A piano is not just a wooden box with strings—it is a map of global trade routes, craft knowledge, and centuries of cultural exchange. This project treats musical instruments as historical documents that reveal how people, materials, and ideas moved across continents from 1700 to the present. The problem is that organology—the study of musical instruments—has become a niche field with few active scholars and limited impact on wider history or music education. Most research focuses on individual objects or makers, missing the bigger picture of how instruments emerge from international collaboration and technical innovation. This project fills that gap by combining methods from material culture, musicology, and science and technology studies to trace the networks behind instrument design. If successful, the research could reshape how museums interpret their collections and how schools teach music history—shifting the curriculum from a narrow focus on composers toward a richer understanding of the global craftsmanship and exchange that made music possible. It will also produce a monograph, an edited collection, and public engagement resources. This is primarily fundamental historical scholarship, but its insights into cross-cultural innovation and knowledge transfer could inform how we think about collaboration in manufacturing and design today.
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The history and development of musical instruments is a rich and diverse but much overlooked part of our cultural heritage. Intrinsically linked to creative expression, musical instruments both sit centre stage and at the periphery of our understanding of music-making: what makes a musical instrument? The study of organology seeks to answer this question by considering the design, function, and resultant sound of musical instruments, as well as broader discussions of social and cultural histories. But read more dynamically, a musical instrument also points to networks of knowledge within and across trades, geographies and temporalities, all underpinned by initial sparks of innovation that led to the final product. Organology is therefore an inherently multidisciplinary field, but one which has through necessity focussed on object-based analysis or case studies of makers or instrument groups. With a skills shortage in the discipline impacting museums and collections, and a dearth of organology scholars with academic affiliation, the ability for organology to make sizeable contributions to scholarship is limited, and the benefits of its bricoleur approach for intersecting fields unrealised. Building on Durkin's rising international profile in organology, and notably her scholarship considering the social and technical histories of instrument innovation and evolution, the project will adopt said bricoleur approach to analyse the global collaboration and cultural exchange which lies behind organological innovation 1700 to present. It combines methodologies from material cultures, musicology, and science and technology studies, with broader historical research and hands-on object analysis. Through a chronologically dovetailed case study approach, Durkin and her team will consider developments centred on Britain (long 18th century), Germany (long 19th century), and the US (long 20th century), and bring this historical study into the present through working with industry, and the translation of its themes for use in the primary music curriculum. The project will foster significant international collaborations with museums and collections, industry (mass and artisan production), and education, and will establish the PI and her team as world-leaders in the field. Findings will be published in articles in leading journals, a monograph by the PI, an edited collection, and further disseminated via public talks, workshops, project website, and engagement with education partners.
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