Music Collectibles Guide

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 * here * to go to the latest entry on this site.

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by a Guest Author

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Collecting ethnic instruments, the ones made and played by people in their free time, can be very informative and fun. The instruments can be simple or complex, made of wood, metal or pottery. Usually the maker spends a little time embellishing the instruments when the basic sound-making body is complete, using paint, yarn, string, beads or anything else readily available.

So what am I talking about, specifically? Drums are a dancing necessity, so all cultures make some form of drum.  There will be large ones to get the bass sound needed for a really good dance, and smaller ones with higher pitches to add frills and flourishes to the basic beat.

Then there are flutes.  Nearly every culture has some form of flute or recorder.  These instruments have a wider range of sound production and carry the tune of the dance.  A hollow tube with finger holes and a mouthpiece are carved into the wood or bamboo.  Add bright paint and yarn tassels, and your all set.

Bagpipes.  An air reservoir filled with are and then used to produce continuous music while the player continually refills the page.  The chantor, a flute-like attachment to the air bag, has finger holes to produce different notes. Related by having an air reservoir are the accordion and squeeze box, a sound you hear in a lot of European folk music.

Gourds are used to make rattles.  The long neck provides a great way to shake the gourd, and if the dried seeds inside do not make enough noise, and drill and some small rocks or dried beans can up the volume.  Turtle shells are also used to make rattle, as can any hollow, swing-able container.  Rain sticks are made from the internal supporting structure of cactus.  Add some beans or rocks, and the internal chambers bounce the beans around to make noise.  However, the sound is less controllable than single chamber rattle.

Pottery rattles are possible, and the pottery flute, called a ocarina has been around for many years.  No doubt it has cropped up in many places as the wooden flute.

Washboards, or a wooden log carved to have a washboard surface, is played using another piece of wood.  The sound is quite distinctive: if you have ever heard the buzzing sound produced, you will recognize it when you hear it again.  Like a lot of percussion instruments, it is relatively easy to play, although it really needs instruments of other types around it to provide satisfying music.  No doubt in the hands of a master it can be made to perform quite creditably.

One unique instruments is the kalimba, the thumb piano of Africa.  Metal prongs are anchored at one end, and free end is twanged with one of the players thumbs.  The sound is quite unique.  Metal is also used to form cymbals and gongs, from tiny finger cymbals used by belly dancers to large ornate gongs .

Even the products of mechanized society can be used for ethnic music.  Bottles are collected to form bottle bands.  Comb and tissue paper form a low-tech musical instrument, and who can forget the saw players of the past.  The 55 gallon drum, and the steel drums that are descended from them make a sound as identifiable as any on earth, and it is an ethnic sound.  Whether these actually constitute ethnic instruments would depend on whether it is the material the instrument is made from that counts most, the person who made it, or the style of the music produced is most important.  Perhaps the key is that a small group of people made the instruments and use them to make music for their own entertainment.

As you travel, buy locally-made musical instruments, and learn about the cultures that produced them.  If you have a good ear, you can probably pick up some of the music or how the instrument is played.

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 * here * to go to the latest entry on this site.

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by a Guest Author

Collecting vintage guitars is one of the most rewarding hobbies.  Not only do they look great on your wall, you also get to play with them!  In this post I want to share some tips that I’ve learned over the years collecting guitars so that you can avoid some of the mistakes that I unfortunately made.

The most obvious thing that you can do is to set a budget and stick to it.  It’s incredibly easy to go overboard when shopping for guitars.  To get the best deals start with craigslist or the newspaper before you head out to stores or other collectors.  It’s easy to find someone who’s willing to part with their guitar because they need the cash fast, and you walk away with a steal.

Be sure to designate whether or not you’re going to play on the guitars that you’re collecting.  If you’re purely a collector it’s not a good idea to spend a lot of time playing the guitars because you risk damaging them or adding extra wear and tear.  If you do play on them, be sure to be careful when doing so.  Carefully insert and remove the guitar cable, take off any belt buckles that you have to prevent scratches on the back, and immediately store it when finished to prevent it from getting beat up.

Storing guitars is also tricky.  If you live in an area that’s prone to earthquakes, there really isn’t a good way to make sure that they’re safe.  Storing them on the wall looks great, but one hard jolt can send them to the floor.  Also, excessive sunlight from a window will fade the guitar’s finish, and fluctuating temperatures can warp the neck.  To be as safe as possible, store them in a hard case in a temperature controlled area.

Collecting guitars is a rewarding hobby and these tips can help you keep your collection for as long as possible!  There aren’t many things worse than seeing something important to you get messed up because of carelessness.  Take the necessary precautions and your collection will last a lifetime.

For more information, see Guitar Cables Online.

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