I have never previously had to consider whether I am for or against music museums, but the subject came up in the pages of Frank's APA after one of our members mentioned visiting some. It was also mentioned that Simon Reynolds in Retromania has argued that they are a Bad Thing in some way. There were two music museums in Dublin, both of which have closed down. One of them was the Dublin Rock Music Hall of Fame, which I think consisted of some of Bongo's used kecks (for foreign readers – kecks are not musical instruments) behind a glass case and a couple of back issues of Hot Press – that'll be a twenty quid, sir. The other was called Ceol (Irish for music) and which dealt with Irish traditional music.
I liked Ceol and went to it a few times, mostly when attempting to demonstrate the great culture of Ireland to visitors. It used technology in what seemed like an innovative way and seemed to successfully convey information and give a sense of the various forms of the music it was covering. But it did not get enough visitors and was unable to attract public subsidy so it closed down. I think maybe its timing was unfortunate – it was located in a part of town that has since been redeveloped (not entirely successfully, but God loves a trier) and connected up to public transport, so it might do better now. But the time has passed.
Museums are often interesting in and of themselves, not for what they contain but how they choose to present it. One of my friends has said of Dublin's Natural History Museum that it itself should be in a museum. This is a subject I hope to explore further, with other examples.
Someone else was less impressed by Ceol.
This guy liked it more (and is not a smartarse).
image source
An inuit panda production
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