 |
||
 |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
|
Magic flutes
Susan E. Thompson '79MusM, curator of the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, is a proud defender of the tonette, a humble plastic flute that encouraged many a budding musical career. The tonette’s heyday was in the 1940s and '50s, when schools used it to determine whether young students would be able to master a “real” instrument. The tonettes pictured here are from the collection’s long-running exhibit of the instruments, which features specimens Thompson found on eBay. They offer a dramatic contrast with the collection’s better-known harpsichords, violins, pianos, and oboes. Which is precisely the point: Thompson says she created the exhibit “because we had nothing on display for children, and nothing made of plastic. It lends an air of modernity.” |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
||
©1992–2012, Yale Alumni Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Yale Alumni Magazine, P.O. Box 1905, New Haven, CT 06509-1905, USA. yam@yale.edu |
||