A Day at the MIM - 4

We are nearing the end of our visit to the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix.

A look down the hallway on the second floor reveals that the Museum is as much of an attraction as its 5000 musical instruments from around the world that are on display at any one time.

Wireless headsets enabled visitors to hear how the instruments sounded when played in their setting of origin, and television monitors presented brief examples of these instruments in use.

Brass Trumpets display

A display of Peruvian panpipes of varying sizes.

The bajunes (multiple trumpets) pictured abive are fabricated from palm leaves and wood and provide the bass (basso continuo) in both church and secular music ensembles.

Double guitar pans (lower), Lesser Antilles
"Barracuda" pans, tenor pans, (upper), made by Mannette Steel Drums

A set of seven over-the-shoulder brasses (above) by Hall & Quinby of Boston (1872). From the Fiske Collection, this is the only known complete set of these types of Civil War-period instruments.

Our final stop was at a small space in the Museum, but its story is truly astounding. From landfillharmonicmovie.com:

"The story develops in one of the poorest slums in Latin America. Just outside Asuncion, Paraguayans capital; Cateura is the city’s trash dump. It is built on a landfill. Here, people live in a sea of garbage. And they live from garbage. Every day, tons of rotting detritus spill from trucks and people swarm over it to pick the pieces of trash that are their livelihood.

"The people of Cateura may be the poorest of the poor but they are proud and the life of their slum is vibrant. Family bonds, rivalries and friendships are intense.

"Surrounded by stories of drug-violence, alcoholism and destitution, they make herculean efforts to reaffirm their life and dignity.

A few years ago, one of the garbage pickers, “Cola”, an untutored genius of the slum, got together with local musician Favio Chávez to make instruments for the children of the slum. There was no money for real instruments so together they started to make instruments from trash – violins and cellos from oil drums,

Cello (left) and Double Bass (right)

(Note the spatula at the bottom of the cello.)

Violin

flutes from water pipes and spoons, and guitars from packing crates.

The clarinet from the display showed the collection of items that appears on just one instrument.

Buttons, bottle caps, and pieces of spoons are transformed.

And then there is this drum.

Only after a closer inspection, can one determine that the drum head is an x-ray. Looking very closely will reveal an unknown contributor's x-ray of his/her chest.

"With children like Ada and Tania and with the support of many in the slum, Favio slowly put together one of the world’s most unlikely orchestras. It is entirely made of garbage.

"They call it 'The Recycled Orchestra'."

The documentary, Landfill Harmonic, follows the orchestra as it takes its inspiring spectacle of trash-into-music around the world.

View from the second floor of this world map at the bottom of the circular stairway leading to the Artist Gallery.