A project implemented in 1989 at the instigation of Monique Desroches, the Faculty of Music’s scientific collection of instruments today contains over 850 specimens hailing from five continents, deposited and archived in a space with museum conservation standards. It is one of the great collections at Université de Montréal.

The majority of the instruments start with the recovery of objects from the animal, plant, occasionally mineral, or even industrial world. For example:

• Turtle rattles
• Bells made from goat hooves or fruit shells
• Food-can horn
• “Scraper” washboard

The instruments are classified according to four major organological families defined on the basis of the mechanical principle of production of the sound:

• Membranophones
• Aerophones
• Chordophones
• Idiophones

The collection is used for presentations about world musics and organology to Faculty of Music students at the three levels of study (courses and seminars in organology and in ethnomusicology), but also to those in geography and museology.