Phoenix museum music to visitors’ ears

I don't play an instrument, I'm not a good singer, and I've been accused of having no sense of rhythm. Not to mention that I dropped out of music appreciation class in college. Nonetheless, I love music. Whether musical talent flows through every nerve in your body, or your musical skills and aspirations are more akin to mine, you'll want to visit the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix.

The MIM has been open less than a year and remains almost a secret outside the Phoenix area. Yet this is no rinky-dink storefront displaying a few oddball relics gleaned from city pawnshops. It's a two-story, 192,000-square-foot extravaganza dedicated to displaying the instruments and telling the musical history of virtually every continent and region, from the South Seas to the Vatican.

Alan Diperna, a spokesman for the MIM, told me the museum already has 10,000 instruments, of which about 3,000 are on display at any one time.

You know this museum is different as soon as you walk in the door. The entry area feels spacious with wide aisles and a large reception area, plus floor-to-ceiling windows that flood the area with natural lighting. When you pay your admission, you receive a small metallic box with a set of earphones. It's a radio receiver that you can wear around your neck or clipped to your belt, and it will bring the museum to life.

While most of the instrument exhibits are on the second floor, there are three galleries not to be missed on the first floor. But you'll want to catch two of them later.

Start your visit in the orientation gallery. A sign there sets the museum's theme: "Music follows the pathways of human movement." Guitars are stars in this first exhibit; about 25 are displayed in the semicircular gallery. A plaque explains, "Guitars are universally known. They have been manufactured on every continent except Antarctica. The instruments exhibited here illustrate the great variety of the world's guitars, revealing both their distinctive features -- from region to region and maker to maker -- as well as their common features as members of the guitar family."

It's pointed out that guitar makers have crafted instruments from wood, metal, plastic and other materials, and they range in design from simple to ornate. "The guitar highlights the connections that can exist between countries, musical instruments and peoples who play them."

Look overhead and you'll see, seemingly floating in air, seven of the world's largest instruments. One is a Sovereign DeLuxe Jumbo guitar made by Harmony Guitar Co. that, despite its 7-foot length, is fully playable. There's also a Klawng yao goblet drum from Chiang Mai, Thailand. This 10-foot-long instrument is crafted from a single block of monkey-pod wood.

There are 10 galleries on the second floor. Eight on the north side of the building encompass Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceania and Latin America. On the south side are the Europe and United States/Canada galleries. As far as I could discern, there's no best order to see them.

There are wide aisles and spacious areas around each exhibit. Even when there are a lot of people in the museum, it doesn't feel crowded. You'll never feel rushed, and lingering at displays is not discouraged.

The receiver and earphones you wear transform seemingly static exhibits into dynamic, musical experiences. In nearly every exhibit there's a flat-panel color monitor, and as you get close to the exhibit you not only see the displayed musical instruments, you get to see and hear some of them played by people in their native setting.

Typically, exhibits have three or four clips of different instruments, and the clips play continuously, so if you want to hear a particular instrument again, just hang around the exhibit for a minute or so, and it will repeat. As you move away from the exhibit, the sound in your earphones fades out.

All cultures are characterized by certain practices, music and art being two of them. What you notice as you travel through the museum is the similarity of instruments from one region to another, even though those regions might be separated by thousands of miles and expansive oceans.

For example, in South Korea and regions of Africa, hourglass-shaped drums are used in rituals and ceremonies. And in Colombia, there's the marimba xylophone made from wood and gourds, which is akin to the gyil xylophone used by the Dagara people in Ghana.

One of the museum's largest galleries is dedicated to the United States and Canada and the musical diversity within North America. Displays feature film clips and instruments of pioneers in bluegrass and country music, bagpipes, symphony instruments and the makings of polka, blues and ragtime. A display for the music of American Indians features huge drums, rattles and gourd instruments.

There's an exhibit dedicated to Steinway pianos showing the component parts of each grand piano and a video explaining how the pianos are so precisely built.

A video on making Martin guitars mentions that one of them was an Elvis Presley favorite, and there's a poster on the wall showing The King with that particular instrument.

After strolling through the music of the world, or as much of it as you want to, head downstairs to two of the finest exhibits in the MIM: the Artist Gallery and the Experience Gallery.

The Artist Gallery focuses on specific musicians, their instruments and others who contributed in some way to the advancement of music. For example, the museum has the Steinway Model Z upright piano that John Lennon purchased in December 1970. It's the instrument on which he composed perhaps his most important song, "Imagine." The piano is enclosed in a protective glass box, but it's easy to "imagine" Lennon seated at the keyboard playing and composing.

Some of the other artists featured in the gallery include Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, Dick Dale, Carlos Santana and George Benson. Each artist's exhibit has music clips, examples of favorite instruments and some information about the artist's contribution to music.

Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (his name was later anglicized to Steinway) was a talented cabinetmaker when he decided to build pianos in 1836. He built his first in the kitchen of his house in Seesen, Germany. It launched Steinweg in his new career and created a family legacy that has endured for nearly two centuries. That first Steinway piano is in the Artist Gallery.

Also in the Artist Gallery is the Mechanical Music Gallery, where you can learn about player pianos, the Edison home phonograph and early gramophones and records.

The Experience Gallery is a spacious room with a variety of instruments ranging from tiny ukuleles to a 7-foot diameter Chinese gong. This gallery is a "touch me" room. Visitors of all ages are encouraged to handle and play the instruments. You can pluck the strings of a harp, play drums from Africa, knock out a tune on a wooden xylophone, and it's hard to resist tapping the big gong to hear its mighty sound.

How did this palace of musical instruments come to be? It was the result of an offhanded comment made by Robert Ulrich, then president and CEO of Target. He was in Europe looking for a high-quality piece of art to buy and donate to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. He told a friend about his intention, and the friend replied: "(For) that amount of money, why don't you buy a museum?" That's just what Ulrich did.

Four-and-a-half years and $250 million later, the Musical Instrument Museum opened on April 24.

Five curators, one for each major region of the world, and their staffs traveled extensively to search out unique instruments. Periodically, instruments will be rotated out of exhibits and other instruments will replace them.

In addition to the galleries, the MIM has a coffee shop and restaurant. Though the restaurant wasn't open the day we visited, it has garnered excellent reviews. There's also a 299-seat theater where concerts are performed throughout the year.

The Musical Instrument Museum is in the northeast section of Phoenix and is about a 20-minute drive (when there's no commuter traffic) from downtown. Handicap access is excellent throughout the place. It is one of the best-executed museums you'll find in this part of the country, and you'll definitely need to return more than once to learn all its sweet secrets.

You may see more of Richard Bauman's work or contact him through his website, www.richardjbauman.com.