Musical Instrument Museum MIM

MUSIC TO OUR EYES AND EARS

A journey through Phoenix’s Musical Instrument Museum – it’s well worth the drive!
By Erika Ayn Finch

Despite the public flogging Arizona has received over the past few months, we still think this is an incredible state. We have Grand Canyon and Saguaro national parks and the red rocks of Sedona in our backyard; spas and golf courses that attract visitors from around the world; a blossoming wine industry and cutting-edge cuisine; and a wealth of Native American culture. Here’s another one to add to the list: the Musical Instrument Museum.

Only 90 minutes from Sedona, the two-story, $250 million MIM sits on 20 acres of desert land within shouting distance of the 101 freeway at the Tatum exit. Richard Varda and RSP Architects designed the 190,000-square-foot building, and its Indian sandstone exterior blends perfectly with the landscape. We passed by MIM on several occasions without even realizing the riches inside. To enter, you pass through a courtyard designed to evoke thoughts of Arizona’s canyons – tall walls envelop you on either side, and water trickles through the cactus landscape. When you walk through the glass doors, you’re struck by the fact that this modern, airy museum could easily fit in with New York and Chicago’s landmarks. Staffs of music inspired the flowing entryway, and the curves of the staircase resemble those of a grand piano. How lucky are we that this gem is located in northern Phoenix?

Background
The birth of MIM began on a terrace in Brussels over cigars and beer about five years ago. Bob Ulrich, former CEO and chairman of Target Brands (yes, that’s Target of the red bulls-eye), was visiting his friend and fellow art collector, Marc Felix. Bob was discussing the idea of purchasing an Impressionist painting (the Impressionist gallery at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is named after him) when Marc told his friend he could start his own museum for the cost of one painting. Bob, a collector of African art, began musing about what type of museum he would open, and he immediately remembered his love of the Musée des Instruments de Musique in Brussels. He thought of the two little girls he had seen at the museum, swaying to the music that was playing on their headphones as they stared in awe at an exhibit. A seed that had been planted over cigars slowly began to grow.

“Up until now, instruments in museums have been objects on a wall,” says Bill DeWalt, president and director of MIM. “Bob wanted to make sure the instruments would come alive. He sees instruments as amplifiers of human emotion – they need to be played to convey what they are all about.”

But Bob took the idea of hearing the instruments one step further: He envisioned MIM with television screens broadcasting footage of the instruments being played in their country of origin in order to give each one a cultural context. Technology, says Bill, made MIM possible. The museum is divided into five Geo-Galleries: Africa and the Middle East, Asia and Oceania, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the United States and Canada. Each Geo-Gallery is subdivided by country or region. When you approach an exhibit, your headset automatically syncs to the video being played on the flat-screen TV in front of you. The audio-visual clips last roughly 30 seconds. (FYI: If you were to watch all the clips, you’d be spending 12 hours on-site.)

Bob’s goal was to make MIM the world’s first global instrument museum by collecting ensembles from every country in the world, and he’s nearly succeeded. Just months after the museum’s grand opening on Apr. 24, 2010 (the site ground breaking was in February 2008), it boasts instruments from all but about 10 countries. Instruments are still missing from “complicated” locations such as North Korea and Yemen, says Bill, but curators continue to work on obtaining instruments from the few remaining countries. So where did all the instruments come from? Private collections? Hardly, says Bill.

The museum’s five curators compiled a list of countries and instruments, and then the curators along with more than 130 consultants traveled the world, procuring instruments as well as the audio-visual footage Bob desired. The Asian curator had to backpack through jungles to obtain her footage. Now there are more than 10,000 instruments in the museum’s exhibition and research collection; 3,000 are on display.

Bob spends most of his time at his home in Minneapolis, and Bill, who has a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology, heralds from Pittsburgh, where he was the director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History for six years. Why is MIM located in the middle of the Sonoran desert? “It was a strategic decision,” says Bill. “Why not Phoenix? It’s a rapidly growing metropolitan area that’s close to two of the most important tourist attractions: Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It’s also close to one of the seven natural wonders of the world – the Grand Canyon. It has a large residential population and people who travel for conventions and resorts as well as international visitors coming to see our natural attractions. It was an opportunity to capture all markets.”

