There are many hanging ornaments that a music lover can collect. These are more readily available at Christmas time, but a musician can hang them up all year around as part of their home decor.
The most common hanging ornament is probably the string instruments. Violins are certainly available, and add rests to the bottom and you have cellos and basses, since there is no scale to these things. Harps and guitars are, no doubt, also available.
Ornaments shaped like brass instruments are also popular. They may be a simple bugle, or may have valve keys like trumpets. One may find french horns as ornaments, and I will bet there are sousaphones, tubas and trombones out there somewhere. Those may take some looking for. Old style horns, long and straight, are fairly common. Like harps, angels are supposed to play these.
Those of you with access to Scotland can probably get bagpipe ornaments. Neat.
Ever since the advent of the “Little Drummer Boy,” drums are quite prevalent. Some were available beforehand due to toy soldiers, but now drums are everywhere. You can make your own easily enough with the core of paper towels and some colored paper and pens. Cut a section off the core for your drum. Cut circles of one color just larger than the hole of the core. Cut a strip of paper as wide as your core section, and long enough to go all the way around. Glue the end pieces in place, cutting the edges to allow the paper to fold flat to the core. Glue the strip of paper around the core, covering the folded over edges of the end pieces. Use colored pens to draw the lacing between the two ends. Attached a string to hang it by and voila!
Music itself is also available in hanging ornaments. G clefs made of glass or gold painted plastic are popular. There are G clefs in multicolored glass designed to be pendants on necklaces that can be made into ornaments. (Search for “murano glass pendant clef”.) Other large pendants can be used as hanging ornaments instead.
Single or double note ornaments are sometimes available, probably at Christmas stores, especially those that are open all year around. With the Internet, you can reach them without actually going there, although if one is close enough to you, you should go in person. It is always easier to judge quality in person.
Scrolls with representations of written music are out there. I have seen them. They may take some sleuthing to find, but you do not want this to be too easy, do you? Then, when you give the ornament, you can tell how you had to go to the wilds of “name a wild place, like New Jersey” to get it for the recipient. Or, again, you can make your own. If you are musical, you can make the music on the scroll real, like the first few bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, or “Mary had a little lamb.” The sky’s the limit, and the paper small, so only a few bars are needed.
There are many options for musical collectibles as hanging ornaments. If I get busy now, I could have a theme Christmas tree this year. How about you?
Jan 30, 2010: I just found several guitars, including an electric one, and a drum set as hanging ornaments. WOW!
The images on this post are from Stock Xchnge.
More information about collecting other kinds of music collectibles are available * here *.
Go to the Table of Contents to see all the topics covered so far.
Click music collectibles to go to the latest entry on this site.