew I'm going to see something interesting and unique. Then after a minute or two I had to realize it'll be the biggest challenge as well and as a photographer, my skills will be put to test.
Most, if not all the musical instruments were under glass protection, which I understand as quite a few were more than a century old, made of wood, which can deteriorate easily. Protecting such treasure is always a must as you can't just go back and get another one. Here you can see different kind of horns from Finland, Russia, Papua New Guinea, Hungary, Africa and Tibet, collected in the 19th and 20th century.
There were photos on the wall, of musicians from all over the world, playing different instruments. To be able to appreciate the photos, I need to tell you that most of them were taken decades ago, even a century ago. This one was taken in 1955 in Samoa. A man playing music using a conch shell.
Here not only I had to deal with reflection, but the descriptions caused headache as well.
As you can see here, the description was transparent and glued to the glass. Didgeridoo is the long instrument you see on the photo above, it was brought from Australia at the beginning of the 21th century, from the Numbulwar community.
One strange musical instrument after the other and you've seen nothing yet. I'm sorry for the quality of the photos, unfortunately, under the circumstances, this was the best I could do.
While looking at these instruments, I was thinking how these were born. Everything was done manually and most of the instruments were made of wood or some kind of metal.
That wooden piece with the face of a man is a mace used during traditional dance.
This is where you see how inventive people back in those days were. Have you ever wondered how these instruments were invented? People heard the sound those pieces of wood or metal made and used it to create music. This is common today as there are bands using all kinds of objects to create music.
These instruments were brought from Congo, China, Cameroon, Tanzania, Ethiopia, North Africa, Liberia, French Guyana and Indonesia and are from the 19th and 20th century. Although I could not try them out to see how they sound as touching them is never possible, thanks to the 21st century digitization, I could still hear how they sound.
There was a tablet available, where you could listen to short recordings or short videos and hear the sound of the instruments.
These two you can see on the photo above. I must admit, listening to these instruments was a lot of fun. Unusual sound, but still interesting.
A band from Bandung, Indonesia, 1910.
Wind instruments were very popular and look at the design some of them are decorated with.
Some very unusual ones here.
Anklunk from Indonesia, from the middle of the 20th century.
Instruments from Hungary, Russia and Papua New Guinea.
These also looked interesting. Mouth organs from Borneo, Indonesia, from the end of the 19th century.
These are just a few, but imagine putting together an orchestra to play all these instruments. I don't know what kind of music they could play, but would be an interesting concert for sure.
This time I'm not going to ask you which one is your favorite as there's no way you would know, but I hope you liked the photos and that I could show you something new today.
If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides:
