Hello everyone! This past weekend, I got the chance to go to the Musical Instrument Museum AKA MIM! I first heard about the Musical Instrument Museum the summer of last year, but it wasn’t until my vocal teacher (yes, I’ve been taking vocal lessons for the past 2 months now – watch out for me at karaoke haha), suggested that I go to MIM!

Musical Instrument Museum

MIM is located in northern Phoenix, Arizona, and displays over 7,000 instruments from around 200 countries. How insane is that? This will be more of a photo journal type of blog post (Do you like photo journals? Peak at my San Francisco blog post!). If you have the chance to go to MIM, I definitely recommend it!

The front entrance of the museum when you first walk in from the parking lot – so many trees lol.

Look how beautiful this is! This is what you see when you first walk in.

Guitar room that features guitars from all around the world from different centuries.

Galleries and Displays

Most of the galleries and displays are section by their demographics, e.g., Asian, North America, Africa, etc. One really cool thing about this museum that I feel like makes it really unique is that they give you a pair of headphones and if you walk up to a TV monitor, you can listen to the TV! I’m really curious about the technology they used for this since I was talking to a friend about it. We know it’s definitely not radiofrequency since there were not any overlapping sounds. If anyone knows, please let me know! It’s bugging me, ahh!

This is the Ancient Vietnam display at the museum – they also had a modern Vietnam display too but I forgot to take photos of that.

Vietnamese instrument, Đàn tranh, at the modern Vietnam display.

Mongol people, Ulaanbaatar, 2003. In traditional Buddhist Tsam masked dance, Shava (the deer) heralds new life and brings fertility to peoples’ herds.

In the early1880s, Portuguese immigrants from Madeira began making small, guitar-like instruments in Honolulu, Hawaii. The instrument became popular among local Hawaiians, who renamed it ‘ukulele’, meaning “jumping flea.” King Kalakaua even declared it officially Hawaiian. Loved for its diminutive size and bright tone, the ukulele quickly spread throughout Oceania and beyond.

The totem pole!

The hip hop display. LOVE!

I had such a fun time at MIM and I definitely recommend checking out this museum if you’re in Phoenix, Arizona. The museum is open daily from 9 am to 5 pm. In addition, they have events happening all the time, such as concerts, special exhibits, etc.

For more information, check out their website, Musical Instrument Museum.