Welcome to the Music Reimagined Online Museum
The Museum is still under construction but is due to open later in the autumn of 2026.
Meanwhile here's a glimpse inside!
Long before recorded sound, mechanical instruments brought repeatable music into the home. Musical boxes turned pinned cylinders and tuned metal teeth into miniature performances – music made portable, private and automatic.
As bands grew louder, the guitar struggled to be heard. Early experiments with pickups and amplification transformed it from an accompanying instrument into one capable of dominating twentieth-century popular music.
The microphone changed both recording and performance. Increasing sensitivity allowed singers to abandon projection for intimacy, while radio and electrical recording created entirely new ways of using the human voice.
The modern drum kit grew from the percussionist’s collection of ‘traps’ – drums, cymbals, woodblocks, bells and other effects gathered around a single player. Jazz helped turn this improvised assortment into a new instrument.
Portable gramophones carried recorded music far beyond the home. During wartime they travelled with servicemen and civilians, bringing entertainment, familiarity and moments of normality into profoundly unfamiliar surroundings.
By the early 1970s, recorded music had become part of personal identity. Large speakers, vinyl collections and psychedelic imagery turned the bedroom into a private listening environment – and music into a way of creating your own world.
Domestic tape recorders allowed listeners to become recordists and editors themselves. Music could be copied, voices captured and sounds rearranged – bringing some of the possibilities of the recording studio into the home.
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Music Reimagined is independently produced and editorially led by Tristram Shepard.
© 2026 Tristram Shepard / Music Reimagined. All rights reserved.
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