Musical hub blows its own trumpet

LEXI Smith blocks out the din from a rare two-headed tuba played by Edd McCracken as the unusual instrument went on display alongside other musical curiosities at the University of Edinburgh last week.

The university is in the final stages of digitising its extensive collection as part of the creation of Europe’s first-ever digital archive of major musical instrument collections – with Edinburgh as its hub. Led by the university, the Musical Instrument Museums Online (MIMO) project brings together the collections of 11 of Europe’s most important musical instrument museums.