Too many connections

Museum-Inspired Music

Posted in Individualism, Presentism on 23. Feb, 2009

Let’s ignore the “…and finally” tone of this BBC report about musicians making music inspired by a museum’s collection and focus on what the project is about.

The seven museums of the National Museum Wales invited bands from the local music scene to create a track for as part of the Music 09 programme of events. The report talks about the band Circa Regna Tonat’s track Atta that came about from the museum’s leaf-cutter ant colony, but so far two other bands have released songs. Pulco’s Caban draws from a magazine about a organisation of the local quarrymen. Little My’s track Panic at the Museum responds the the museum as a whole. 

What the museum is involved in here is a conceptual album, released over time, free to download, on their website. Despite the BBC’s jokey language describing music about ants, the Respond project is in fact a very clever addition to the curatorial process, giving museum objects and collections a much greater depth of engagement.

“Not just for the oldies” indeed. I swear…

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3 Responses to “Museum-Inspired Music”

  1. TS says:
    23 February, 2009 at 11:17 pm

    I believe the Natural History Museum of LA was the first to do this, AFAIK:http://www.nhm.org/firstfridays/sonic_opening_faq.html

  2. Pete says:
    24 February, 2009 at 1:38 am

    I’ve known a few to do this. Hell, I think even David Byrne did one for the V&A. Musician-in-residence isn’t exactly a new concept despite not nearly enough museums doing it.

    What I like about this the fact that these musician’s are semi-pros, or basically touring bands that would find in any Cardiff pub. They’re not superstars, “sonic artists” or fancy composers, they’re normal guys just like the museum audience. Thus making the music a bit more accessible to the man-on-the-street (even if one band describes themselves as “a bit Pink Floyd”)
    They also are likely to be able to name everyone of their Myspace friends. You can’t buy that kind of grassroots involvement.
  3. Amy says:
    1 March, 2009 at 8:53 am

    I seem to remember a professor talking about a band in Canada doing something similar in the 90s, but can’t find anything to back this up.

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