Musical Bodies

Musical instruments and their connection to the body as reflected in art, popular culture, and the human condition, from ancient ceremony to rock and roll
 
Musical Bodies explores the overlapping worlds and blurred boundaries between bodies and instruments across 5,000 years of art and music history. Whether we are tapping, clapping, vocalizing, or whistling, our bodies are musical instruments, and, in return, many instruments derive their form and decoration from the human body. Acting as powerful vehicles of identity, these objects complicate the notion of where bodies end and instrumental music-making begins. This interdisciplinary publication features some 130 musical instruments and related works of art, including paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints, manuscripts, and costumes. Instruments considered range from
Ancient Egyptian sistra and Renaissance figural fiddles to Tipu Sultan’s mechanical organ in the shape of a tiger mauling a European soldier and the “Symbol” guitar played by Prince. The book establishes the ways bodies and instruments interact and entwine, then explores how instruments reflect identity, sex, death, and the afterlife. Drawing on musicology, organology, anthropology, art, literature, religion, pop culture, and mythology, this volume is a fascinating exploration of music, art, and the human condition.
 
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press

Exhibition Schedule:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

(June 7–September 27, 2026)