Clockwork Musical Box, French (Inv. 34157) This box has come from the Museum’s collections, what type of music do you think it plays?

Name: Em

Age: 20

Occupation: Student

From: Rode Island, USA

Object: Musical Instruments

Story: I am currently working towards an undergraduate degree at Brown University in my home city, in the field of History of Science. My interest is in building musical instruments and researching the historical connections between classical music and science. I am also a visual artist with an interest in documentation. I draw images of natural and scientific objects as a way of replicating their creation in a research setting.

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Badge, c. 1977 (Inv. 59865). It’s a shame it doesn’t say ‘Science and Music in Twenty-first Century Oxford’.

Name: Belinda 

Age: Mature!

Occupation: Secretary, Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine

From: Harrow, Middlesex, UK

Object: Tuning Fork

Story: When I was a child I was fortunate enough to have piano lessons, ballet lessons, etc, and at the age of 11 was put in for an audition to win a place at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts to do ballet.  For the audition you had to dance, play an instrument, and sing.  Singing was not my forte so my parents bought me a tuning fork to help with practice and I had huge amounts of fun trying to mimic the fork but alas it did no good.  I still won a place at the school, which was held open for me for 2 years, but my parents could not afford the fees, and there were no scholarships available at the time, so I couldn’t fulfil my dream of becoming a prima ballerina.  However, even though I cannot hold a tune, ‘can’t sing, won’t sing’ does not apply to me and if there is music about I sing my heart out to the horror of anyone that can hear me!

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Metronome, c.1830, (Inv. 40764). Much older than the metronome in Lynn’s story, this object forms part of the collections at the Museum.

Name: Lynn

Age: 22

Occupation: Student

From: Alberta, Canada

Object: Metronome

Story: When I started learning how to play the trombone my mom bought me a wind up metronome, an old fashion one. I had this metronome for years, but it mostly lived in a drawer. One rare day I took it out to practice with. As I was practicing something felt wrong. After a while I realized the metronome was speeding up and slowing down. I went and convinced my mom I needed a new electric metronome. She went and got me one even though she was pretty sure the old metronome wasn’t broken. It was only later when I was practicing with my new metronome that I realized that it wasn’t the metronome changing tempo, it was me! The technology and the science behind it worked fine. I was the one messing up!

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