Tweeting Our Own Flute

detail from Cornelius Danckerts, Soo D'oude Songen Pepen de Jongen (As the old sing, so the young twitter). Etching and engraving. Mid-Seventeenth Century. Dayton C. Miller Collection. — Detail from Cornelius Danckerts, Soo D'oude Songen Soo Pepen de Jongen (As the old sing, so the young twitter). Etching and engraving. Mid-Seventeenth Century. Dayton C. Miller Collection.

This post is adapted from notes by Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford, Exhibition Curator, Music Division.

The exhibition As the Old Sing, So the Young Twitter takes its inspiration from the musical and verbal relationship between birds and flutes. In the often archaic definition of words like “twitter,” “chatter,” “record,” and “warble” are links between birdsong and human music making. Using these four words, the exhibition explores the differing realms of flute-playing, from the lively to the serene, and takes an etymological and iconographic journey through the depth and breadth of the Library of Congress collections relating to the flute.

The exhibit will be on view May 6 through Oct. 30 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, in the foyer outside the Performing Arts Reading Room on the first floor of the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C.

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