Museum of Making Music - Carlsbad, California
2010.12.21
I landed in San Diego in the early afternoon. Our original plan had been to visit a botanical garden up the coast in Encinitas, but because of the rain we decided instead to visit the music museum further up in Carlsbad.
The drive from the airport to Carlsbad, California took about 45 minutes. We didn’t have directions to the museum printed out, so we stopped at the visitor center, located in the old train depot. The Carlsbad Santa Fe Depot was built in 1887 and the last passenger train stopped in 1957.
The Museum of Making Music features instruments and other artifacts from American popular music, starting in the late 1800’s. The exhibits are organized in a roughly chronological order. We stayed about an hour and a half.
Shown below are a Mason & Hamlin organ from 1903, a Gibson harp guitar, and a Gibson mandolin (both from the early 1900’s). Gibson had high hopes for the harp guitar but it never really caught on.
On the left, a Schwartzer Electric Zither. The instrument was made in 1923, but the two piezo pickups were probably added in the early 1930’s. On the right, Sally and Avedis Zildjian III, circa 1930’s. The Zildjian company was founded in Istanbul in 1623, making it one of the oldest companies in the world. They originally made cymbals and other noisemakers primarily for the Ottoman army. Part of the family, including Avedis Zildjian III, relocated to the United States in 1928 and later bought out the remaining business in Turkey.
From around 1928, an unusual player harmonica. Turning the cranks moved the paper rolls from one spool to another, with punched holes determining which notes would play. You still had to blow into the harmonica to generate the sound. They were one of the first commercial products made from Bakelite, an early plastic. On the right, a Victor V phonograph with high-end “spearpoint” horn in quartersawn white oak.
A cast aluminum electric hawaiian guitar from 1932, probably an early prototype model, from the company that would eventually become Rickenbacker. Jumping ahead a couple decades, on the right is a Harvey double-neck electric guitar and mandolin from 1957. A rare example from only about a dozen instruments made by Jim Harvey.
The Minimoog analog synthesizer. First introduced in 1970, this one appears to be from the second production run around 1978. Robert Moog started his company at age 19 in 1953, at first to sell theramins, but later the synthesizers he began developing in the 1960’s. On the right, the inner workings of an organ in the computer age.
San Diego