Sound Decisions: The European Tradition of Musical Instrument Making in Australia 1788-1901

Abstract

Scholarly research into Australian musical instrument making following European traditions is in its infancy. Historical and musical discourse rarely investigates European-Australian makers although they played an important role in defining settler musical culture and identity in Australia between European settlement in 1788 and the foundation of the Australian state in 1901. The limited number of existing studies mainly confine themselves to a few specific instrument types such as keyboards or bowed strings, or else are concerned with the twentieth century. The result is that many European-Australian makers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are unknown and lost from the historical record. Although the available literature may give the impression that there were few practising European-Australian instrument makers before 1900, this is far from the case. I argue that a more thorough investigation of the available evidence found in primary and secondary sources and in existing instruments shows that the world of European-Australian instrument making before 1900 was far more extensive and complex that previously assumed. The number of makers throughout the Australian colonies grew during the period as did the diversity of instruments produced. These factors, together with the maker’s willingness to use local materials and introduce innovative solutions to cope with local conditions, indicates that instrument makers played a larger and more important role than has previously been recognised in the musical, cultural and economic life of the colonies. This study is thus the first comprehensive survey of musical instrument making in Australia from 1788 to 1901. Its prime role is to place reliable and detailed knowledge of European musical instrument making traditions in Australia into current academic and public discourse. A chronological and thematic cross-disciplinary approach has been applied to the evidence of documents and material culture.