Good morning all.  I have to put in my nickels worth about museum
collections.  Granted, there are a large number of machines locked
in displays not playing, but here at the Music House Museum, we have
hour-long tours that play twelve instruments:  May through October
six or seven times a day, 7 days a week.  Open weekends Thanksgiving
through New Year's Eve.  As soon as tourism increases in our area
(Northern Michigan) we'd love to do weekends all winter.

Last year 17,000 people from 48 states and more than 30 foreign
countries saw, watched and heard our collection.  So please don't
assume that if it's in a museum that it will just sit and collect
dust.

If you know of instruments displayed in museums that don't work, and
have the skills, why not talk to the curator to see if something could
be done?  Maybe, just perhaps, they don't know where to turn to get
them playing, or maybe funding is low.

Well, back to tuning tuning tuning.  In the next two weeks we'll have
nearly 1,000 school children touring the museum.

A. Struble
Music House Museum
Traverse City, Michigan
http://www.MusicHouse.org/