The highlight of the day, in my opinion, was our trip to the Musical Instruments Museum. I've known about this place for a couple of years, but considering the level of culture in this town, I couldn't imagine it would be that special of a place. WOW! Was I wrong. This was an amazing museum on every level. First, we were blown away by the beautiful building.
Here's how they used the first floor atrium space that divides two sections of the museum. I'm standing at a rail on the second floor overlooking the atrium, and there's the hallway on the other side of the actual over sized hanging instruments.
Inside this museum the staging, imagination and organization of the exhibits just kept on coming. Upon entering the museum, the first thing you do is pick up a headphone set that is tuned via GPS signal to hundreds of flat screen televisions scattered throughout the museum. You don't have to 'punch' anything or look for numbers. A definite step up in the interactive museum.
This museum is organized by continent and then by countries within each continent. As you pass by "Tibet", for instance, you see actual instruments while your headset keys into the TV in the midst of the instruments. The video allows you to hear the instruments you're seeing being played. Everything is airy, spacious and beautifully presented. By starting at the oldest human inhabited continent (Africa) and progressing around the world, you can see the progression of musical instruments, since music and the instruments expressing it, are universal no matter where on Earth you turn. Here's an example; this is India:
After you finish looking at all the continents and countries, there were three additional exhibits. The open air one that kicks off the museum is simply called 'Guitars', and that's what it was - all types, sizes of guitars from all over the world.
The red one on the wall was my favorite in this exhibit. Here it is close up. Can you see the stylized map of the United States?
The second of the three additional exhibits was what I would term "famous music people and their stuff'. Oh, there was Elvis, of course, with a couple of his jump suits exhibited, and there was Taylor Swift's dresses and instruments and boots as well as Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" grammy, but the unexpected was the Steinway Piano Company's first piano - made in their kitchen in 1838 - a little side project of a cabinet making family in Germany.
The third and final exhibition was of mechanical musical instruments - music boxes, calliopes, the original disc players (wooden ones not CD's that revolved in players - the player piano is one of these), and automatons - mechanical figures that move in time to mechanical music. This was mildly interesting perhaps my interest being influenced by my pain of being on my feet on concrete for over three hours.
This museum was so stunning in every aspect; I'm sure this won't be our last visit, and I've very eager to sample one of their concerts in the attached concert hall. As always with my travel blogs, if you want to see ALL the pix, follow the link:
