Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Haus Der Musik

Haus Der Musik

Told you I was going to have to talk about Haus Der Musik. It is truly blog worthy, even thought i visited it going on 5 years ago. It actually sticks out like a mad thing in my head even after these years, and all the other things i saw on that trip!

The Haus Der Musik or Sound Museum is in the gorgeous city of Vienna, n Austria. If you have never been to Vienna I would highly recommend it, it’s beautiful, the people were really nice, and they have all these cool things, like break dancers busking (is that the word for dancers?) in the street next to 4 piece string ensembles and Baroque choirs.

They also have the Ferris Wheel made famous in the Orson Welles film The Third Man. ‘He’ll have you in a dither with his zither’! Anyway apart from being so excited, about the Ferris Wheel, which did not disappoint, i was delighted by the Haus Der Musik.

The museum is set in a former Palace which gives you a nice indication of how fabulous it is! The ground floor holds an old style exhibition about teh Viennese Philharmonic ho held world famous concerts here.

You can also conduct your own virtual orchestra which really brings out the inner child, (who tends to enjoy the whole museum as much as your grown up self). The best bit is probably the New Year’s Concert Experience, which I always remembered my mam making me watch on tv when I was small.

You then pop upstairs to the womb room. This was a very weird but very interesting experience. You sit in a room which has been designed to recreate the feeling and sounds of being inside the womb. Well since i can’t remember it the first time, it seems to be what i imagine it to be like!

After that there are a series of the funnest interactive gamey toy music sensory things ever! With names like Polyphonium, Sound Gallery, Evolution Machine, Instrumentarium, and Sea of Voices. These ARE as good as they sound. If you’ve got kids, bring them, if not go anyway! So much fun.


In a "prenatal sensory rush", visitors relive their first musical experience many years after their birth. here is the Sound Gallery, in which noises and sounds from the fields of microcosm and macrocosm, environment and the human body are listened to individually and are being mixed with one's own voice and well known melodies to then be recorded on a CD with the Evolution Machine.


It's amazing how many really really famous and influential composers lived or were from Austria - including Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss, Mahler. This is just what i'm talking about, being in a place with so many humbling historical figures is really amazing, I know how clichéd that sounds but i don't care.

The museum continues upstairs into the brain opera, and the mind forest! maybe you just need to see it!

I'm getting close to the end of my fairly pointless rant, just go, Vienna is gorgeous, and the Haus Der Musik is something really special.

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