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| - When I was a kid we lived near one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. I recall visiting it exactly once. Now that I live in Phoenix, when they built the MIM almost walking distance from my house I swore I would visit it "soon". Now 7 years later I finally did with an out-of-town guest, thinking how could it take more than a couple of hours to see.
Let's cut to the chase ... we were practically running through the exhibits and in an entire afternoon barely scratched the surface. It was so interesting and there is so much to see I bought a sponsorship so I could drop by over the next year to take it in a little at a time.
To go into any details would be a bit of a spoiler so I'll let you just experience it for yourself. But I will mention a couple of things that surprised me in a non-positive way.
Other than the events, performances and special exhibits the MIM produces, the place can be best described as a museum of musical instruments (duh), segregated primarily geographically. The vast majority of them have a small TV screen mounted in the display. As a TV Systems Engineer and award-winning video producer I will guess that a large part of their budget went toward that sophisticated video system.
The videos run non-stop, most of them containing short clips which you can hear through wireless headphones triggered by a proximity sensor. The audio is in stereo when the soundtrack permits and is pretty good. That's my first complaint, they should not have settled for "pretty good" at a museum dedicated to music and musical instruments. The sound transmission is sporadic and is constantly cutting in and out and, another complaint, there is nothing to let you know when you should be hearing sound. I walked through entire areas not knowing if I should be hearing anything or not.
When you are watching the videos (you may discover this quite by accident) there is a tiny printed card hidden somewhere in the display that briefly explains each clip. And I stress the word briefly. 95% of the time I yearned for more information.
Then the video clips themselves ... I applaud the museum for including some wonderful historic footage. Unfortunately a huge portion of the videos look ancient even when they're not. Many are random clips from TV shows or the internet and most are edited with a machete and spliced together with duct tape. I don't think one video I saw was custom created. With all of the expense they put into building this beautiful museum and a blank canvas (not to mention a blank check) to create something truly special and unique it is an absolute pity they couldn't spare a few dollars to hire a professional video editor and continuity director.
Last on my disappointment list is that I fully expected the videos to show a musician playing examples of the instruments on display, or better yet the actual instruments themselves if they were playable. Nope! The videos rarely if ever had anything to do with the actual instruments I was looking at. That was a sadly missed opportunity for them to make my visit to their museum a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Do I recommend MIM? Yes, enthusiastically (remember I donated a sponsorship). If you have kids/grandkids it's an absolute must-see. And if you have any love and appreciation for music in your body you will never see anything like MIM anywhere else.
And to the people running MIM? I suggest you take a retreat to a mountain cabin for a week and reflect back on your first 7 years and take a long honest look at what you did right, and what wonderful opportunities you have to do it even better going forward.
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