How does one make music? Just get your hands on a string instrument like a violin, cello, or harp; a woodwind like a flute, oboe, or clarinet; brass like a trumpet or trombone; percussion like a drum, cymbals, or xylophone; or electronic instruments like synthesizers that are plugged into an amplifier that drives a loudspeaker.
However, there are also ways to make beautiful music by using your body weight, sensors, hitting a bottle filled with water or stone tiles with a mallet, walking along a string, or thumping the soles of flip-flops on drainpipes.
An exciting new exhibition called Tune In! that will be open for a year at Jerusalem’s Bloomfield Science Museum (mada.org.il/en) promises to be fascinating for children and adults alike.
Visitors can build their own harmonica by sandwiching two sticks and a piece of fabric between two wooden tongue depressors used by doctors to look into your throat.
This experiential family journey explores sounds and rhythms in fun and unexpected ways, promoting curiosity and engaging the senses with original instruments that encourage playful and creative exploration of music.
Its celebration of science also includes a dark room with experiments on light and an investigation of water and foam that will close at the end of the summer.
Making a musical exhibit
The interactive music exhibition was built mainly by the museum’s talented staff and also partially by internationally renowned artist Michael Bradke, an interdisciplinary creator at the crossroads of art, science, and technology at the Mobile Music Museum in Germany.
Bradke was supposed to come to Jerusalem but couldn’t make it due to the war with Iran; instead, he gave advice to the Bloomfield team via Zoom. Responsible for the design implementation and production were Omer Itzhakov and Michael Doron, while Uri Sinai was in charge of the project.
The Bottle Gong exhibit of colored bottles filled with various amounts of water makes beautiful music just by hitting them with a mallet. The more the water, the slower the vibrations and the lower the sound.
If you blow into a bottle, the opposite is true. The top row creates tones, and the bottom row makes semitones just like a piano, so you can actually play a favorite melody. A century ago, the bottle-a-phone was widely used to produce classical pieces.
The Earth Xylophone, which was probably invented by tribes in Africa who preferred very rhythmic music, invites you to strike pieces of wood with mallets. “Xylophone” comes from the Greek words xylon for “wood” and phone meaning “sounds”.
Several people can play it at the same time. The pitch changes according to length and depending on the amount of vibration, which is intensified if you strike the target about a fourth of the way from the ends.
Hold an empty bottle in front of a fan. The Bottle Blower creates air turbulence when the air meets the top of the bottle. Air resonates faster or slower depending on the bottle’s volume, leading to a change in pitch. Organ pipes are based on the same principle.
To try out the Weight-Powered Monochord, step up on a pedestal and sway forward and backward, shifting your weight. If you pluck on a string while swaying back and forth, you can create a melody. The string becomes looser when you go backwards.
The tighter it is, the higher the note. But if it’s very loose, it will make no sound at all.
THE LITHOPHONE gets its name from the Greek words for “stone” and “sounds.” Hit squares made from marble, limestone, and granite with mallets. Soft stones create a lower pitch, and the harder ones make higher pitches. Asian peoples have been playing like this for thousands of years.
One can produce a melody just by walking on a line of string, two at a time, in the Walking Bass exhibit, while another person plucks the string. You can make the string shorter or longer, changing the tone, while your feet are doing what stringed instruments do – from guitar to violin and from bass to harp and cello.
Rubber soles of flip-flops are used to hit a series of empty drainage pipes in the Slam Organ exhibit. Air inside bounces back, making a reedy sound. The thumps create different sounds depending on the lengths of the pipes.
Take a mallet and create different chimes with the Parameter Bells colored pink, gold, and black. The sounds depend on the length, wall thickness, and pitch of the bells. For some, thicker pipes make higher sounds, and thinner pipes make lower sounds, while longer pipes create lower pitches.
You don’t have to use mallets for the Bit Byte Beat. Paper stripes are marked with doubled or halved perpendicular lines. You then put the strip through an electronic machine, and it generates sounds.
The Picture Sound Table turns colors and shapes into sounds. Tap on graphics with your finger to make sound, like a keyboard. It reacts to vibrations.
Put on headphones at the Electric Sound Studio. Play with sensors, using your fingers to travel up and down a strip, back and forth under a lamp, and closer and farther from an antenna. Tap on rubber circles. The sensors react to light, pressure, distance, and touch. The way you move determines how sounds will be heard.
At the Drumming Table, wear headphones and drum with your hands on a rubber surface to create a melody that uses a sensor hidden underneath the table.
The separate Water Ways exhibition was brought back by popular demand and upgraded so it offers visitors hands-on exploration and soaking fun with water channels and cannons, dams, and more refreshing activities.
A fizzy science activity demonstrates how water is filtered, purified, and carbonated, which includes surprising live demonstrations. Fun facts about the water-drinking habits of Israelis are also presented.
And if children want to get wet and cool in the summer, Foam Parties are held on Thursday afternoons in July. A cannon spouting foam covers participants with a mountain of white bubbles.
The museum also offers an emotional nature movie called Desert Elephants.