Music & Musical Instruments - Overview
The Museum's music collections contain more than 5,000 instruments of American and European heritage. These include a quartet of 18th-century Stradivari stringed instruments, Tito Puente's autographed timbales, and the Yellow Cloud guitar that belonged to Prince, to name only a few. Several of these rare instruments can be heard in performances of the Smithsonian Chamber Players and in other public programs. Music collections also include jukeboxes and synthesizers, square-dancing outfits and sheet music, archival materials, oral histories, and recordings of performances at the Museum. The vast Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated Sheet Music is a remarkable window into the American past in words, music, and visual imagery. The Duke Ellington and Ruth Ellington Boatwright collections contain handwritten music compositions, sound recordings, business records, and other materials documenting the career of this renowned musician.
"Music & Musical Instruments - Overview" showing 28 items.
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Paul Reed Smith "Dragon I" Electric Guitar
- Description (Brief)
- This electric guitar was made by Made by Paul Reed Smith (PRS Guitars) in Annapolis, Maryland in 1993. It is serial #3 1557 and has a composite solid-body maple top and mahogany back and neck, all stained green, and features two humbucking pickups. This Dragon I model is distinguished by its distinctive mother-of-pearl dragon fretboard made from 201 pieces of abalone, turquoise, and mother of pearl. It had a limited production run of 50 guitars.
- When he started building his instruments, Paul Reed Smith was steeped in the traditions of the classic electric guitars of the 1950s and 1960s. Ted McCarty, the past president of Gibson and designer of the Les Paul model, was his mentor. In 1994, Paul Reed Smith's company, PRS Guitars, launched the McCarty model as a tribute to this electric guitar pioneer.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1993
- maker
- Smith, Paul Reed
- ID Number
- 1993.0156.01
- catalog number
- 1993.0156.01
- accession number
- 1993.0156
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Paul Reed Smith CE Bolt-On Electric Guitar
- Description (Brief)
- This electric guitar was made by Paul Reed Smith (PRS Guitars) in Annapolis, Maryland in 1993. It is a Classic Electric (CE Bolt-On) model, serial #377562 with a maple top with natural finish, maple back and neck, a rosewood fingerboard, with neck and bridge humbucking pickups.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1993
- maker
- Smith, Paul Reed
- ID Number
- 1993.0156.02
- catalog number
- 1993.0156.02
- accession number
- 1993.0156
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Stratocaster Electric Guitar
- Description (Brief)
- This electric guitar was made by Fender Musical Instrument Corp. in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1995. It is a reissue of the 1957 design with a two-tone sunburst finish. The Stratocaster is arguably the most successful and influential electric guitar ever produced. It is easily identified by its double cutaways, contoured body, and three pickups. It also features Fender's vibrato or tremolo system that allows players to raise or lower the pitch of the strings. In the hands of Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, and many other musicians, the "Strat" has become an American icon.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1995
- maker
- Fender Musical Instruments Corp.
- ID Number
- 1995.0186.01
- accession number
- 1995.0186
- catalog number
- 1995.0186.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Precision Bass Electric Bass Guitar
- Description (Brief)
- This electric bass guitar was made by Fender Musical Instrument Corp. in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1995. It is a reissue of the 1967 design with a three-tone sunburst finish. Leo Fender revolutionized the music world with his 1951 electric Precision Bass, and guitarist Monk Montgomery is credited with making the instrument a musical sensation. Although there were earlier stand-up electric basses, the "P Bass" was the first to be played like a standard guitar. It was also the first guitar to have the distinctive double cutaways.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1995
- maker
- Fender Musical Instruments Corp.
- ID Number
- 1995.0186.02
- accession number
- 1995.0186
- catalog number
- 1995.0186.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Parker Fly Electric Guitar
- Description (Brief)
- This electric guitar was made by Parker Guitars of Willmington, Massachusetts in 1997. The company began in the early 1990s by luthier, Ken Parker. Parker Fly guitars are unique in their appearance and incorporate a radical new approach to the construction of electric guitars. Ken Parker was co-patentee with Lawrence Fishman on a number of patents for this new style of guitar. In 2003 the company was sold to U.S. Music Corporation in Illinois. This electric guitar is a Fly Concert Model, serial #028017BMH, with four control knobs: master volume, magnetic volume, magnetic tone, and piezo volume and tone, and two toggle switches: magnetic pickup selector and piezo/magnetic pickup selector.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1997
- maker
- Parker Guitars
- ID Number
- 1997.0299.01
- accession number
- 1997.0299
- catalog number
- 1997.0299.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Paul Reed Smith "Dragon 2000" Electric Guitar
- Description (Brief)
- This electric guitar, serial #9 41200, was made by Made by Paul Reed Smith (PRS Guitars) in Annapolis, Maryland in 2000. It is a Dragon 2000 model with a dragon inlay on the guitar body made of 242 pieces of mastodon ivory, rhodonite, agoya, coral, onyx, sugilite, chrysacola, red, green, and pink abalone and paua. This is from a limited production run of 50 guitars.
