The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) is located at 4725 East Mayo Boulevard in North Phoenix. This is at the corner of Tatum and Mayo Blvds, just off of the 101. The parking lot entrance is on Mayo. The building is huge. The entranceway is landscaped with desert plants and is a beautiful start to the museum experience. Little did I know what I was in for at this point.The customer service staff recommended that we start on the ground floor with the introductory section, then move to the second floor to begin viewing the instruments. An awesome collection of guitars started our experience, and a display on how instruments are made gave us a warm-up to what we were to see. We went to the second floor on the escalor (or you can take the stairs, or an elevator).
The layout of the building is airy and spacious. Once we reached the second floor, we put on our headsets and continued to the first room on our right: Africa. As we rounded the corner to enter the room, we were immediately blown away with the view. Instruments, text explaining what we saw, costumes, and video screens met our eyes in a layout that called for our attention.
Each exhibit has the name of the country or region, a map, the instruments along with a description...and a video screen. As you approach the exhibit, your eye is drawn to the video screen and the action. Once within range, the radio headset picks up the sound from the video and you are immediately immersed in the music.
We had been in the museum for about an hour, and realized that we were not going to be able to see everything tonight. We had made it half way through our first continent, Africa, and had so much more to see. We decided to just walk through the rest of this section and plan to come again. Walking close to the front of each exhibit, we were able to hear a sampling of the video and the sound. We walked past Pakistan...
Through parts of India...
Across some regions of China...
This is a close-up of some of the string instruments. They were beautiful.
Through Vietnam...
Across Thailand...oh I wanted to stop at each one!
Saw a little of Japan...
And a little more of China. The large rolls on the left sit in front of a screen. The things perched on top of the roll are stick puppets. The video shows that the music is played and the puppet show tells a story.
This is a mere sampling. We exited this section. South America was to our left. Europe was across the hall. We had to stop! As we walked out, we knew that this museum deserved several trips. I think that I would like to go in the morning for a few hours, enjoy lunch in the cafe, and spend a few hours in the afternoon. Where will I start next time???
