The Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments - Deirdre Loughridge, Thomas Patteson

Reaktion Books

$25.00

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The Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments by Deirdre Loughridge, Thomas Patteson / 200-page hardback published in 2026 by Reaktion / ISBN 9781836391852

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The Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments is a guided tour through centuries of instruments that never existed. From ancient myths to futuristic media, these imagined devices appear in literature, theory, video games and art, at times echoing real instruments, other times pushing far beyond the bounds of technology. This book presents a wide-ranging collection of such creations, showing how they reflect changing ideas about sound, invention and the limits of the possible. At once a cultural history and a study of creative thought, it uncovers unexpected links between music, design and the human urge to make meaning through sound. These are not just fictional artefacts – they are windows into what music might mean, even when it cannot be played.

‘Musical instruments exemplify the development of highly specialised and elaborate technologies, designed for mutual compatibility in collaborative contexts. In this fascinating book, Deirdre Loughridge and Thomas Patteson uncover a quite different strata of invention in which speculative, impossible and deeply strange instruments live and function within the imagination. They demonstrate conclusively that, despite the dazzling range of existent instruments, there is in human culture an appetite for musical forms that cannot be heard.’ – David Toop, musician, writer and Emeritus Professor

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