the galleries

The mim collection is displayed on four floors, each with its own perspective.

A room with themed exhibits offers a chronological journey from music in ancient Egypt to experimentation with historical performance practice from the nineteenth century. Here you will discover that the violin has not always enjoyed as much respect in the West as it has today, and how the fashion tastes of the European aristocracy and bourgeoisie have influenced the way musical instruments are made.

In a second room you'll find string and keyboard instruments arranged in systematic order. The various types of harpsichord, organ, harp and piano stand side by side and visitors can have a peek into a real violin makers' workshop.

A favourite for many visitors is the room dedicated to traditional musical instruments. The tour starts in Belgium and passes through a whole series of European traditions to cultures from around the world. Besides the well-known Scottish version, many more countries appear to have their own type of bagpipes, Tibetan monks make musical instruments out of the bones of their deceased colleagues, and African slit drums are the local form of Twitter.

Finally, "Musicus mechanicus" is the title of the collection of mechanical, electrical and electronic instruments. The showpiece is the componium, a nineteenth-century orchestrion that automatically composes an infinite variety of music! On this floor you will also find clocks and bells. The Sound Lab, an interactive space where you can experiment with acoustic principles, is temporarily closed.

All this is illustrated with panel texts (in French and Dutch only), iconography and a free sound system.

The mim soundscape consists of 194 musical fragments spread over 89 listening points, amounting to 4 hours of music. You can pick up factsheets about what you hear (and return them after your visit) at the entrance and exit to each exhibition room. The principle could not be simpler: your quality headphones from Sennheiser include a receiver that automatically receives signals from transmitters in the ceiling. Once you enter a listening area, you hear music to illustrate the instruments that you see before you. The listening points are marked with stickers on the floor. Many of the sounds were recorded specifically for our sound system, some even using the exhibits themselves.