Music Collectibles Guide

There are many tabletop ornaments for the music lover. Glass or plexiglass cubes with grand pianos or violins drawn by laser are available. These cubes may also have other instruments, or a couple of bars of written music. Ballerinas are also available, if you music lovers prefers ballet music.

Miniature musical instruments, finely crafted or just regular, are possible gifts to music lovers. These may be made of the same materials as the real instruments, and may be as expensive as a fairly good instrument. A glass dome to protect the finer examples may be a good idea, to protest the miniature from dust and moisture.

A miniature grand piano.

Any number of animal bands are made for music lovers. Some are trios or small groups, but some may include a dozen figures or more. The animal in question may be dogs or rabbits. Meissen has a large orchestra of monkeys, including the conductor, dressed in 18th century costume. Hagen-Renaker has at least two animal bands, one of frogs and on of toads. My vote for strangest animal band goes to the real frogs stuffed and dressed as mariachis.

Vases with musical motifs are available. Sometimes the G-clef is used or double quarter notes are made to hols a few long-stem flowers. No doubt regular vases with added musical decoration are available, or you could make your own. With appropriate decals and stickers, it is easy to embellish a plain vase and give it a music theme. Look in craft stores or stores that carry homecoming make-your-own mum supplies for ideas for other items that can be added to a vase to make if more specific to the intended recipient.

Decor items related to Broadway musicals are always available. Does your musician have a favorite musical? Look for themed items like pillow, music boxes, posters, and, of course, the soundtrack. If your musician is more classically oriented, there are busts of famous composers. These are practically a requirement, and can be given over many birthdays and Christmases. Music boxes with a favorite composer’s music is a possibility. If you travel to Europe, watch for mementos for you musician or music lover.

If you look hard, there are probably music-related items for the kitchen: hand towels, spoon rests, maybe even canister sets. There are bound to be music-related cookie jars which will please both the instrument player and the voice professional. Glass paperweights with a musical motif may be out there, or you could commission one at your local glass studio. A commissioned piece is guaranteed to be one of a kind and gratefully received.

The point is, keep your eyes open, and know what kind of music your music lover prefers, and see if you can’t be the one to give them the gift of a lifetime, the gift they treasure almost as much as their instruments and music collection.

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.

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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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The written form of music as a form of collectibles for music lovers.  Whether single songs, the music for a complete ballet or Broadway musical, or the full orchestral score for classical music, a collection of music is not only useful, but important.  How much music has be preserves because someone saved the printer version.  Although today it would seem safe to forgo collecting modern publications, since there are thousands printed and music libraries at almost all university libraries, still, the pages you collect may be the only ones preserved over time.

Preserving the written form of music allows it to be reinterpreted again at a later date.

Single sheets, for a single song, usually have nice graphics on the front.  These covers preserve the art style of the time, or a retro look for songs republished.  The cover may show the singer who made the song famous enough to warrant printing it for public consumption.  Past single sheets are highly collectible for these reasons, besides the actual music inside.

Songbooks that contain the music for a film, play or ballet can bring many hours of pleasure to the music lover.  Seeing how the music looks while listening to it keeps the listeners mind on the music, and even for those of us who do not play seriously, seeing how the music is put together can be informative.  There is one variation on a theme by Paganini that is very fun to look at while listening to it.  (Can you guess which one?)

Sometimes the only way to get the music you want to learn to play requires the purchase of the complete score.  I bought the score to Swan Lake in order to learn a two-minute passage.  However, I can still enjoy the rest of the printed version while listening to the music if I want.  I also bought the score of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem because I wanted to know the words, even in Latin, and to watch the music as I listened.  I am not a great music lover, so if I can enjoy printed music, a real music lover would undoubted do so too.

Songbooks of popular music tell the future about the here-and-now, as well as allowing the classical musician to noodle around with light music, between real practice and performances.

Fakebooks: I though I was being so clever to copy the music for the songs I liked best and wanted to have at my fingertips into a spiral bound book of blank music sheets.  Turns out everyone has a fakebook.  But it is still a neat idea, and keeps the popular player from having to haul around sixteen pounds of published material when all he needs is the melody and chord designation, or perhaps just a reminder of how the song goes.  I imagine just a hint brings back Christmas carols, after many years of playing them.  But a hint may be needed, if it has been months since the song was last played or the song less popular than some.

Good music deserves to be collected and preserved, so collect the printer version of the music you like best.  Your collection may be the only source for some of the music in the future.

* * * If you came here hoping to learn to read music, please go to how to read piano music. This site has the beginner’s information you need. * * *

* * * Or you can learn to read drum music here. * * *

The images on this post are from Stock Xchnge.

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