While reading a series of articles about Tibet in a magazine, Gannon stumbled across an article, which, he believed, was by Violet Gordon Woodhouse, a British harpsichordist and clavichord player of the period. The article was about the revival of the harpsichord, which interested young Gannon. He asked permission to examine the harpsichords on display in the National Museum, Dublin, but was given no encouragement by the staff. He was finally allowed to see the instruments when he was in his early twenties. Dismayed, he concluded that they were too expensive to buy and too complicated to make.