Sounds like a Museum

Sounds like a Museum: Curating Musical Spaces that Move Us
Lauren Chalk, Research Fellow, ACJC Monash University

Museums were once lofty sites where you would expect to encounter carefully arranged artefacts, to be experienced in quiet and reverent contemplation. Today you enter one of these spaces and hear music. For some, it is an invitation to dance and sing. For most, these sounds are familiar; they remind you of someone – or somewhere. You feel at home.

Our collective sense of what museums are and who they are for has changed dramatically in recent years.

Informed by developments in critical heritage and new museology, we now strive for museums to be inclusive and accessible spaces where the stories of historically under-represented communities are told fully, respectfully and truthfully. Interestingly, the broad curatorial embrace of music – both sonically and as a subject matter – has fundamentally transformed the museum.

Exhibitionary ventures into the realm of popular culture and music has meant that the once reliquaries for prized artefacts, temples for trophies from past empires, and cabinets of curiosity have become vibrant social spaces. The exploration of musical genres, styles and movements in the most elitist of institutions – notably the V&A Museum in London has hosted several blockbuster musician-focused exhibitions from David Bowie to Kylie Minogue – has attracted new museum-goers, while dismantling its long-held reputation as a site for quiet contemplation and well-mannered behaviours. In dealing with loud musical cultures through its aural elements (sound), both creative and practical challenges surrounding sound bleed, space constraints, and copyright are valid considerations. As such, curatorial decisions to display extra-musical materials are thoughtful ones.

Intimate objects associated with the composition, production and performance of music featured prominently in the exhibition, Amy Winehouse: A Family Portrait, which was hosted at the Jewish Museum of Australia in 2017. As well as her guitar and personal record collection, the exhibit featured the singer’s iconic wardrobe pieces worn during her performances at festivals, music videos and award shows. While these artefacts remained behind glass, the jazz-like sounds of Winehouse’s hit songs permeated the space, reminding visitors of the sonic function (temporarily removed) of the inanimate objects on display.

So, what does an audible experience – the sounds of a note, chord, excerpt from a melody – facilitate in a museum or exhibition setting?

If we assume that subjective perceptions of a particular genre or style of music does not act as a barrier to our enjoyment, what happens when rhythms and lyrics are sounded through these spaces? As rhythmic interventions challenge the silent reverence of the museum, the once quiet and hushed space is disrupted. So, too, the museum user, traditionally a viewer in this space, becomes a listener. But also, a dancer, a foot-tapper, a head-bobber, a shoulder-shaker. Put simply, music is moving.

By permitting music to exist sonically in the galleries and exhibitions, enabling museum users to engage with music as a listening practice, we allow for affective resonances with audiences for whom music is meaningful – and that’s all of us.

Music provides the soundtrack to the happy and bittersweet moments in our lives. Unknowingly or not, we bond over a shared familiarity with instantly recognisable song melodies. Although the memories we associate with them are highly personal and known only to us, they allow us to create intimate connections with strangers.

In these spaces, as we explore our own personal pantheons of memory, we do so alongside those who we share common experiences with, making us feel connected to the people who we do not know or are not likely to meet. For instance, feeling awe-stricken by the warm familiarity of a past hit, once played on repeat as the background noise to quotidian scenes during our youth, now stored in the archive of an outdated i-Pod. Or overwhelmed by a glimpse of a favourite musician’s personal notebook, filled with hand-written scribbles, the lyrics of a song you once memorised by heart. And the happy surprise of hearing the dull hum of a retro tune (which you fondly recall was remixed as a lullaby by a doting grandmother) because it caught you off-guard. Our respective sonic memories form an unspoken dialogue between us.

Dr. Lauren Chalk is a ethnomusicologist, researcher and museum professional. She is currently a Research Fellow with the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, Monash University.

Images from the Amy Winehouse: A Family Portrait exhibition at the Jewish Museum of Australia, 2017-2018. Courtesy of the JMA.