I’m currently in the process of traveling from Las Vegas to San Diego for an event at the San Diego Convention Center. Instead of flying straight there, I decided to stop by Los Angeles County first to visit some friends, then finish the journey via car. I could’ve just finished the drive in one session, but I decided to split it up and spend some time in northern San Diego County being a tourist because it’s conveniently on the way there.
Because of how much traveling I’ve done in the United States, I have begun to vaguely fall into the “basically seen everything” bucket at this point (for my country). Consequently, when I visit a new city, I like to check stuff out that is unique and distinct to that particular city that I can’t find elsewhere; this strategy has helped me continue my exposure to novel experiences throughout my adventures.
On an unrelated note, I like music.
One of the activities I decided to do part-way to San Diego was to visit the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, California. I felt like this museum hit my two aforementioned metrics well—I haven’t really seen too many other museums dedicated to music (the only other one that comes to mind that I’ve been to is Studio Bell, Home of the National Music Center), and it covered one of my topics of interest.
Upon entering the museum, I paid US$15.00 for a general admission ticket and was greeted by a docent who spent some time showing me an introductory short film and explained how to get the most out of my museum experience. From there, I was on my own to explore at my own leisure, which I did for the next couple hours.
I was a little tight on time because I had a dinner reservation for 5 PM PDT that day, which I picked as the earliest available time slot due to wanting to finish the drive to San Diego that same evening and make it into my hotel before it got too late into the night. Sometimes, a couple hours is enough for a museum, but at the Museum of Making Music, I felt like a couple hours is only sufficient for a rushed experience.
Each station not only had many instruments in the exhibit, but an interactive screen where you could learn more about each item on display. It also had a lot of videos with performances using the displayed instruments, along with behind-the-scenes looks at how makes and models of those instruments are produced. Beyond just the exhibits, there were also sections of the museum containing sample instruments that you could try out.
I think if you just want to quickly skim the exhibits and look at things, a couple hours is fine. However, if you’re a music enthusiast like me, you can easily fill 4-5 hours (or more) in this museum by reading all the information about the exhibits, watching the videos of performances, learning about how all the instruments are made, and playing all the instruments in the sections you’re allowed to touch. There are a nice variety of guitars available to try—even some decently pricey ones. There was also a DJ controller with a tutorial so you can learn how to mix music.
After my somewhat abridged experience, and considering its relatively low admission price compared to other Southern California museums, I would recommend it for pretty much anyone—a glowingly high recommendation for those passionate about music, and a moderate recommendation for everyone else.
Here are some photographs I took during my visit:
