Musical Instrument Museum in Scottsdale AZ USA

dr bonkers

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While seeing my older brother who retired in Arizona, we decided to visit the Musical Instrument Museum :

https://www.mim.org

Amazing place to go if you are a musician. The 2nd floor is all world music instruments and US instruments. You can also see some vintage amps and recording equipment. Of note in the colection is Steve Vai's triple neck guitar. There are video/audio clips too so that you can hear the instruments in the context of the music they make.

You start to see how the patterns of trade started to shape people's take on a lute in several geographic regions, for example.

The first floor has a performance space, an experiential place where the kiddies can play hands on with different instruments, a restoration lab where you can see techs restoring instruments in real time, some more permanent collection instrument displays such as Andy Summers guitar, Hal Blaine's drums, and some of Eric Valentine's guitars including a plexiglass body Ibanez Jem with led lights.

There was also a special limited engagement history of the electric guitar exhibit which featured a 1930's Baldwin solid body electric, Bigsby electric guitar, many lap steel guitars, and a bunch of other stuff. A real treat was video/audio of George Benson playing several pieces of the collection through one of the vintage amps.

I highly recommend a trip here as a mind expansion experience.
 
Along these same lines, there's a guitar museum in Nashville next to the Belmont College library called "The Gig at Belmont"! Went there and they have some pretty rare and old guitars. Unfortunately they don't have clips of the guitars, but it's still really cool.

If I go to Scottsdale I'll definitely check out this museum!
 
I've been to the MIM several times when I used to live in Phoenix. It's a great way to spend a few hours. I just wish I could play some of the display instruments like the Chapman Stick or the 56 Les Paul! So tempting!
 
I've been to the MIM several times when I used to live in Phoenix. It's a great way to spend a few hours. I just wish I could play some of the display instruments like the Chapman Stick or the 56 Les Paul! So tempting!
Really that would be a great way to raise more dollars for the museum.

If I lived in the area, I would totally try to negotiate to try to ir capture some of those speaker cabs. Very unusual stuff.

We spent 3 hours in the museum and it felt like an hour.
 
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