I went to the MIM today for their opening with the girlfriend. It was a pretty fun experience, but it's definitely not operating at 100% yet--many, many exhibits were still listed as under construction, and plenty with the a/v setup were missing the accompanying text placards which annoyed me.\n\nThe price is $15 for adults and includes an audio headset that will automatically tune to whatever exhibit you're standing in front of. This technology isn't bulletproof, but with the receiver box in my pocket, I had no real issues: walk up to a display, the sound starts playing for that display's TV. Much better than having to dial in to every single exhibit, and lets you float from display to display with ease. \n\nThe displays themselves are a bit dry. The formula is basically: country of origin, some instruments from said country, TV playing a few short pieces on a loop demonstrating said instruments. There are placards on many of the displays that talk a bit more about some of the cultures and backgrounds, but these are still missing at a bunch of displays. (Forgivable, as I'm sure they're working on it and today was their grand opening.) More frustrating was the lack of information about many of the specific instruments they had on display. There is a simple name, date, and material placard, but I would be much more interested to know certain details about many, many of the instruments on display, regarding their specific manufacture and history and craftsmanship, but this was only available on a relative few of the instruments there.\n\nThat said, there are TONS of instruments there, including some really great ones you've surely never seen before. (One of my favorites was basically a stringed, fiddle-like instrument amplified with a brass horn.) Basically every single country in the world and many other regions are represented, though I thought it peculiar that Eritrea and Ethiopia shared a display, considering their hate for each other and very recent war--I know the two nations are close and likely have incredibly similar musical histories and instruments, but it just seems a bit strange.\n\nThe facility itself is beautiful. It's all brand new, clearly, and crafted in a sweeping limestone-looking facade. There's plenty of room and the building is well laid out. \n\nWe arrived around 2:00 and spent a good two hours upstairs in their instruments exhibits, before grabbing a drink at the cafe. Neither of us realized how quickly the time had passed, so by the time we were in the artist exhibit room, the 15 minute warning had come over the loudspeaker.\n\nThe Artist Exhibits room was really quite cool. John Lennon's \"Imagine\" piano was on display with a ridiculously short clip of him playing on it. Eric Clapton's display was really fun to see as well, along with Paul Simon's. And then, as I turned the corner, I happened upon, I shit you not, a Jonas Brothers display. What. The. Fuck. (Lovingly donated by the Jonas Brothers.) I physically avoided it so as to keep their music from coming over my headset, but I truly was disappointed that the bar was lowered to \"any Disney-pop boy band that sends a few instruments\" to be featured here in a room with Paul Simon, Eric Clapton, and John fucking Lennon, amongst others. Even the Black Eyed Peas exhibit donated by their drummer showed some talent, but I guess I had hoped that a more esteemable career might be necessary to be featured in such an exhibit.\n\nAfter blazing through that room, we quickly moved into the Mechanical Music exhibit which was really fun: instruments designed to play themselves like player pianos and other crazy contraptions, including a huge built-in... I don't know what to call it. An enormous organ-type device that was playing all sorts of instruments on its own, quite loudly, but in a very fun manner.\n\nWe quickly moved through there and then pushed down towards the Conservation Lab: Behind a huge glass wall, you can see their conservators inside working on instruments which was really fun, but we didn't get to explore in there at all.\n\nOpposite that room was the hands-on exhibit, which I was *really* excited to dive in to, but just as we got our hands \"on\" the Theremin, (a device you play by moving your hands above an antenna) we were promptly told the museum was closing. At 4:50pm. Look, I understand that 5:00pm is closing time and they want to start wrangling people towards the exits, but I could've *really* enjoyed just those remaining 10 minutes in there, and it was frustrating that I didn't get it. \n\nThe upstairs is interesting, but it quickly becomes a bit of \"more of the same\" and a bit of overload--you'll want to pace yourself, because there are just so. many. instruments that you start doing drive bys instead of really soaking things in. That, combined with the disappointing lack of collateral information visible to read on each display made me really wish we had started downstairs. \n\nI'll give it another shot when they've settled in, I think.
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