#163
Opening Hours
Sunday: 11:00 – 18:00
Tuesday: 10:15 – 17:45
Wednesday: 10:15 – 17:45
Thursday: 10:15 – 17:45
Friday: 10:15 – 17:45
Saturday: 11:00 – 18:00
What's not to miss inside?
Historic Keyboards
Side-by-side early keyboards (clavichords, harpsichords, early pianos) show how touch and mechanism evolved long before the modern concert grand.Look for visible actions and knee/hand stops—small controls that changed colour and volume centuries before pedals became standard.
📍 Main gallery, central run
Strings from Renaissance to Romantic
Viols, early violins and later concert instruments track changing tastes—from chamber consorts to large halls.Necks, bridges and bass bars weren’t always as we see them now—many instruments were ‘modernised’ to meet louder stages.
📍 Perimeter cases
Wind & Brass Bench
Recorders, flutes, oboes and horns chart the move from natural/hand-stopped sound to keyed and valved agility.Finger holes give way to keys; crooks and hand-stopping give way to valves—engineering reshapes repertoire.
📍 End bay
Sound & Making Films
Short films and audio let you hear period instruments and watch how parts—soundboards, strings, reeds—work together.Hearing an instrument built for a salon instantly explains 18th-century phrasing and volume markings.
📍 Screens beside cases
🤓 Fun Facts
The museum is part of the Royal College of Music, founded in 1882; the collections underpin teaching and performance rather than sitting apart from them.
A major redevelopment reopened the galleries in the early 2020s, adding conservation-grade displays and integrated listening so historic instruments can be understood as sound-makers, not just beautiful objects.
Displays span over five centuries of music technology—from gut strings and quills to steel wire and valved brass—so you can trace how engineering changed what composers could write.
