Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-20

THE collection of musical instru-
ments at the National Museum
represents about 1000 spe-. mems,
4 varying in size from a rattle to
grand piano, and in age from
remotest antiquity to the present day. This
exhibit is divided into four classes, sub
divided into as many sections. but owing
to restricted space a perfect classification
cannot be made until it is arranged in
room To itself in the new museum to be.
Mr.. G. II. Hawley. who has charge of the
collection, has devoted twenty-five years of
jealous service to his work. --e is prepar-
Ing for publication a catalogue which will
be virtually world history of music, as
demonstrated by the instruments of all
times and all nations. Even casual story
of the cases that line the side walls of
the main hall. however shows that music
must have been born with the planet, and
that it is as natural for human kind to
make rhythmic sounds as it is for a cat to
purr or for bird to sing in summer 1t
shows, too. that though harmony seems to
have been unknown to Europeans Until the
tenth century, savage peoples were making
music of one sort or another while still in a
state of nature, their soundmaking instru-
ments being mostly the result of accidental
contact with the materials that made their
environment. The exhibit of horns, for
instance, gives evidence that those tribes
who lived near the made their instru-
ments of conch shells; nomads of the in
terror made them of the horns of animals
while those who lived near bamboo forests
utilized sections of pith-cleared stalk. The
shell horns in the exhibit came from Samoa,
the Fiji Islands, Durham and Calcutta
some specimens still retaining the pink of
their Sea-Sand existence, but most of them
sCaly, skeleton gray.
These primitive Instruments, whether of
shell, horn reeds, show signs of antiquity
and have doubtless been used by savage
trumpeters to blow signal calls for war or
peace in the gone days of which history
keeps no tally.
x
Among these ancient specimens is a
shofar from Egypt, made of a twisted
rams horn, an instrument used in the
sacred ceremonies of the Hebrews of the
Old Testament, and which the modern
orthodox believers of that ancient race
blow each year the Jewish New Year.
As this horn is sounded with the same
rhythm all over the world, it offers pre-
su.nptive evidence that the blowing of it is
the same today as in the time of King
David. The smallest horn in the collection
Is a pottery tritie from Mexico, and the
largest an elephants tusk fashioned by
some native musician in the wilds of an
African jungle
the horn is marked by holes. slides and
valves in all shapes and all degrees of i'm
provement, the most interesting exhibits in
Guiding a copper horn from Siam, a crooked
one from Burmah, large and very curious
shape from Calcutta, equally queer
thing from Sumatra and two ancient Ital-
ian hrdsses that occupy places of distnc-
ton on the floor. Beside them is claronet
to the metal loops of which is still fastened
bannerctte bearing the arms of its owner
of nearly five centuries ago.
Another case illustrates the drum beats
that have been heard around the world
the collection beginning with prehistoric
makcsi.Ilts, whose only advantage seems to
have been their capacity for making noise
The largest and easily the clumsiest in the
lot is an African water drum. which, when
scientifically pounded may be heard a mile
away. 1t is merely worm-eaten log
scooped into trough, but it has a con-
Vincing air of having had a day when it
was quick With sap and red with the
blood Of battle. Another drum of this
nation is formed of bars of wood each
having gourd resonatOr that must have
emitted zylophonic gamut of sounds In
deed, the many crude but clever methods