Malaga Interactive Music Museum
The Travel Pages visits the fun and fascinating Malaga Interactive Music Museum & its worldwide collection of musical instruments, some of which you can play.
Primitive Musical Instrument
Of all of Malaga’s many museums, the Malaga Interactive Music Museum is the one we enjoyed the most. Sorry, Picasso! That’s partly because we’re music nuts, but we’re sure anyone with even a passing interest in music would love the museum just as much.
The museum has a collection of about 1,000 musical instruments, of which around 400 are on display at any one time. It was founded in 2002, initially housed in an underground car park (!), but in 2013 moved to the rather more impressive Conde de las Navas Palace in the city centre. It’s a five-minute walk from the Plaza Merced.
It took us a few minutes to get into the museum because just as we arrived, a group of about 20-30 primary-age children were leaving, blocking the way as they all retrieved their little backpacks from their teachers. No matter, it was good to see children so young being introduced to the joys of music.
Please Play at the Malaga Interactive Music Museum
And one of the joys is the several areas in the museum where you’re encouraged to try your hand at playing various instruments (with tuition available on the screens), from the inevitable guitars to cellos, violins, harps, piano, xylophones, gongs, cajons and an electronic drum kit. Better not linger near there if your hearing is sensitive and there are energetic young kids about! Cajons are included partly because they’ve now been ‘borrowed’ from South America and incorporated as a flamenco instrument.
But we were delighted to discover we both had a hidden talent for the xylophone, and an ability to bang a gong. A moving scene was in the area where the drums and cajons are to be found. A father lifted himself out of a wheelchair and used a stick to walk over and seat himself at the drum kit. He proved to be a very able drummer indeed. He then waked unsteadily over to the two cajons and gave his daughter a lesson on keeping a beat.
Organisation of the Malaga Interactive Music Museum
The ‘Please play’ areas are in what is called the Red Spaces. There are also White Spaces, which is where you’ll find the larger instruments like pianos, that don’t fit easily into display cases, along with installations and temporary exhibitions.
The Black Spares are what contain the permanent collection. These are arranged in different themes. Some rooms have collections of instruments from the same family, such as stringed instruments or wind instruments. Others tell a particular story, like the origins of folk music or music ensembles. Then there are rooms which group instruments from the same part of the world.
There’s a final room where an old black and white comedy film plays, with its musical soundtrack, and when we were there a Spanish family were all falling about laughing at this. In this room are also methods of playing music, such as old gramophones, hurdy-gurdies and pianolas.
Impressive
What’s most impressive about the museum is the depth of information you get – which is why we ended up spending an entire afternoon there. Touch-screens allow you to hear every instrument on display being played. Photos match the instruments with what you can see around you in the display cabinets.
In addition, there is detailed information about each instrument in a very readable format, sometimes explaining how they’re made, or how they fit into a family of instruments, or where in the world you’ll find them, or how they developed over time from primitive instruments.
As we said earlier, this is the museum we enjoyed the most in Malaga, although some guidebooks and websites don’t even mention it as one of the city’s attractions. Better go see for yourself. You won’t regret it.
Visiting the Malaga Interactive Music Museum
Address: Calle Beatas, 15
Phone: +34 952 21 04 40
Website: musicaenaccion.com
All photos © Mike Gerrard for The Travel Pages
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