I went with Joe Filisko to the museum in South Dakota where we were jointly
with Alan Bates, Richard Smith, Martin Hafner (Curator of the Trossingen
Museum) to open this collection.
We had a great time... all of us had to give mini talks and play demos on
various aspects of the harmonica. The collection of 2500 harmonicas was
not on view at the time, but a small subset was very well displayed. There
is a researcher specifically given the job of databasing each instrument
with as much detail as can be found out about it. I believe that Alan
Bates will have had a hand in giving much of that.
The museum itself is FANTASTIC... if you have ANY interest in any
instrument at all you cannot come away with being less than totally bowled
over. They cover a large amount of ground, modern instruments, historical,
Ethnic, and everything is VERY well displayed. Two displays which I found
fascinating were the early keyboards and Saxophone engraving! But the one
for which I was in total awe was the 'violin' room (+violsa , cellos, Bass,
piccolo, dancemaster, folk... :)) In here were instruments by the
greatest masters ever, Amati, Guanarius, Stradavarius... each worth
hundreds of thousands of $$$, some in the millions. And these are not
static displays only. The instruments are loaned out for playing. A
couple of years back several were on loan to New York... Each was sent in a
separate Brinks van with shotgun :)
Visit if you can
Douglas t
The whole atmosphere of the opening of the collection was one of deep
respect for the instrument and it's place in the history and panorama of
music. If you want to talk respect for the harmonica from people who know
the world of music and present it for America... this is the place which
shows it.