Musical Instruments Museum — Attraction in Brussels

As a musician with an interest in the construction and history of musical instruments of all types, I thought that this museum would be amazing. The collections on display are indeed incredible, and I spent a long time there, but I found myself growing a little frustrated as it just felt like a dry, stuffy tour rather than an interactive, innovative and informative overall experience. I think this was due to two things: a general lack of information or context for each instrument, and a lack of interactivity.

Clearly, it's not practical to allow visitors to play these beautiful historic artefacts, or to offer wind/brass instruments to play at all, but I was hoping to at least have some more interactive displays, such as demonstrations of interesting mechanisms either via video or in person, or playable keyboard instruments. There is one piano that can be played, but it is a relatively unloved upright piano in an otherwise-silent room about the building's architecture and feels like an afterthought.

The audio guides worked fine for me, and did enhance the experience somewhat, but I felt that overall I ended up walking around in silence listening to recordings of old instruments that happened to be in the same room as me.

It seemed that the vast majority of instruments were presented in glass cases without much information (eg, 'clarinet, Germany, 1746'). Some did have really interesting and informative information boards, but all of these instruments must have deeply interesting histories, and I really felt that that was omitted for the majority.

It really felt like a tour of a big collection to be undertaken in silence, rather than an engrossing opportunity to celebrate and interact with the rich history of music-making and instrument engineering.

One highlight was a large organ on the bottom floor, which was switched on during my visit. Watching and hearing such an impressive piece of engineering in person was really enjoyable, even though I only got to witness it from a balcony several floors up. More publicity of this would have been great - I would imagine quite an audience would have turned up. This is the kind of thing that I think is otherwise missing from the MIM. A music museum should be noisy, interactive and exciting, but I felt that my experience was mostly of the opposite - silent corridors lined with hundreds of instruments with no real guidance or interactivity.

I would have loved to have written a different review, but I really was disappointed and felt that it was a rather dry and un-innovative experience. With such an impressive collection there are so many opportunities to connect people with those who constructed and played these instruments, but instead I felt that the visitor only got to look at them through glass and listen to audio recordings through cheap headphones for a few hours.

The facilities and staff were generally very good, and we appreciated the free lockers by...

What an unexpected delight this museum is! A museum of musical instruments might sound rather narrow in terms of its focus (who wants to go around dusty galleries looking at lots of them?), but the reality is that it's both educational and fun. That fun and enjoyment comes courtesy of the 'audio tour' (free), which is absolutely essential - do NOT visit without partaking of it. The audio brings the instruments to life - it is about sound, musical sound, after all - so being able to hear so many of them provides the extra dimension required to transform what would otherwise be a static and rather boring experience. We loved it. A couple of things - we found the place a bit stuffy and warm (the gift shop, for example, was overbearingly warm for our liking, even with numerous fans on the go). The directions to the numerous floors are too vague, and hard to locate: you only learn that there are other floors if you go to an entrance/exit and read the not-well expressed signs - and then instructions on how to get to those floors is assumed to be obvious when it actually isn't for the first-time visitor. Wait - there's a basement? One of our three found it, but the other two of us - going our separate ways around the galleries - didn't. Adding to the confusion is that on entering the ground floor, you find that the exhibits are numbered. Of course, we want to start with exhibit #1. But where is it? We never did find out, and so came to ramble our way around ignoring the numbering system. One other complaint, and we understand that refurbishments are taking place, is that the refreshment facilities were closed (apparently there's a roof terrace/cafe, which would have been great, I'm sure). Two hours in to our visit and we were gasping for some refreshment and a bit of fresh air. We would have loved to have spent even more time here, but for the need of those essentials. Even finding a toilet was a problem (Jeez, I've reached an age where toilets are important? That's sad!). But, and to continue and to better accentuate the positive, seeing what is probably the earliest 'portable record player' in the world, and admiring the creations of Adolphe Sax, and hearing all the fantastic sounds of so many of the eclectic instruments gathered from across cultures and ages was a fantastic experience - and one that we would very much like to repeat. Seriously, dear reader, take a trip here. Allow yourself a good couple of hours - listen, look and enjoy. It's...

I should first give a disclaimer that I did have some expectations before visiting this museum which inevitably lead to disappointment.

The museum houses a massive collection of musical instruments both European and from other countries, although there is a large focus on instruments found in Belgium. You receive an audio guide along with your ticket which you use to listen to recordings of the instruments on display. The concept itself is fantastic however this museum has two letdowns which in my opinion are its layout and its curation.

I found the layout of the museum to be a little confusing. The entrance is located on level 0 however there are levels -1 to 2. It wasn't immediately obvious that this was the case and it actually took a bit of walking around level 0 before we realised we needed to go down to level -1 to begin. Each instrument which has an audio piece is labelled with a number. We followed the "all instruments" tour however it gets frustrating quickly because the instruments are not arranged in an order which makes it easy to move on sequentially to the next one. As such the next instrument is "72" but you end up having to walk around searching for 72. If you're not following onw of the audio tours then this is no problem.

Another let down is that the descriptions of the instruments are very poor. It would be great to have some text about a specific instrument to give some background. A lot of the instruments have audio without any text. This makes the experience a bit monotonous after a while. Many of the instruments have no audio nor written description at all.

Lastly if you are expecting to see various kinds of electric guitars or a drumset. You will be disappointed.

Bags, jackets and umbrellas are not permitted in the museum. Fortunately there are lockers and a room to hang up jackets. Unfortunately when we returned we found that one of our umbrellas had been taken. I'll choose to believe that it was just an honest mistake by some absentminded visitor.

Overall I still highly recommend this museum. You'll be amazed at some of the instruments in their collection and it's a fun and relaxing way to spend...