Miyamoto-Unosuke Drum Museum — Attraction in Tokyo

Hundreds of percussion instruments of all shapes and sizes are on display here, many of them waiting to be banged on by visitors - just look for the color-coded musical-note icons next to each exhibit.

Among the many playable drums, some visitor favorites include a set of steel drums from the Caribbean and a rather gigantic taiko drum from northern Japan. Listening stations are also scattered throughout the exhibit area, and you can enjoy samples of drumming from around the world, assuming that the drumming from around the room isn't too intense.

The array of instruments on display changes once or twice a year, as the museum's collection is much larger than its available display area. Some but not all of the instruments are labeled in English, and there's a small English-language handout describing the collection.

The drum museum is run by a long-established retailer that sells taiko drums, flutes, mikoshi shrines and other festival gear. Their main shop is a few blocks away, but there's a smaller shop on the ground floor of the museum building that sells cymbals, drumsticks and other musical gear, T-shirts and traditional festival clothing, and CDs and DVDs of...

The museum has 2 floors with shops stocking Taiko equipment from drumsticks to shoes all the way to drums that cost thousands of dollars. Very helpful English speaking staff and have tax free services if you purchase over 5000 yen. One bonus was the drumsticks name engraving which our Japanese friend said was available for only 324 yen (it was only mentioned in a Japanese sign). Apparently it normally takes a week to do, but we were leaving in 2 hours and the staff offered to have it done in 1 hour. Excellent service and the laser naming engraving was amazing. We also spent an hour on the fourth floor drum museum (500 yen) which is a small room with drums from all over the world, but of which you can play with. Well...

Drums from all over the world, and you can play a lot of them. Much better than expected. The museum is on 4F and also has audio samples of drum and other sounds (e.g. woodblock, gong, flute). Well suited for kids. The shop on 1F/2F sells lots of traditional instruments, not only Taiko, e.g. cymbals, woodblock, flutes, ...). They have a wide range of bachi (drum sticks), and also CDs with...