June 25th, 2024. Day 6, pt 2: the Musical Instruments Museum

Again, here’s the beautiful exterior of the museum building.
— at Musical Instrument Museum.

Day 6, pt 2: the Musical Instruments Museum

Brussels has a ton of museums, but we decided this was the only one we NEEDED to go to (I enjoy museums, but with limited time in a city I’d rather walk around and see more of the city itself). The MIM is awesome! 15 Euro admission includes an audio guide where you can listen to many of the instruments on display.

The have an impressive collection of traditional instruments from around the world, European folk instruments, lots of Adolphe Sax’s creations, European concert/parlor instruments, and a whole floor for keyboards. Though there were a few modern synthesizers and some early electric instruments, generally the collection seemed to stop around the mid 1900s. No American folk instruments (that we saw), and no steel pan (my one criticism). But it was really cool to see so many different types of world instruments all in one place, and get to hear what they sounded like.

They start you in the basement where there are lots of organ-family creations.
— at Musical Instrument Museum.
…and early electronics
The Dreaded Wall of Squeezeboxes!
We have this world music reference book at HMT that lists a bunch of these African stringed instruments – it was cool to see them IRL!
I actually really loved hearing the audio examples of bagpipes from around the world!
These “cellos” are actually rhythmic/percussion instruments in Eastern European folk music.
Before there were pedal harps, the strings did THIS…
I did not know this!
The oldest instruments on display
Now we’re on the keyboard instruments floor
Many of the European instruments on display were mainly played by women…

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