The Living Instruments project is a multi-year, multi-cohort T&L and research project, focussing on outstanding examples of unique musical instruments in the Grainger Museum collections. It involves teaching and research staff across two faculties, undergraduate and graduate student contributions, and academic and public outcomes. The project aims to digitally preserve the sound of the fragile Grainger instrument collection, but it also presents a way of transforming the relationship between musical artefacts and their cultural value with a diverse group of people including contemporary makers. The Living Instrumentsproject emerged in the nexus of teaching, learning, and research activity in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, and the stewardship of Percy Grainger’s historic instruments held in the Grainger Museum, at the University of Melbourne. It aims to provide greater research opportunities and creative engagement with the instruments through an interactive platform of sonic resources.
Financial support for the project came through a collaborative application for a UoM Melbourne Engagement Grant ($20K). This grant funded key aspect, including support for Lead Researcher Dr Anthony Lyons to undertake the sampling project, and incorporate this research practice into a curriculum project with his Interactive Composition students; involvement of students from the School of Computing and Information Systems, who created a first draft of a website for the samples; and support for the high-quality physical sampling process of the instruments in the Brian Brown Recording Studio at the Victorian College of the Arts. Later stages, including web platform creation were funded by the Museums & Collections Department, University of Melbourne, with support by Melbourne eResearchGroup in the School of Computing & Information Systems.
The web platform was publicly launched at Melbourne Knowledge Week in 2021.
Research and expansion of the platform continues, with the 2022 Grainger Student Composer in Residence, current PhD candidate in Interactive Composition Patrick Hartono, working on a project to create an Interactive Virtual Reality Installation where people can come and interact/play with Grainger’s Staff Bells instrument in the virtual reality domains—and accompanied by an academic paper (conference proceeding) that elucidates the technical and creative process behind the installation.
Fore more information on the project visit: https://livinginstruments.grainger.unimelb.edu.au/