MIM

Holly is Scott's friend. They went through the same program at BYU together. She ended up here in the Phoenix area working at a museum - the MIM. The MIM stands for Musical Instruments Museum. The museum had displays and videos and instruments used in many different countries. The displays were grouped by continents and then countries. This museum was getting ready to open and Holly gave Scott some free pre-opening tickets. I expressed some interest in going so we arranged to meet out there one day at lunch. It is waaayyy over in Scottsdale. But we met up over there and went in. We were issued some earphones and a receiver and given some verbal instructions and were off.

Mom and I have quite a lot of experience with using earphone devices from our time in England. But with those we always had to make sure we started our device at the same time so that we were listening to and looking at the correct items at the same time. The earphones at the MIM were automatic - as you approached a display the information from that specific display was being broadcast and the receiver would pick it up. So that you could look at the museum in any particular order and get the correct information because it would receive it as you approached any of the displays. Pretty Cool!

Anyway, one of the main things I wanted to see was the Octo Bass. That means a bass that was 8 times the normal size - something like that. We ran into that right at the beginning. That was neat. Then we were off to see all the country displays. We really enjoyed it and thought everything was cool. We were a little limited in time there because Scott had to scoot off to work - but on the way out we met up with Holly and she showed us a really cool area downstairs that we didn't know about. It was the hands on area with instruments to handle and some you could try. The giant gong was another one of our favorite stops.

When we left they let us keep our free entry tickets to share them with anyone else who we thought might enjoy using them. I gave one set to the Marbles in the Black Canyon Ward - she loves music and instruments. I don't know if they ever used the tickets or not. But I gave another pair to a friend at tennis. She loves music too. Turns out her sister was in town from Colorado and they were looking for things to do. Better yet - her sister plays the bass in the symphony where she lives. They did go to the MIM and totally loved it. Then this lady took her gentleman friend with her a different day and loved it even more. So that was a real hit.

I guess I need to thank Holly for the tickets. The MIM is a unique museum with a good hook - music and instruments from around the world. I bet it is a hit for field trips for schools.