Welcome to our 12 days of #OpenUnwrapped on the Open.Ed blog! Over the next 12 days we’ll be sharing Open Educational Resources, items that have been openly licensed for re-mix, re-share, and re-use. Ranging from images, videos, sounds, artworks, tools, games, papers, and more.

We’re starting with a record from the Musical Instruments Museum Edinburgh (MIMEd). A number of items in the museum have been photographed to high detail, and the images are openly available under CC BY licenses. The records often also include recordings or videos of the instruments being played.

This record is for a triple-fretted clavichord in the collection, which may be the only surviving example of the type illustrated by Michael Praetorius, a 17th century composer organise and music theorist, as a ‘gemein [ordinary] clavichord’. It has a protruding keyboard, s-shaped bridge, and all the strings are hitched to the left end of the case. Some of the original wire hinges remain.

 

A sound recording is also available so you can hear what the instrument sounds like:

 

Click here to see the full Clavichord record and additional images on the MIMED website

 

We hope you enjoy our #OpenUnwrapped advent and feel encouraged to further explore the world and practice of ‘Open’.

 

Stephanie (Charlie) Farley

Open Educational Advisor, EDE

 

The beautiful image being used as the header for our #OpenUnwrapped posts is of a University of Edinburgh festive bauble gift by Pingked (Flickr) CC BY-NC.