Mucho talk on Viva Strings about 'the best' of this and that and the other to get the optimum sound from your instrument. Fair enough. But at the back of my cupboard is the violin that used to hang in my mum's old bedroom at my granddad's. Mum said he used to play it when she and her brothers and sisters were kiddywinks and they all danced around the table. (This is before T.V. - Oh O.K. - this is before the WW2.).

Let's fast-forward to post-war kiddies. Me. The fiddle used to intrigue me. The bedroom was virtually empty except for this fiddle hanging ominously from a rail. It was, to be honest, a tad spooky. It just hung and hung without strings or sound but drew the eye to it. It was magic with a slightly sinister tinge. I didn't know it then but its future was to be my very first violin. Wow.

I haven't played it in years - its not a very good fiddle - but its story - its provenace is worth its weight in gold. It's definately 'not for sale'. Do any of you have a family hand-me-down instrument which is not of very good quality but which you wouldn't swop for the world? Blood is thicker than money! One hopes.

I inherited three recorders from my husband's grandfather. They are the best instruments in my collection, and I'm only just getting to be able to play at a level to do them justice.

But I also have two recorders (a Dolmetsch descant and treble) bought for me by my parents, for my fifth and sixth birthday respectively. OK, so they sound very harsh and squeaky compared with the inherited ones, but they were my means of first experiencing playing an instrument, and were the reason I learned to read music.

And in fact, this old plastic descant was the one I chose to play in my Grade 7 exam recently, as its shrill voice just suited the piece I was playing - for which I got 30/30.

Our piano is not the best of instruments but is the one my grandmother learnt on when she was 5 or 6 years old. It was made in 1923 and has stayed in the family since then. I love my piano.

As with Choddy, my piano ain't no Steinway, however it's led a rather interesting life, ending up in various churches and houses over Liverpool and has always been owned by someone in my family. And for being nearly 100 years old, she's survived very well. Back in the day when my nan was in her prime of piano playing, she'd use the piano which is now in my dining room! I really don't know what I'd do without my piano <3

Not quite as old, but my Moeck Rottenburgh alto recorder too, made of two of my favourite materials, ivory and ebony.

My piano is my Grandmother's too and she used to play for a lot of things in Swanage which I now play for - it's a continuation of history

As with Choddy, Irish-Loony and carol*piano my piano was handed down the family.

It was originally my Grandmother and Grandfathers (I cannot remember either of them as my grandfather died before i was born, and my grandmother died when i was about 2) I think both of them, especially my grandfather played it and it was made about the time of the 1st world war i think, and as my dad has pointed out many times, the iron frame is painted in sludge green - war paint.

It plays well as my dad has restored it... even if it does need a tune.

You know that they say about decorators houses... well its the same with piano tuners!!!

Not an instrument as such as I've only been learning for five years..but I do have a boxed set of LP's that my dad bought back in the late 70's. They were from Readers Digest and are called "The Gateway to the Classics". It was listening to my dad playing these that got me interested in music. I can't play them now due to the disappearance of the old stylus (although I see thay are coming back again).

I still miss my dad playing them even though he died in 1983....

It's not a family hand-me-down, but was bought for me: a Dolmetsch plastic tenor recorder, now referred to as the 'classic' model.

I know I'll never part with it, even when (if) I upgrade to a wooden instrument. I was probably 9 or 10 when it was bought for me, and I was the only person at primary school with a tenor. At secondary school, I was one of very few with a tenor; I also didn't have a treble at that stage, so I was usualy 'relegated' to playing tenor parts in our group. Everyone else in our group had Aulos instruments. Mine was a Dolmetsch, brown rather than black and white, and distinctly tall-and-thin compared to the Aulos tenor. Mine could do C# and theirs couldn't, but they were in the majority.

I assumed back then that I had been bought an inferior cheap tenor by my cash-strapped parent. It never occurred to me that it might be otherwise; everyone else had proper Aulos recorders and I had this manky horrid brown thing.

Only now, 20 years on, do I realise that what I was bought probably cost more than the Aulos. I have no feelings for my Aulos treble, or my (gone-to-new-home) Aulso descant. But I'll always love my Dolmetsch.

And I'll find a family member to foist it off on to become an heirloom instrument

The Clarinet in our house has an interesting history. My husbands grandmother's mother (yes his great gran) had American GI troops to tea during WW2. One was a band member who brought his clarinet and played it when he came to tea. He left it at her house and never came back. He was killed in action. When my husband showed an interest in music his grandmother remembered the clarinet and dug it out of the attic. The owners name is lost in history but it has been played by my husband, his brother and now my youngest and taken to school by others on 'show and tell' days. We are still waiting for someone to come and claim it. It is refered to as the Clarinet we are 'looking after'. It is a beautiful instrument and has frequently been mistakened for a Soprano Sax.

Not an instrument, but I have a copy of the News Chronicle Songbook which belonged to my great grandmother who died aged 94 when I was three. (I'm now in my 40s) It's a proper hardback book, smells wonderful, and is so politically incorrect that you could never let it out of the house. Among other sections, it boasts of having negro spirituals and plantation songs (ie slave songs).

I don't often use it, but it is precious in it's own way. I did get it out recently when teaching a Grade 5 theory pupil. We were discussing how notes under words are beamed nowadays, and how they used to be separated, one for each syllable.

I don't have my very first recorder, but I found one of the same make - Schott, light brown wood and cream plastic beak - recently in our Oxfam shop so bought it for nostalgic purposes. It sounds terrible.

I've loved reading these accounts - what treasures - and the one from Ayshah - it has really moved me - the one you're 'looking after' - so poignant - it obviously couldn't have found a better home. Thanks everyone.

I've got the brass tin whistle my father made in metalworking shop at school. The solder where he formed the embouchure has a hole. That whistle was the only instrument he ever owned, though he had a great fondness and memory for music. I'm rather hoping that son Airman will take it to metalworking shop at *his* school and fix it one day.