Friday, October 30, 2009

Musical Instrument Museum Receives Two 1890 Lyon & Healy Drums

Note: Initially, when I saw this photo (above), I thought it was an optical illusion. Click on it to enlarge it and see whether you can figure out what's going on here. (Answer below in a comment.)


In April, 2010, something new, the Musical Instrument Museum, will open its doors in Phoenix, Arizona.

"With musical instruments from every country in the world, MIM will pay homage to the history and diversity of instruments and introduce museum guests to their varied and unique sounds. MIM will be an engaging, entertaining, and informative experience, in which the uninitiated and the knowledgeable, the young and the old will feel welcome."

In order to fill out an exhibit of turn-of-the-century band instruments, FieldDrums.com Blogmaster, Ellis Mirsky, donated two drums requested by the museum. Both are pictured above. Restoration work on the bass drum was done by George Kubicek. The drums are part of the "Monarch" series produced by Lyon & Healy ca. 1889, 1890. The bass drum is 30" in diameter and the field drum is 17" in diameter. While not exact matches, the drums are of the same general appearance. Their elaborate inlays reflect the fine craftsmanship of that era.

See the newsletter of the Museum of Musical Instruments acknowledging this gift (at p. 3, "Drumming Up Contributions").

3 comments:

  1. Initially, when I looked at the photo above appearing with a note, I thought I was looking at the vent hole grommet and it looked odd, as if it were inverted.

    What's going on is that it's not the vent hole grommet at all. It's a single eyelet for hooking up the drum to a sling.

    And know you know the rest of the story.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I actually own a 1868 12" by 28" Lyon and heally co. Bass drum. It has a very beautiful shell but there is no art around the vent hole. And the crazy thing is, I'm only 14 years old!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I admit, I have not been on this webpage in a long time... however it was another joy to see It is such an important topic and ignored by so many, even professionals.

    TV

    ReplyDelete

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