Visit to Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments (4)

The museum has also an excellent collection of Japanese keyboard instruments, many of which were made by Yamaha. The company was named after the surname of its founder Torakusu Yamaha.

Torakusu Yamaha was born in 1851 in Wakayama Prefecture. His father was an astronomer, and Torakusu got interested in machines as a child. Later, he learned watchmaking in Nagasaki and worked at a medical instrument store in Osaka. Then, He moved to Hamamatsu and worked as a medical instrument technician, doing some other work such as repair of watches.

In 1887, Torakusu Yamaha was asked to repair a broken reed organ of an elementary school. At that time, reed organs were very precious and expensive musical instruments because they were imported from abroad. The one in the elementary school in Hamamatsu was made in America, and no one knew how to repair it. Torakusu Yamaha found that it was easy to repair, because it was just two springs that were broken. But he took time and sketched the mechanism of the reed organ so that he could make one by himself. He expected that all the elementary schools in Japan would purchase reed organs for their music class in the future and wanted to provide Japanese reed organs at a much lower price compared with foreign ones.

With help of Kisaburo Kawai, a metallic ornament artisan, Torakusu Yamaha made his first reed organ. They carried it to an organization in Tokyo (present Tokyo University of the Arts) by themselves to have it checked, walking all the way there (about 250 km). It proved to be a failure because it was not tuned. Then, Torakusu Yamaha learned musical theory and succeeded to make a full-fledged reed organ in 1888. Next year, he established a company to manufacture reed organs. Though it was dissolved, he established Nippon Gakki Co., Ltd. in 1897 which was renamed as Yamaha Corporation in 1987. In the museum, I could see some of their old reed organs and pianos. This reed organ was made in 1909. It was well preserved.

Until now, Yamaha has been manufacturing many kinds of musical instruments. I admire the founder's strong will and efforts. Their music school is popular here, and I used to go there as a child. The museum has also a collection of modern musical instruments including synthesizers and electric guitars.

Finally, I went to the Hands-on Room to see if I could play any musical instrument. There were children and their parents playing the piano, hand bells, morin khuur from Mongolia, drums, and many other interesting musical instruments whose names I didn’t know. I tried this drum. It is klong ae from Thailand and has a deep nice sound.

Hand bells seemed to be popular in this room. Above them, there was a score of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” I thought the sound of the hand bells matches this song.

I stayed at the museum for more than two hours. If you are a music lover, I strongly recommend to visit there.

Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments
Address: 3-9-1 Chuo, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu-shi, Shizuoka
Tel: 053-451-1128
Admission fee: Adults  800 yen
                         High school students  400 yen
                         Elementary school and junior high school students, persons over 70 years old,
                         disabled persons  Free
Open hours: 9:30 - 17:00
Closed: Every 2nd and 4th Wednesday (except in August), Cleaning Day, December 29 to January 3
Access: 5-minute walk from JR Hamamatsu Station