The Kirby collection of musical instruments
Item
Title
The Kirby collection of musical instruments
Is Part Of
SA College of Music
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Biological Sciences
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African Studies
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Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research
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History
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Description
"Kirby’s choice of an ‘age-old simple classification’ to order the instruments can be correlated with another classification formulated at Wits around the time he was collecting. The Department of Bantu Studies was established in the 1920s at roughly the same time as the Music Department. Kirby’s use of the phrase ‘native races’, which features in the title of his book, resonates with the descriptive subtitle of the Wits journal connected to research in this department: Bantu Studies: A Journal Devoted to the Scientific Study of Bantu, Hottentot, and Bushman (Nixon 2013: xii). The homogenising act of categorising all diverse indigenous South African groups into three general categories seems to echo Kirby’s taxonomic imposition on the diverse instruments he collected on his trips and that continues to feature as the ordering principle of this collection" (Liebenberg 2021: 136).
Access Rights
SA College of Music
Creator
Nina Liebenberg
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Date Created
2021
Source
Kirby Collection of Musical Instruments
SA College of Music, UCT
Resonances
SA College of Music
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Percival Kirby
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Michael Nixon
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taxonomies
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instruments
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Edmund February
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medicine chest
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KwaZulu Natal
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cabinet
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display
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temperature
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classification
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comparison
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technology
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history
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Uncertain Curature
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Kirby Collection of Musical Instruments
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Type
Photo
Contributor
Nina Liebenberg
