Face the Music at the Musical Instrument Museum

Outside, the golden-brown walls and lush desert foliage draw me in. The textures and shapes and colors blend into the Southwest landscape.

Once inside the spacious, light-filled lobby, I am surprised that one of the largest museums on the planet dedicated to musical instruments is so, well, quiet. Looking around, everyone is wearing headphones. I don a set and let the place take me — and my ears — on a musical journey around the world.

From accordions to zithers and everything in between, the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) is home to a global collection of over 12,000 musical instruments with 4,200 currently on display. The museum’s galleries represent musical traditions from more than 200 countries and territories that reflect the rich diversity and history of many world cultures, and what we all have in common. A thought powerfully expressed in the museum’s motto: Music is the language of the soul.

The MIM is the brainchild of Robert J. Ulrich, former chairman and chief executive of Target Corporation. In 2010, after a visit to a similar museum in Brussels, Belgium, he was inspired to create a museum unlike any other — one that went beyond Western music.

“The Musical Instrument Museum would be truly global, representing every country in the world and displaying instruments as they were played together, rather than by age or type,” says Ulrich, envisioning a place that would provide guests an opportunity “to hear, see, and feel the powerful and uniting force of music in an entirely new way.”

It was an ambitious vision, one he turned into reality. Since its opening 15 years ago, more than 3.9 million guests have walked through its doors.

Most museums and galleries are seen as quiet spaces, for looking but not touching. At MIM, you are invited to make some noise. It’s a place where playing the instruments and making music are actually encouraged.

Within the 75,000 square feet of gallery space, a 450-foot-long river-like corridor called “El Rio” creates the spine of the museum that links the central atrium to the interior galleries. The Geographic Galleries feature rare and historic instruments from every corner of the globe. Additional rooms include the Experience Gallery, the Mechanical Music Gallery, the Artist Gallery, and the Target Gallery, which features special exhibitions.

Galleries feature high-resolution video screens that are mounted beside the displays. The headphones automatically connect the visual or audio at each display as you move around the rooms, bringing the instruments to life, enabling visitors to hear the sounds they produce and to see them in action within their cultural contexts.

I head upstairs to check out the museum’s extensive core collections, arranged by geography: Europe, Asia, Latin America, Middle East, and United States/Canada.

I am intrigued by a large African slit drum — built from a hollowed tree trunk and used to exchange “tonal messages” from one village to the next. Also garnering my attention, the pungi — made from a dry hollowed gourd with two bamboo attachments — produces a high, thin tone and continuous low humming often associated with snake charmers in India.

Almost anything and everything can be used to create a musical instrument. Beeswax, sharkskin and sheepskin, tortoise shells and coconut shells, grass and gourds, bamboo and silk — not to mention metals such as bronze, steel, silver, and gold. Consider the marimba de tecomates (gourd-resonated xylophone) from Guatemala that is made from wood, gourds, twine, native fiber, beeswax, and pig intestine. Young musicians from a Paraguayan slum transformed trash from a landfill — discarded oil drums, water pipes, wooden spoons, utensils — into chamber music instruments on display in the Recycled Orchestra exhibit.

Taking care of the thousands of rare and significant instruments requires considerable expertise, time, energy, and meticulous attention to detail.

“MIM uses general and specific preventive conservation protocols, including keeping the instruments and objects clean, and ensuring the instruments are in stable condition,” says conservator Rodrigo Correa-Salas, who protects some of the world’s rarest instruments. “Thanks to ongoing research, testing, and experimentation, conservators can apply treatments that avoid harm to objects, preserving them responsibly.”

Acquiring instruments for the conservator to care for is also a daunting task. Curators sometimes travel thousands of miles to locate instruments for the collection.

“We make periodic visits to countries and specific locations around the world where curators meet with passionate collectors, instrument makers, musicians, and other museums — leading to acquisitions and loans of significant instruments that otherwise would be unobtainable,” says ethnomusicologist and curator Daniel Piper. “On my last trip to Mexico, for example, I acquired a beautiful 1930s indigenous harp in a remote village of the Tenek people, visited recording artists in Veracruz who helped me acquire several small and idiosyncratic son jarocho and son huasteco guitars, and evaluated a major 800-object private collection in Yucatán state.”

Putting the immersive exhibits together requires a lot of collaboration.

“Every aspect of the hundreds of exhibits in MIM’s galleries is beautifully designed and meticulously executed by a specialized team including curators, designers, mount-makers, multimedia producers, conservator, editor, and an installation team,” says Piper. “Guests love the dynamic and accessible way instruments are presented and the seamless integration of video and graphics throughout the museum.”

As I wander through the Artist Gallery, I revisit musicians and songs that made a big impact on my life and I’m sure many others. There, you’ll find instruments, stage outfits, awards, and rare memorabilia from some of the world’s most popular and influential performers, including Elvis Presley, Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, Johnny Cash, Carlos Santana, Pablo Casals, George Benson, Buddy Rich, and Glen Campbell. The collection takes you on a journey through some turning points in the guitar’s history, from the world’s earliest-known guitar to the first electric guitar ever produced known as the “Frying Pan” because of its shape.

The museum’s “workshop” displays give you a behind- the-scenes look at how instruments are made, including a Steinway piano and Martin guitars. You’ll also find out why the first Steinway piano is also known as the “Kitchen Piano.” (Big hint: It was built in Heinrich Steinway’s kitchen in Seesen, Germany, in 1836. Who knew?)

The grand harmonicon — a set of glasses — is played by running a moistened finger around the rims, producing an eerie, otherworldly sound. The instrument fell out of favor amid rumors it caused madness.

Don’t miss the Mechanical Music Gallery that holds a collection of self-playing instruments — music boxes, clockwork, barrel organs, and musical automatons — that were found in homes, particularly among the wealthy, as well as used in public spaces like fairgrounds and street entertainment.

The current special exhibition in the Target Gallery running through September 14, 2025, is “Stradivarius and the Golden Age of Violins and Guitars.” The show presents more than 70 of the most extraordinary instruments from iconic European makers of the 16th to the 19th century, including the 1726 “Tartini” Stradivari violin, which is on public display for the first time. Another highlight is a rare Stradivari mandolino coristo and its original case — one of only two surviving mandolins Stradivari is known to have made — as well as violins by Andrea Amati and Giuseppe Guarneri, bows by François Xavier Tourte and Dominique Peccatte, and guitars by Matteo Sellas, Alexandre Voboam, and Joachim Tielke, among others.

It’s in the museum’s Experience Gallery where touching and actual music making are encouraged. As I beat a large communal drum with a mallet, others were test-driving a wide variety of other instruments, such as a Javanese gamelan, a West African djembe, a Peruvian harp, and more. The hands-on space is fun for families and guests of all ages.

Four hours later and still so much more to see — but I know I’ll be back. The music draws me in.

Patrick Perry is the Post’s editor-in-chief.

This article is featured in the May/June 2025 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.