Old banjos, fiddles, mandolins, and every type of guitar imaginable some nearly 100 years old will be on display at the SIUC museum Sunday, and the instruments will have something in common:all were made or played lovingly in Southern Illinois.

This fall, students in museum studies 497 have been researching the folk music of Southern Illinois, and their real final exam is not a test it is the real thing, a full exhibit featuring dozens of antique instruments from all over the region.

Dennis Stroughmatt, a grad assistant for the class, said the exhibit expresses the importance of the forgotten music of Southern Illinois.

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Each generation has new music, and new generations aren’t usually exposed to the music and culture that came before them, he said. There are a number of musicians who have been playing here for forty, fifty years, and we want to show who they are.

The exhibit will feature instruments, pictures and performances of Southern Illinois musicians from as far back as one hundred years, Stroughmatt said.

One of our most memorable pieces is the very first Fender electric fiddle, give to Wade Ray of Sparta, he said. Ray played in the Pappy Cheshire Show, a country jazz program on KMOX in St. Louis during the late 30s and early 40s.

Christie Sweitzer, an anthropology junior from Springfield, said the students spent a lot of time doing research for a text to accompany the exhibit, detailing the evolution of folk music in the region.

We all had individual tasks like advertising the exhibit, getting funding and putting up flyers, she said. But while we doing that all semester we were also all researching the text. Now we have to put that research together.

John Giffin, a junior in anthropology from Murphysboro, said the class shared responsibility for each aspect of the exhibit’s development.

We all tried to split up the different jobs, he said. The focus of the class was to help everyone learn each step of the process.

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Stroughmatt said the exhibit will open Sunday with a performance featuring three examples of area music:Dan Verbal, a fiddle player who plays old-time folk music; Gerry Giffin and his band, who play bluegrass; and Lee Brothers, a country-western musician.

The musicians will perform in the museum auditorium at 2:15.

The exhibit, A look at the past:traditions and evolution of rural folk music in Southern Illinois, will run through Dec. 15 in the south wing of the museum.