The Museum of Musical Instruments (MIM) is one of the most wonderful places I've ever been to. Five floors, thousands (8000?) of instruments in the regular collection, plus a special exhibit on the origin of the saxophone--which was invented by a Belgian.
The building was originally the Old England department store. It sits amongs buildings that are much more industrial looking. We overheard one guide telling his group that the man who built it wanted something that looked more human, more organic. He achieved this, as the builing definitely stands out from the other museums and administrative buildings that surround it. There are 6 floors of musical instruments of all sorts and from all over the world. It is absolutely fabulous. Even the restaurant is good. It's on the 7th floor, and you can walk outside to see the city if the weather is decent. Which it wasn't when we were there, but it didn't matter because we were utterly entranced by the exhibits. We spent 5 hours there and could have easily spent a couple more. We shouldn't have taken time out for lunch.
One of the panels on the front of the building. There are other panels that show music written other ways. I think one of them is shape-note singing, another is drumming notation, and one looks like what we saw inside that is music for a big music box.
There is no way I can adequately describe this marvelous place. Part of the admission price is an audio tour. Whenever you go near an instrument with an audio symbol on the floor, the audio starts up with the sound of that instrument. There's everything from mouth harps to stringed harps from several countries. There are the enormously long Tibetan horns, the ones that are pitched so low that they shake the floor. There are big "music boxes" that sound by air running through metal disks. There is the beginnings of synthetic music, including a picture of the research team at RCA. There are South American pan pipes and drums, many different harpsichords, a player piano, a plethora of drums, and somewhere around 15 different kinds of bagpipes.
There are many stringed instruments, including lots of lutes and various kinds of mandolins. I was chatting with one of the employees when we were leaving, and he said that an instrument maker from Colorado had come there to learn how the older instruments had been made. This place truly is a treasure.
This is a wooden slit drum, and I unfortunately can't remember where it's from--Indonesia, perhaps. It's about 3' tall.
Gorgeous, complex uillean pipes. I loved listening to the recording of these.
One of many different types of trumpets--and I never found out why it's curved.
This is one of the "music boxes". The sound comes from the disk rotating. The inlaid wood makes the whole thing a work of art.
Part of the exhibit on the saxophone, this saxhorn is as tall as I am.
We hit the saxophone exhibit far later than we should have. It was marvelous, but I didn't take away enough detail from it.
The sax is such a part of American jazz music that I always just assumed it was developed in the U.S. But no, it was invented by a Belgian named Alophe Sax. There is a lot about him on Wikipedia (please donate to Wikipedia, such a wonderful resource), so I won't repeat all of it here. He was an instrument maker, clarinets, mostly, and thought about combining one with an oboe. Thus was born the "saxophone", which Sax patented in June of 1848. It didn't take off in Europe, but made it to the U.S. Its unique sound was perfectly suited to the jazz of the time, and its use spread quickly among small groups and in big bands. Those bands toured Europe and brought the sax back to its birthplace, with a whole lot more pizzazz and respectability than it had had when Sax developed it. "The prophet is without honor in his own land," indeed. .
Sax held hundreds of patents for his inventions, but the saxophone and saxhorn, which is the precursor to the euphonium and other instruments, are his claim to fame.
The exhibit has probably a couple hundred or more instruments, both the precursors of the sax and the many forms it eventually took. The audio tour plays examples of many of them. Some of the instruments are so big in diameter, such as the one above, that I can't imagine how someone could play them. Just amazing.
We stayed until the very last minute. It was one of the best museums I've ever been to. If we'd had another day, we'd have gone back. It was just awe-inspiring, to see the many, many different kinds of instruments that humans have created over the centuries. If I go back to Brussels someday, this is where I'll head first. It's a place I'll never forget.
Downhill from the MIM was this wonderful clock and carillon. I loved the figures on it, and the whimsey.
This is the top figure in the clock--loved him, in his sports gear and drinking what looks to me like whisky!
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