Kiran Mehta is a Mumbai-based journalist
Gather notes from every continent at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona
In the Lesser Antilles section, I feel like I’ve walked into a carnival with a jewel-encrusted outfit on display, complete with an ornamental headdress. Here I learn how music became an instrument of rebellion in the Caribbean island of Trinidad. When the British colonisers banned sticks and drums — the Empire feared that Trinidad was bonding over music --- the islanders got creative. They made music out of anything they could lay their hands on, such as industrial steel drums. And that’s how the steel pan --- one of the few percussion instruments invented in the 20th century --- came to be.
In a section on the US and Canada, I put on the headphones and find myself stomping my foot to an American invention, the drum sets. I listen to Spanish flamenco in Europe and, while I don’t understand a word, I can feel the love and sense the loss. I can almost see the whirling dervishes as I listen to Sufi music in the South Asia corner.
In the Artist Gallery are instruments loaned by the greats (or their next of kin). I gawk at a teak-and-rosewood sitar played by maestro Ravi Shankar in the ’30s when he was a disciple of guru Baba Allaudin Khan in Maihar, Madhya Pradesh. I admire the Starclassic Maple drum kit that belongs to the Black Eyed Peas. I take a selfie next to the Steinway Model Z upright piano on which John Lennon composed Imagine. A crowd gathers before the Martin D-28 guitar used by Elvis Presley in his last concert in June 1977.
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