Arizona’s Musical Instrument Museum {Travel Tuesday}

Did you know that there is a truly amaz­ing, one-of-a  museum-kind in Phoenix?! The Musi­cal Instru­ment Museum (formed by Robert J. Ulrich, for­mer CEO and chair­man emer­i­tus of Tar­get Cor­po­ra­tion) fea­tures instru­ments (boast­ing a col­lec­tion of over 15,000) from more than 200 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries around the world. Through spe­cial tech­nol­ogy, vis­i­tors get to see and hear these instru­ments in their orig­i­nal cul­tural set­tings. We got the oppor­tu­nity to check it out recently and absolutely loved it!

First off, I was sur­prised at how big it is (200,000 sq. ft!!). Seri­ously, the facil­i­ties are huge and beau­ti­ful!! In fact, they are SO nice that as soon as we set foot inside, I was wor­ried about hav­ing the kids with me. But, I was so pleas­antly sur­prised at how family-friendly the MIM is! There is a cafe on site and a much-appreciated fea­ture of the Fam­ily Cen­ter! How great is that? A place for kid­dos to take a break! The space had toys for the kids, lit­tle tables, couches, a nurs­ing room, and pri­vate fam­ily bath­rooms. After a cou­ple of hours of explor­ing with 5 kids under age 6 (I had a friend with me), this was a much needed respite. I’ve rarely been to a museum or busi­ness with this kind of Fam­ily Cen­ter. It was a VERY nice touch!!

After get­ting acquainted with all the MIM has to offer, we headed up to the Geo­graph­i­cal Gal­leries. They focus on 5 major regions of the world. In these gal­leries we made use of the wire­less head­sets. As you approach each dis­play, you can hear the instru­ments that are a part of it being played. Many of the dis­plays even include flat-panel mon­i­tors where you can see the instru­ments being pre­formed. Once again, I was a bit ner­vous about how the kids would do with this. But, they did sur­pris­ingly well–even the 2 year olds! The han­dled the wire­less head­sets well and loved hear­ing the music at each dis­play. There were a few dis­plays we had to tear them away from! And, the danc­ing– SO cute! The bot­tom left and right pho­tos are mid-jamming ses­sions. The big­ger boys (ages 4 & 5.5) could have stayed a lot longer! But, the littest ones really wanted to touch every­thing. It’s not allowed in these gal­leries, but the MIM does fea­ture a whole hand-on area! So, after mak­ing our way through about 2.5 of the 5 regions, we headed down to the Expe­ri­ence Gallery. I think the kids could have stayed there for hours! The for­mer band mem­ber in me loved to see our bud­ding per­cus­sion­ists! It was so fun! We will def­i­nitely be back.

So, if you’re local to AZ or will be trav­el­ing to the Phoenix area, put the MIM on one of your to-do lists! It’s fab­u­lous. And, they have some great things going on right now for the holidays!

Catch the Hol­i­day Spirit at MIM

From Decem­ber 6 to Jan­u­ary 6, the Musi­cal Instru­ment Museum will present “Hol­i­day World Tour,” a cel­e­bra­tion of the win­ter hol­i­day sea­son high­light­ing a broad sam­pling of the world’s music and cul­tures. Dur­ing “Hol­i­day World Tour,” guests will expe­ri­ence the sights and sounds of annual win­ter tra­di­tions cel­e­brated around the world, includ­ing Diwali (India), St. Nicholas Day (Nether­lands), com­mu­nity car­ol­ing (Ukraine), Win­ter Sol­stice (China), Junkanoo (Bahamas), and more! Numer­ous dec­o­rated trees honor the fes­tiv­i­ties of dif­fer­ent coun­tries, and video mon­i­tors in the museum gal­leries will show­case regional tra­di­tions. MIM is part­ner­ing with sev­eral artists to pro­vide authen­tic rep­re­sen­ta­tions of spe­cific cus­toms and tra­di­tions, such as sto­ry­teller and musi­cian Loca Rosa, who will dis­cuss Russ­ian Hanukkah tra­di­tions. Com­mu­nity music per­for­mances sched­uled through­out the month­long cel­e­bra­tion include hand­bells, car­ol­ers, mari­achi, key­boards, mechan­i­cal music demon­stra­tions, and instru­men­tal and piano con­certs of world-music reper­toire by young musi­cians. “Hol­i­day World Tour” pro­grams are free with museum admis­sion. Visit MIM.org for a full schedule.

Elf Camp

Fri­day, Decem­ber 7 | 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Tick­ets: $25 per child

Call­ing all girls and boys on Santa’s Nice List! Spend the evening at MIM get­ting ready to cel­e­brate Christ­mas. Lit­tle elves will get a spe­cial tour of MIM’s gal­leries, play instru­ments in the Expe­ri­ence Gallery, and lis­ten to a spe­cial per­for­mance of Christ­mas music per­formed by tal­ented young stu­dents of the East Val­ley Yamaha School of Music. They’ll also have the chance to make a musi­cal hol­i­day craft and dec­o­rate Christ­mas cook­ies (and eat them, of course!). All activ­i­ties will be led by MIM staff and trained vol­un­teers. Par­ents, this is your chance to get some Christ­mas shop­ping done! Drop your chil­dren off by 5:30 p.m. and pick them up at 8:30 p.m. Chil­dren should bring a sack din­ner; bev­er­ages will be pro­vided. Space is lim­ited so please con­tact Annabel Rim­mer at 480.245.6919 or grouptours@MIM.org to reg­is­ter. Best for ages 6‒10.

Tay­lor Swift Christ­mas Songbook/Journal Workshop

Thurs­day, Decem­ber 13 | 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tick­ets: Free with museum admission

Make a spe­cial songbook/journal to record this mag­i­cal sea­son. Tay­lor Swift loves Christ­mas (it’s her favorite hol­i­day!) and she loves to spend time jour­nal­ing, too. Be inspired by her and cre­ate your own Christ­mas song­book. MIM will pro­vide a selec­tion of Christ­mas tunes (includ­ing some of Taylor’s favorites) and all the sup­plies to make the cover as sparkly as the sea­son. The song­book will include jour­nal pages so you can per­son­al­ize the hol­i­day. Best for ages 10‒adult. Space is lim­ited; please make a reser­va­tion for a 30-minute time frame by con­tact­ing Annabel Rim­mer at 480.245.6919 or grouptours@MIM.org.

Fam­ily Day (Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 5)

• Fam­ily Day: New Year’s Jazz Mas­quer­ade 10 a.m.‒4 p.m. (Tick­ets: Free with museum admis­sion)
  

Cel­e­brate the start of the New Year in style! MIM is host­ing a family-friendly day full of the vibrant sights and sounds of Amer­i­can jazz and Caribbean mas­quer­ade tra­di­tions. Enjoy mini tours, make drums from recy­cled mate­ri­als, cre­ate fes­tive mas­quer­ade masks, par­tic­i­pate in a jazzy story time, and march (or dance) into 2013 by join­ing a per­for­mance with the ASU Dixie Dev­ils. It’s sure to be fun for every­one in the fam­ily! Visit MIM.org for a full schedule.

Have YOU been to the MIM? What did you think?

Dis­clo­sure: We received free admis­sion to the museum for the pur­poses of review. How­ever, all opin­ions and expe­ri­ences are entirely my own.