Music is the language of the soul. No, it’s not the title of some New Age self-help book, or yet another "Chicken Soup for the Soul" concoction.
This is the premise behind the relatively new addition to the museum circuit in the Valley. The Musical Instrument Museum (or MIM for short) opened last April with a fresh take on musical history and instrumentation. Intricately embellished on a wall, this idea greets all who enter. And what a grand entrance it is! The building fills its wood floored halls with sunlight that brightens everything it touches—better to see the instruments I’m sure. As I made my way to guest services (F.Y.I for all of you who use Bank Of America-it's free admission to the museum the first weekend of every month) I picked up the audio headset contraption essential to the whole operation.
The MIM is comprised of two levels, the first containing the interactive portions, and the gift shop. The second floor is where I began my exploration. The top floor is organized into sections via continent—each continent has an individual exhibit for each country. These exhibits are complete with actual historical instruments (and modern-day ones) indigenous to that country, and a television that supplements the audio/visual component. It uses a signal to change music/information through the headset at each station. This solidifies their purpose: to focus solely on the music. Each exhibit holds traditional dancewear and instrumentation for the onlooker to examine as they listen to the many diverse styles of music.
Once I covered the entire second floor (where there was even a presentation by the museum curator on the development and styling’s of hip hop), I moved on to the interactive portion on the ground floor. There was a beautiful baby grand piano placed in the hall way (on which I played a really out-of-tune rendition of “Lean On Me," to everyone’s delight I’m sure). Facing the piano was a section called “The Target Gallery," which houses traveling exhibitions, which in this case was “American Sabor,” which focused on Latin music influences in North America. This was separated into several different components of Latin dance and music stations. Stations which taught everything from how to play popular hooks on a piano to a DJ station to mix various musical snippets together.
Down the hall is where the hands on experience could be found, and patrons were allowed to play some of the instruments featured in the museum. The last stop was of course the gift shop. A small store, but nonetheless filled with many unique trinkets. There were ceramic flute necklaces and music boxes that when cranked played tunes like “The Yellow Submarine” and “Here Comes the Sun” (Both By The Beatles). There were books, bracelets, T-shirts and all the usual fixings of a gift shop as well, but there were plenty of worthy treasures to be found. My find? A darling mini-harmonica necklace (which actually plays real notes) with silver and gold plating. The MIM is a great way to explore different music from around the world (or even just to look at some truly fascinating instruments—like the walking stick violin. So cool!), and to learn a few new things about the way music connects us. So feel free to take a few minutes out and enjoy some music from Russia or Nigeria. Or from Brazil or Cambodia. You won’t regret it, and you might just learn something.
