L.A.'s GRAMMY Museum Launches Interactive Sonic Playground Exhibit

Yahoo

28-02-2025

The GRAMMY Museum's newest permanent exhibit, Sonic Playground, features a stage with real instruments visitors can use.When describing the GRAMMY Museum's new interactive exhibit, Sonic Playground, Chief Curator and Vice President of Curatorial Affairs Jasen Emmons described the installation as a safe space for people to discover music."For me, Sonic Playground is a way to have people realize they can make music themselves, but it's also a way to help deepen people's appreciation for music, because even if they don't become a musician themselves, they understand what it takes to create music," said Emmons.The GRAMMY Museum opened its newest permanent exhibit, Sonic Playground, on February 14. The exhibit features different interactive opportunities for both kids and adults to enjoy.With its non-traditional interface focused on connection, Sonic Playground provides a hands-on experience by combining music, technology and education.
The heart of the exhibit is its Electric Forest. 16 vibrant poles stand tall and act as audio levels, and visitors can interact with the exhibit by motioning their hand up or down to raise or lower the volume of a certain sound."What this leads to is the potential of discovery... you might go and you might raise three poles that are three strings playing in harmony, but you might also then hear a combination of say, cello with banjo, with electric bass, with synthesizer," said Shaun Chasin, a film, television and video game composer who created the music for the Electric Forest.
The 16 different poles are based on a 19-minute original composition by Chasin, which allows each visitor to create a blend of light and sound completely unique to themselves."One of our main goals with this is that we wanted to give, especially young people, the ability to feel like they had control over music," said Chasin. "What we might be fighting against is, say, somebody who took piano lessons with the neighbor down the street, who was really mean to them, and they hated it, and they lost whatever would have been a passion for music."Chasin describes the composition as a "balancing act." He began writing the music in November, recorded by the end of December, and installed it in the museum in January."There's never a big chunk of silence at the park. And so that leads to the challenge that you don't want it to be overly busy, where there's just tons of things happening," said Chasin. "It has to be able to work in any combination of those stems, where you might hear two [poles] together and they sound like they could work, but you might hear 16 together and that also has to work."In addition, the exhibit offers a stage with real instruments, a DJ set, a SoundTrax Career Wall, that showcases different job opportunities in the industry and sound booths where users can practice their singing skills, play with instruments and rap over artists' original tracks. The installation serves as the museum's most interactive space."We've had interactives before, but in this space we have 17 different interactives and 51 people at any one time could be doing something," said Emmons. "This space was really designed to be fully hands on."The museum aims to serve as a community and educational space for visitors."Education is really the cornerstone of what everything the museum does, whether it's a public program and you get to hear it firsthand from an artist or coming into the space and learning more [about] how to make music. And also the workshops and programs that we offer," said Emmons.The GRAMMY Museum worked with a Youth Advisory Board throughout the creation of Sonic Playground.Maya Delgado, a high school senior and Youth Advisory Board Member, first learned about Sonic Playground through the GRAMMY Museum's Student Showcase.She recalled meeting Emmons and discussing the Sonic Playground. From there, she began attending meetings with other students interested in the project."It's been a really great learning experience and I'm really thankful that the GRAMMY Museum values the opinions of the youth and they want to include them in everything they're doing when it comes to music education and just bringing awareness to the music industry," said Delgado.
While she says the process of putting the exhibit together was a great experience, seeing people interact with the space has been "the most rewarding part.""I hope that everyone can find something that resonates with them here," said Delgado. "I hope that everyone can discover their own potential within the music industry through just play and through fun and through collaboration because I feel like that's where everything really starts."Sonic Playground is dedicated to the legacy of Jim Long and was made possible by the Long Family Trust and additional support from Roland Corporation and is the cornerstone of the GRAMMY Museum's Campaign For Music Education, which was launched in 2022.The museum announced that they will offer free general admission for all visitors ages 17 and under. They have also expanded their fundraising goals to $10 million after surpassing its original $5 million goal.These funds will go towards expanding the museum's education and community programs such as, GRAMMY Camp, GRAMMY In The Schools and the Quinn Coleman Scholarship Fund.
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