Once again I was invited to participate in a WoodMusICK conference; this time on the question of the Effects of Playing on Early and Modern Musical Instruments.  I am collaborating on a project headed by Dr. Marco Antonio Pérez (and involving the Museu de la Música) which we presented together.  The idea of WoodMusICK is to bring together scientists, museums, builders and restoration experts in an attempt to work towards sharing knowledge and reaching some agreement about how we should treat wooden musical instruments.  We also got to visit the collection at the RCM which has some extremely interesting pieces including what might be the oldest surviving stringed keyboard instrument (the clavicytherium) and what is argued to be the earliest guitar.  I have included the exhibition notes because I don’t know much about guitars from that period.  If you click on the last photo you can probably read it.  If you are interested and cannot read it I can send you the original.