Sound and vision at the National Museum of Scotland

• Curator Alison Taubman with the Camac electro-harp and the Starfish cello and violin. Picture: Greg Macvean THE instruments and their aesthetics could not be more different. In one museum case sits a rather angularly built but vividly adorned grand piano, designed in 1909 by Sir Robert Lorimer and painted by a leading figure in the Scottish Arts and Crafts movement, Phoebe Anna Traquair. Its Old Testament and mythical scenes, complete with a piping Pan, contrast dramatically with the instruments separated from it physically by just a few yards but stylistically by a century – the stark, skeletal elegance of an electric violin and electric cello, made by the innovative Highland instrument makers Starfish Designs, and alongside them the prototype of the Camac electroharp, a French-made instrument now widely played throughout the flourishing Celtic harp scene and beyond. The instruments are among new additions to the collections of the National Museum of Scotland, due to reopen at the end of this month after a major, 46 million refurbishment. Compared to some of the more spectacular transformations within the landmark building in Edinburgh's Chambers Street, the instruments constitute a fairly modest detail, but highlight developments in Scottish music-making. The newly acquired electric instruments have been installed in the museum's Art and Industry gallery, which illustrates how innovative science and technology can be utilised by the arts. Meanwhile, another area in the dramatically revamped museum, the Performance and Lives gallery, hosts a more traditional form of violin, commissioned by the museum from the renowned Shetland maker, Ewen Thomson. Back in Art and Industry, "This section of the gallery looks at the use of modern materials as well as old craft traditions," says Alison Taubman, the museum's principal curator of communication, pointing to the piano decorated by Traquair, which is still under wraps during our visit, then to the case in which the new instruments are suspended. "Because we had the Phoebe Traquair piano already, we thought it would be nice to have the modern instruments here." The minimalist lines of the electric violin and cello are accentuated by their being finished in eye-catching colours – dark, Bordeaux red for the violin and Arctic silver for the cello. The paint is the kind used on Lotus sports cars, says Taubman. Hanging above the wooden forms of the Starfish instruments, their two bows are as 21st-century as you'll get, made from carbon fibre by the American company Incredibow. The museum had been aware of the North Ballachulish-based Starfish Designs for some time, Taubman says. "We'd been interested in working with them since we opened a gallery called 'Scotland Since 1914', but that didn't happen, so when this opportunity came up we thought it would be great to do it. In the meantime, the museum had commissioned a fiddle from Shetland by Ewen Thomson, for the new Performance and Lives gallery, so we thought it would be great to have an electric version." For Dave Shepton, co-director of Starfish, the showcasing of the company's work is an honour. "It warms the heart that the National Museum has got some of your pieces." Starfish also makes harps, but its electric fiddles and cellos have a distinct market among string players. Mr McFall's Chamber, the unorthodox ensemble which plays everything from contemporary classical to rock and tango music, owns a complete quartet set of Starfish instruments – two violins, viola and cello – to which it switches from conventional acoustic instruments for certain numbers. Starfish fiddles are also often used by traditional fiddlers such as Duncan Chisholm, when circumstances or repertoire call for an electric instrument. But as Shepton points out, there is a certain paradox in making a musical instrument destined to remain silent in a museum cabinet. "It's always nice to show off your work, although I have to say that obviously, for an instrument maker, the best thing is having them played," he laughs, adding that he hopes they might be heard eventually, through a recording or otherwise. Beside them hangs the wooden prototype model of a lightweight electro-harp developed by the innovative French harpmakers Camac who manufacture it in carbon fibre. Taubman's colleague, Tacye Phillipson, senior curator of modern science and herself a harpist, was anxious to procure one of these instruments, as the museum already has two of the oldest surviving Scottish clarsachs, the 15th-century Lamont and Queen Mary harps. Also, Scottish harpists Patsy Seddon and Mary MacMaster were influential when Camac's founder, the late Jol Garnier, was first developing the instrument. In contrast to these cutting-edge instruments, the violin commissioned by the museum from Shetland fiddle maker Ewen Thomson uses traditional materials and methods in his workshop at Channerwick. Thomson's instruments are played by such well-known folk players as Chris Stout (like Thomson originally a native of Fair Isle), Kevin Henderson and Trevor Hunter, as well as orchestral players and classical institutions such as the Mendelssohn on Mull Trust and the Royal Northern College of Music. Like Shepton, Thomson has certain reservations about making an instrument destined for a display cabinet, although he was pretty overwhelmed at being commissioned by the National Museum. "It's a huge honour to be asked," he says. "In terms of it being in a glass case, I wouldn't like that for every one of my instruments, but I'm glad to see one being held and preserved by the museum, and I'm delighted that Shetland's musical tradition will be represented in the new gallery." At least, he adds, the museum fiddle won't suffer the wear and tear endured by his working instruments. "I get them back from time to time for service and re-stringing, and they have a tough life, some of them." In fact Thomson's fiddle will be heard, among the many audio files accessible in the new Performance and Lives gallery, and when it was first completed, a video was made of the fine-toned instrument being played by various winners of Shetland's Young Fiddler of the Year Competition (see bit.ly/pwBAMh) Other intriguing recent instrumental acquisitions by the museum include a biodegradable electric guitar, its body made from Biofiber wheat and reclaimed mahogany, by Edinburgh-based designer David Trujillo-Farley. And in the Performance and Lives gallery, where Thomson's fiddle will be on display, as well as focusing on music as used in social life and ritual around the world, the "multi-sensory" facilities will feature four specially commissioned contemporary percussion instruments by the Portuguese-Angolan maker Victor Gama. These extraordinary creations – including the Vulc, inspired by a volcano and made from an oil drum with vibrating china cymbals, and the Tartul, inspired by the tarantula spider, with steel keys, wooden sounding-boards and gourds – will be playable by visitors. Back in the Art and Industry gallery, contemplating the skeletal lines of the Starfish electric fiddle and cello, I can't help recalling that the Dublin-born Phoebe Traquair's Scottish husband, Ramsay Traquair, was a palaeontologist, and that she honed her delicate illustrative skills by drawing fossil fish for him in the Royal Dublin Institute. How might she have regarded these stark but strangely organic looking sculptured shapes hanging near her piano? Dwelling on fiddles, one might call to mind the great 19th-century North-East player Peter Milne, who once famously remarked: "I'm that fond o' my fiddle, I could sit in the inside o't an' look oot." He'd have a job sitting inside that attenuated Starfish model. Mind you, Milne's more famous protg, the redoubtable James Scott Skinner, wasn't averse to using a weird-looking Stroh fiddle, with a gramophone horn instead of a soundbox, in the early years of recording. What the "Strathspey King" would have made of the Starfish is anyone's guess. • The National Museum of Scotland re-opens 29 July. See www.nms.ac.uk • During the Fringe, the museum will host free lunchtime recitals to celebrate its new World Cultures and Discoveries galleries. See the "What's On" section of the National Museum's site for full details.