We are planning on doing what Lucy Sperlin has said.. And making the
recording available by push-button, so that visitors can hear the sound
while looking at the instrument

I have wanted to demonstrate to certain tour groups how our edision player
works.  Since we have hundreds of Edison cylinder records, It would not hurt
to demonstrate it only a few times each year for tours.  We have thought
that, for one season, this would be alright. I haven't decided to take
advantage of it yet.

> Dear Colleagues,
> A community member who is an accomplished organist and repairs and restores
> music boxes has suggested that we play our music boxes for the public.
> According to him, they are like any other instrument and need to be played
> in order to give them the best care.  I have heard that the Stradivarius
> Museum plays their violins regularly- so there must be something to this.
> In general, we do not use our artifacts as intended (we don't wind our
> clocks, run our motors, use our carriages, etc.)  Common sense tells me
> that if you use something you are wearing it out a little every time that
> you use it.  This goes contrary to preventive conservation principles.  We
> have several music boxes that are part of a larger collection that were
> obviously very expensive and top of the line models when new.  These
> probably would sound quite beautiful.  I have been asked by our curator to
> put this question on Museum-L.  If you have music boxes- or other musical
> instruments in your collections, do you ever play them?    Thank you for
> any thoughts you have on this topic.
> Sincerely,
> David Ryan
> Registrar
> Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum
> www.cspm.org
>
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Yakima Valley Museum
yakimavalleymuseum.org

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