ParisEncore: La Villette~Musee de la Musique

September 15th was my birthday and this is where I decided to spend it. La Villette is the city's largest park in the 19th arr.in the NW part of Paris bordering the "ring road" (La Peripherique). In the park there is a museum of science, several large concert venues and the Cite de la Musique, which houses a concert hall, the music and dance conservatory and the music museum.

We started on the science side of the park. The Cite des Sciences is an 'interactive' complex~a great place for kids. We only went through part of it....too much for my legs.

There was a nice exhibit about the various forms of travel
in different parts of the world in the Transportation area.
Above is China and below is Cambodia.

This was the beginning of the Energy section. There was a very
interesting exhibit about the hidden energy costs of producing
products (the one described was JEANS).

This wall, in the Genetics area, showed all the chromosomes and the genes identified in each one.

Above is "X" and below is "Y".

The "Geode" houses a 11,000 sq. ft. screen encompassing 180 degrees of vision; films of scientific and cultural themes are shown....not for me! The long tube thingy is the "Argonaut" a retired French submarine that you can explore.

I wanted to get on to the music. Little did we know how far we would have to walk to get to the music side of the park. By the time we reached the Cite de la Musique we were tired and famished. There is a cafe right there so I checked out the menu and did a U-turn when I saw that a cheeseburger was 18 euros ($20+)...we walked across the street, outside the park and the first thing we saw were the golden arches. Now normally I wouldn't even consider McDonalds but we were so hungry and tired and didn't want to take the time to search for a cafe.

My birthday lunch.

We were now ready for the museum.

It was difficult deciding which photos to include because there were so many interesting instruments. The museum is a virtual music history course with both visual and audio information. The free audio guide was wonderful. You had the option of just listening to information about the instruments or hearing the music that was produced. Learning how music evolved through the centuries was wonderful, especially the creation of opera and introduction of symphonies.

The earliest instruments.

The first opera was Orfeo, 1607; these are the instruments that were included in the production.

An Italian clavecin.

Lutes

Various "coronets" horns.

Cittern
The lutes and citterns were used in the Middle Ages.

Guitars

Flutes
There were 3 full display cabinets of different sized flutes.

Mandolins
I always wanted to learn to play the mandolin....
but after my experience with the guitar realized I couldn't.
(I have deformed pinky fingers and cannot reach all the chords.)

The display was titled "mechanical instruments". These must have been the first music boxes.
I'm really sorry these photos are not as good as they could be. The glare and reflections were so hard to compensate for and I haven't figured that out yet.

Hunting Horns

The tromba marina. A very interesting instrument.

It has only one string yet the sound is that of a horn.

"Country instruments" or those used by the peasants

Bagpipe

The French Horn family. The one that looks like spaghetti is an omnitonic horn.

Beautiful harps

The Violin Family

Russian Bassoon

"The Dactylion"~used for exercising and strengthening the fingers.

Thank goodness my music teacher never heard of this!

The dreaded Metronome. (I dreaded it!)

Piano

Octobass.
This was another one of those unbelievable instruments.

Trumpet

Adolphe Sax

I've included this so that you could see all the instruments
that Adolphe Sax made.
Not just your 'saxophone' guy.

The next section continues to World Instruments. I've really had to pick and choose here. There were so many beautiful and unusual instruments.

Ethiopian Lyre

Senegalese drum, Lute and xylophone

A Bolivian stringed instrument
made from an armadillo.

Sitar

Japanese Mouth organ

The most exquisite instruments from Thailand.
My photo does not do this display justice. It was awesome!

This chart identifies the Thai instruments.

Burmese Harp

This was a fabulous museum; one of the highlights of the trip for me. No one ever talks about the Cite de la Musique but I told everyone we met on our tours about it.

P.S. I had a wonderful birthday dinner at La Perla ~Ravioli aux Quatre Fromages and Profiteroles for dessert.