We headed over to the Musical
Instrument Museum in Scottsdale today. We had visited the museum on our previous
trips to Arizona and did not see it all.
It is a marvelous place, with exhibits of musical instruments along with
music and videos from all over the world.
The museum is organized by geographical region, including countries in Europe,
Asia, United States and Canada, Latin America, Africa, etc. Each exhibit has a number of instruments
indigenous to that particular country along with signs describing the
instruments and their history and use. As you approach each section you also
hear excerpts of music from that country through earphones you are given when
you enter the museum as well as watch a flat screen video of the people playing the
music. Each musical video clip runs
about 15 seconds or so and each exhibit will have around 2-5 selections which
run on a continuous loop.
There are also other exhibits, some
permanent and others that are specially prepared and run for a designated amount
of time. The special exhibit this time
was about drums and how they are used, and have been used, in virtually every
recorded civilization. The permanent
exhibits include an orientation gallery, mechanical music gallery, artist
gallery and tickets for an experience gallery.
They also have a Steinway grand piano in the lobby for the public to
play if they wish to do so. We heard
several people playing and they were very good.
We had an excellent lunch at the
museum and tried to get tickets for a concert at the theater in the museum that
evening (Marcia Ball). No luck, as they
were sold out and there was no movement on the waiting list. Again, we still did not see all the exhibits so
we are coming back next Thursday to finish up and see another concert at the
theater for which we did get tickets.
So, after a visit to the gift shop,
we went into Scottsdale, had a great dinner at an Italian restaurant, and drove back to the RV after a long but enjoyable day.
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