Whales compose, bullfrogs chorus, songbirds greet the dawn, and people everywhere sing and dance. What do we all have in common? Visitors to the Museum of Science, Boston will find out when the Museum opens its newest temporary exhibit, Wild Music: Sounds and Songs of Life. Presented Sunday, October 4, 2009 through January 3, 2010, Wild Music is a hands-on exhibit that explores sound and music in nature and in life.
The Museum will kick off opening day with Wild Music Celebration, Sunday, October 4, an all-day event featuring live music performances from around the globe. Admission to Wild Music Celebration and the Wild Music exhibit is included with regular exhibit halls admission. The exhibit is fully bilingual (English and Spanish) and designed with an eye to accessibility.
Wild Music invites visitors of all ages to expand their understanding of what makes music. Through exciting, hands-on activities, they'll not only hear the music that surrounds them every day, but they'll see and even feel it too. They'll discover that nature is filled with "musicians" that create the distinct musical masterpieces to communicate with and relate to one another. And they'll explore how human music is inspired by the music of other living creatures—from tiny insects to giant whales.
Highlights of Wild Music include:
* Three different "Soundscapes" that invite visitors to explore sound and music that comes from the ocean, the forest, and the city. Visitors will learn to interpret spectrograms, or "pictures" of bird songs, learn what whale cries tell us about the animal's life cycle, see samples of instruments from around the world, experiment with how sound travels underwater, explore how music influences memory, and more.
* The Jamming Room, a soundproof practice studio where visitors can use pre-recorded audio soundscapes, animal voices, percussion instruments, and live vocals to compose their own musical masterpieces.
* The Bioacoustic Lab, where visitors can experiment with how the human voice works and how it compares to that of other animals, specifically birds. Here, visitors can explore a model of the human larynx and the bird syrinx, feel what it's like to communicate through an electrolarynx device using vibrations of the throat to "speak" and "feel" their voices through a set of vibrating metal reeds.
* The Power of Sound and Music Theater, where visitors can sit back, relax, and experience sounds from around the world. The seven-minute, sound-driven video demonstratesa??both visually and audiblya??how animals use sound to identify themselves, communicate, and form and nurture social groups.
With its hands-on activities and music samples drawn from natural soundscapes across the globe, Wild Music invites visitors to celebrate every note of every player in the symphony of life.
The vision of the Museum of Science is one where everyone can participate equally in the excitement of science and technology learning. Wild Music is designed with a special effort to make the exhibition accessible, particularly for those who are blind or have low vision, by incorporating tactile experiences, controls and graphics, narration in computer interactives, and audio descriptions. This exhibition is also accessible for visitors that are deaf or hard of hearing with visual representations of sound, by feeling sound through speakers in the theater, as well as video captioning. The exhibit is fully bilingual (English and Spanish), and as always, sighted guide tours will be offered for visitors who are blind or have low vision.
To complement the Wild Music exhibit, the Museum of Science will present several exciting programs. These offerings will enhance the experience of this exhibit and amplify the importance of music in our everyday lives.
Tuneful Treatments | Friday, October 2; 7:00 p.m.
Mark Jude Tramo, MD, PhD, director, The Institute for Music & Brain Science, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital; neurologist, musician, and composer; Suzanne Hanser, EdD, MT-BC, chair, Department of Music Therapy, Berklee College of Music; music therapist, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; research associate, Brandeis University
Music not only energizes and calms us; research shows that it has powerful healing properties. Music can ease pain, lower blood pressure, and relieve anxiety and depression. It can even alleviate the symptoms of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, mitigate the side effects of cancer, and help premature babies gain weight faster. Join us for a fascinating discussion, punctuated with musical examples, of how the neurobiological foundations of music are leading to new treatments for a variety of health problems.
Music on My Brain: A Conversation with Daniel J. Levitin and Rosanne Cash
Part of the Celebrity Science Series | A Reno Family Foundation Symposium | Wednesday, October 21; 7:00 p.m.
Daniel J. Levitin, PhD James McGill Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, McGill University; director, Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition, and Expertise; author, This is Your Brain on Music and The World in Six Songs; Rosanne Cash, Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter; author
How does music evoke our emotions? Why does music play such an important role in our lives? Join us for a noteworthy evening with neuroscientist Daniel Levitin and artist Rosanne Cash. Levitin is a rock star of science who has worked with Sting, David Bryne, and others. Cash, who has been performing, recording, and writing songs for 30 years and is the daughter of the legendary Johnny Cash, underwent brain surgery in 2007 and brings a unique perspective to music on our minds.
Genes & Jazz | Wednesday, November 4; 7:30 p.m.
Harold Varmus, MD, Nobel Prize winner; president, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Jacob Varmus, trumpeter and composer, The Jacob Varmus Quintet
What do DNA and music have in common? Nobel Prize-winner Harold Varmus teams up with son Jacob Varmus, jazz trumpeter and composer, to explore the ways in which genes and notes affect complex organisms and compelling music. This father-son duo compares cell biology to musical development through a multimedia experience that features a performance by the Jacob Varmus Quintet. -- www.mos.org
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