- When he started building his instruments, Paul Reed Smith was steeped in the traditions of the classic electric guitars of the 1950s and 1960s. Ted McCarty, the past president of Gibson and designer of the Les Paul model, was his mentor. In 1994, Paul Reed Smith's company, PRS Guitars, launched the McCarty model as a tribute to this electric guitar pioneer.
- Date made
- 1999
- maker
- Smith, Paul Reed
- ID Number
- 2000.0074.01
- accession number
- 2000.0074
- catalog number
- 2000.0074.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Gibson Old Hickory Electric Guitar
- Description (Brief)
- This guitar was made by Gibson in Nashville, Tennessee in 1998. It is an "Old Hickory" (Andrew Jackson) model electric guitar, serial #OH-001. The guitar is made using wood from a 275-year-old tulip poplar tree, which is the largest in the state of Tennessee, and hickory wood from a tree that grew in the garden near Andrew and Rachel Jackson's tomb. This guitar is the first in the series of 200 specially made collector's electric guitars and is the first in the limited edition series of custom-made guitars using wood from trees lost in the April 16, 1998 tornado. Andrew Jackson's portrait is inlaid on the headstock, and his nick name, "Old Hickory," is inlaid on a hickory fretboard. An inlay of The Hermitage mansion appears on the pickguard. Both inlays are made of mother-of-pearl. There is an inlay mother-of-pearl ribbon across the body of the instrument noting key dates in Andrew Jackson's life.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1998
- referenced
- Jackson, Andrew
- maker
- Gibson Inc.
- ID Number
- 2001.0185.01
- serial number
- OH-001
- accession number
- 2001.0185
- catalog number
- 2001.0185.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Huron Mountain Banjo
- Description (Brief)
- This five-string fretless banjo was made by John Huron in Bristol, Tennessee in 1996. It is a “Mountain Banjo” and bears the serial number MB-042. It has a cherry wood body, rosewood tuners and tailpiece, and a groundhog hide head.
- John Huron is a builder and player of a variety of historical instruments. He has combined music, history, and folklore in classes and demonstrations throughout the United States to preserve the heritage of Appalachian instruments and music.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1996
- maker
- Huron, John
- ID Number
- 1997.3031.01
- catalog number
- 1997.3031.01
- nonaccession number
- 1997.3031
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Vazquez Cuatro
- Description
- This cuatro was made by Rafael Aviles Vazquez in Puerto Rico in 1999-2000. A type of plucked 10-string instrument (5 courses, double-strung), it is now ubiquitous in most groups playing any kind of Puerto Rican music. It is used in the manner of a first guitar: to play melodies and to “floretear” or accompany singing. The instrument is used today in salsa orchestras and plena music groups and is, of course, the king of Puerto Rican country music.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- prior attribution
- 1991
- date made
- 1999-2000
- maker
- Vazquez, Rafael Aviles
- ID Number
- 2001.0014.02
- accession number
- 2001.0014
- catalog number
- 2001.0014.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Garth Brook's Takamine Guitar
- Description (Brief)
- This guitar was made by Takamine Gakki Ltd. in Nakatsugawa, Gifu, Japan in 1990. Takamine began as a small family company in the early 1960s. Artisan and master luthier, Mass Hirade joined the company in 1968 to help Takamine improve the overall quality of their guitars. Hirade strengthened the business and in 1975 partnered with the U.S. based company, Kaman Music Corporation, to begin exporting Takamine guitars internationally.
- This guitar, serial #90031116, was used by American country musician Garth Brooks for his second NBD-TV special, “This Is Garth Brooks, Too,” at the Reunion Arena in Dallas, Texas in 1991. During the taping of the program, Brooks and fellow musician Ty England smashed two guitars together on stage. Brooks’ guitar was reassembled and donated to the Smithsonian in 2007.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1990
- User
- Brooks, Troyal Garth
- ID Number
- 2007.0208.03
- serial number
- 90031116
- accession number
- 2007.0208
- catalog number
- 2007.0208.03
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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