Creative Potential: How Musical Instruments Find (or Miss) Their Destiny

From Cupboard to Museum Collection

I’ve been thinking a lot about the power and the potential of objects lately. Especially the musical kind. Firstly, I’ve been recording a lot of my vintage omnichord - a gem acquired through what I (and Marla Singer in Fight Club) like to call “arsehole tax”, and secondly, when I was asked recently to pick an object from the humungous newly opened V&A Bowie archive and talk about it for the Guardian, I found myself going down a rabbit hole into a cornucopia of instruments that were used on some of the most iconic albums of the past 40 years.

When 90% of people who buy a guitar give up within the year, what luck is it that is bestowed upon the instrument that makes its way into the hands of a life-long musician, rather than the fly-by-night hobbyist? I think about the parallel quantum fates of synthesisers languishing, unloved in a loft somewhere, until a house clearance brought it to an ebay auction and a millennial synth nerd like myself was successful in its acquisition?

But also, why do we project so much value on otherwise innocuous objects once they have passed through the hands of the rich and famous? And what might have become of them had they met a less glamorous fate?

My omnichord, had it stayed in the possession of its non-musical-instrument-playing previous owner, would never have fulfilled what I like to think of as its “creative potential”. It would never have made it onto several critically acclaimed studio albums (that have now sold over 20,000 physical copies) and it would have likely stayed stashed in a cupboard after its hipster potential as a conversation starter, strewn in an artful yet careless manner in the corner of the bedroom had worn thin.

Instead, in my hands, it has travelled the breadth of Europe, been played on many stages, and had its own “custom” flight case fashioned with a carving knife courtesy of Mr Ed Harcourt. That’s how you get the foam to fit…and go viral on Instagram for a day.