Home > Q&A >
by Dwight Newton, Mewzik.com/Oriscus.com organologist.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth. -Kurt Vonnegut
Welcome! You may have been referred here from either Mewzik.com or Oriscus.com. Either way you are in the right place!
We have many resources at hand, including an in-house library, periodicals, and easy access to a good university music library. We also have a network of experts on certain instruments. If you have exhausted the other resources on this site and on the Internet, we are happy to provide whatever assistance we can. Mewzik.com is currently a free service. Our expenses are covered by the advertising links and affiliate relationships with certain vendors,but our vendor relationships do not influence our advice to you. We appreciate your checking out their products and services.
Please read our disclaimers, our privacy policy, and our terms of use. Our overriding interest is always to provide you with the information you need if we possibly can. We will often refer you to other web sites, products, or services (regardless of whether we have a relationship with them), but only if they are the best option available to answer your question. Our honesty and integrity is was sets us apart from most web sites. We tell you up front who we are, what's in it for us, and what you can expect.
This is not an automated search form. You are communicating with actual professionals in the field of organology (the study of musical instruments) who will read you question and respond to it personally to you. If your question is deemed to be of possible interes to others, it may also be published on this website.
Opinions on specific new instruments, products or models. We are not a music retailer. We are aware of trends in the music industry, but we have little direct experience with the current products on the market and cannot recommend what to buy. This includes questions such as:
The value of your instrument (whether monetary or historic). We are not appraisers. If that's what you need, please see our other resources on this site before asking me for a referral to an appraiser. This includes questions such as:
Most School Projects
We are happy to answer questions from students for school projects ONLY IF the question cannot be answered using commonly available reference materials such as encyclopedias and simple web searches. You may use us as an authoritative resource, but we won't do your homework for you. You should identify yourself as a student doing a school project. You should also be very specific and descriptive in your question. For example, don't ask "What is the history of the gong?" Instead, you might ask "I understand the gong originated in Asia. When did it first appear and what was it made of?"
PLEASE NOTE: The person who will read your question is not a nameless, faceless corporation that's trying to sell you something. My name is Dwight Newton. I am a real person with real credentials (M.A. in Musicology, professional experience as a librarian, and 35 years of research and instrument making). Instead of just asking your question, it would be nice if you would share the circumstances that bring you to ask your question. We're not just interested in your instrument; we're interested in your story. The quality of our responses is directly related to the quality of your question. If you don't tell us your name and location, we will be less inclined to spend time on our relationship.
Thanks,
-Dwight
Updated 11/12/2006
© 2001-2006 D.Newton/Mewzik.com