While that’s certainly true, it’s obvious that MIM also doesn’t have nearly the competition that it would have in a more cosmopolitan city. While we love the Heard Museum, the Phoenix Art Museum and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, they are all much smaller – and much older – than MIM. And we haven’t seen anything in this state that compares to the museum’s audio-visual component. The sophisticated museum shop and gourmet (and affordable) café don’t hurt, either.

Galleries
It’s easy to spend hours wandering through MIM’s galleries. In addition to the world-music exhibits, you’ll also find the Orientation Gallery; Mechanical Music Gallery, which includes the museum’s largest and most expensive instrument, a 37-foot-wide dancehall organ from Belgium; the Experience Gallery, where you can actually “bang a gong”; the Target Gallery, which features traveling and temporary exhibits; and the Artist Gallery, one of our personal favorites. It was there we marveled at John Lennon’s 1969 Steinway & Sons piano on which he composed “Imagine”; the 1956 Stratocaster – nicknamed “Brownie” – that led to Eric Clapton’s “Layla” and “Bell Bottom Blues”; and the first Steinway piano ever made, from way back in 1836.

“We don’t have as much rock ’n’ roll as other museums because we wanted to make sure what you get at MIM you’re not getting anywhere else,” says Christina Linsenmeyer, assistant curator of musical instruments. Christina, who began working at MIM in October 2008 when she was a doctoral candidate at Washington University in St. Louis and who is also a violin maker, was one of the curators who helped assemble the museum’s collection. Her beat: Western Europe.

Christina led us across a foyer featuring a mosaic map of the world and upstairs via a spiral staircase into the United States-Canada gallery. She pointed out the fact that the Native American exhibit at MIM has the largest square footage of Native American instruments on display in the world. Christina says that isn’t the only thing that sets MIM apart. First, it contrasts the old and new. “One of the things I am most proud of are all the aspects of MIM that haven’t been done to date,” she says. “We show instruments made by musicians who are not professional instrument makers, which means the craftsmanship isn’t what you would expect. You’ll also find instruments that are over 50 years old right next to instruments that come straight from the makers and are unaltered. Sometimes those are the most exciting.”

MIM also exhibits acoustic and electric instruments side by side, something that is nontraditional in the realm of music museums. It also exhibits instruments in ensembles, to give visitors an idea of who was playing what and when. In an exhibit, you’re just as likely to see traditional costumes displayed with the instruments. “Our challenge was what story we wanted to tell with each country,” says Christina. “This isn’t about the history of music, though that does come across. We use the objects to hang stories on. We lean toward the everyday, so you’re not just seeing the study of folk music but also folk traditions.”

Speaking of traditions, beginning Nov. 20, MIM hosts its first traveling exhibit, American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music. The exhibit focuses on five major centers of Latino music production in the post-Word War II U.S. – New York, Miami, San Antonio, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Highlights include Ritchie Valens’ Harmony electric guitar and a purple mariachi suit designed by Manuel for Linda Ronstandt.

Of course, everyone has their favorite item in the museum. One of Christina’s faves can be found in the Italy exhibit. It’s a musical walnut called a noce, which she says is further evidence of MIM’s uniqueness. Bill, on the other hand, is partial to the lower jawbone of a horse, which is used as a percussion instrument in Latin American countries. He says he also likes the jade-and-bronze chimes from South Korea (we’re definitely in agreement on this) and the Middle Eastern oud. We spent the majority of our time in the Asian and African galleries, but since we are rockers at heart, we were also taken with the guitar exhibit on the lower level, especially the Rickenbacker A22 “Frying Pan” – an example of the first commercially successful electric guitar (it was made in 1934). We were also captivated by the Erlig Khan – the Lord of the Underworld – costume in the Mongolian exhibit. Like Bill says, there’s something for everyone.

“I can truly say our target audience is everyone in the world,” says Bill. “Music transcends language. Anyone in the world could come here and enjoy these exhibits. Music is an art form that helps bring people together, which is critically important these days.” •

All the Details
The Musical Instrument Museum is located at 4725 E. Mayo Blvd. in north Phoenix. For information, call 480-478-6000 or visit www.themim.org.

Admission (including audio equipment): $15 for adults, $13 for seniors, $10 for kids ages 6 to 17 and free for children younger than 6.

Hours: Monday-Wednesday and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Parking is free.