Sound Heritage : Making Music Matter in Historic Houses

Sound Heritage is the first study of music in the historic house museum, featuring contributions from both music and heritage scholars and professionals in a richly interdisciplinary approach to central issues. It examines how music materials can be used to create narratives about past inhabitants and their surroundings - including aspects of social and cultural life beyond the activity of music making itself - and explores how music as sound, material, and practice can be more consistently and engagingly integrated into the curation and interpretation of historic houses.

The volume is structured around a selection of thematic chapters and a series of shorter case studies, each focusing on a specific house, object or project. Key themes include:

• Different types of historic house, including the case of the composer or musician house; what can be learned from museums and galleries about the use of sound and music and what may not transfer to the historic house setting
• Musical instruments as part of a wider collection; questions of restoration and public use; and the demands of particular collection types such as sheet music
• Musical objects and pieces of music as storytelling components, and the use of music to affectively colour narratives or experiences.

This is a pioneering study that will appeal to all those interested in the intersection between Music and Museum and Heritage Studies. It will also be of interest to scholars and researchers of Music History, Popular Music, Performance Studies and Material Culture.

Jeanice Brooks is Professor of Music at the University of Southampton (UK). She leads the AHRC-funded research project "Music, Home and Heritage," and directs both the Austen Family Music Books digitisation project and the international Sound Heritage network.

Matthew Stephens is Research Librarian, Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Sydney Living Museums (SLM), and leads the interpretation of the history of domestic music in SLM’s house museums.

Wiebke Thormählen is a musicologist and violinist, and Reader in Music at the Royal College of Music, London. She is co-investigator on the AHRC-funded research project "Music, Home and Heritage," and has previously co-edited the Routledge Companion to Music, Mind and Well-being (Routledge, 2018).