The sound of the museum
상태바
The sound of the museum
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Sound Island Museum in Jungmun encourages appreciation of music through interactivity

You might be familiar with the painting “His Master’s Voice” by Francis Barraud. It depicts a dog by the name of Nipper sitting with its ears pricked in front of a gramophone, listening to music.

According to the story, the music Nipper and his master used to listen to together was “Invitation to the Dance” by German composer Carl Maria von Weber. Following Mark’s death, his brother Barraud took care of Nipper and noticed that whenever Weber’s music was played, the dog approached the gramophone, expecting to listen to his master’s voice.

This was Barraud’s inspiration for the picture, which became the trademark for the famous gramophone maker, the Victor Talking Machine Company in the 1900s. Now, it is the symbol of the Sound Island Museum in Seogwipo.
Established in November 2005, the Sound Island Museum is located in the Jungmun Tourism Complex. When I entered the central hall of the museum, Nipper was the first to welcome me.

Above the model of the dog and the gramophone was the world’s biggest mobile, hung through three floors and delicately constructed from a total of 500,000 natural sea shells, starfish, gastropods, and so on. It left me wondering what kind of sound would the giant mobile make if it were ever caught by a wind gust.

In room 1 there is a large collection of inventions that retell the history of recorded sound. From the historical invention of Edison’s phonograph, which succeeded in recording and playing sound by attaching tinfoil to a cylinder, to Berliner’s gramophone, the disc type recorder that made mass production possible, and later models like Victrolas.
All the instruments, including Edison’s inventions, are authentic, said the manager of Sound Island Museum Seo Young Jik.
“Especially, the exhibited tinfoil phonograph is one of seven Edison phonographs that currently exist in the world. Due to its rarity, we can say that it is our museum’s source of pride,” he said.

After I had checked out Room 2, which contained a giant piano that one plays with one’s feet instead of hands, a stringless harp and an organ, I headed for the next room. Approaching room 3, I could hear some noise. When I entered, I found the room was alive with laughter mixed with various instrumental sounds being made by three families. On a table were portable instruments like the triangle, the cabasa, castanets and the tambourine, and there were drums, a piano, and a fixed wooden xylophone.

Passing by the instruments which were displayed in line, people stopped at the instrument they were interested in and touched it with curiosity. What attracted me most was a four-year girl who was sitting in a seat in front of a drum set, about three times her size. She was playing the drums joyfully with her mother’s help.

Her mother, Kim Kyung Ah, said, “My daughter seems to be very excited. As for our family, this room is the most interesting part of the museum, in that we can experience various instruments ourselves.”
“The organ in another room 2 was also impressive to me. Actually, the organ was a common instrument when I was young, but now it has become rare. My daughter was amazed to see that if we don’t step on the pedals, this piano-like instrument does not make a sound.”

Another noticeable thing in the room were instruments from North Korea on display, including accordions with the brand name ‘Pyeongyang’ or ‘Baekdusan.’ The exhibition continued to room 4, which contained the North Korean instrument the Okryugeum (a kind of stringed instrument).

When it comes to Korean instruments, the museum has a range from common instruments such as the Kkwaenggwari (a small brass gong), Janggu (double-headed drum), to rare ones which are usually seen at concerts or on TV, including Yanggeum (a kind of zither), and Pyeonjong (carillon).

The room also displayed various traditional instruments from many countries. Even though those from different countries look similar, their uniqueness in shape or pattern makes them different in subtle ways. The Chinese displays included bipa (a string instrument) and zuti (similar to a flute), which can be seen in Chinese films. The long and thin neck of the syamisen (a string instrument) next to the Maneki Neko (Japanese cat doll) gave a Japanese feeling. And the North Indian tabla baya (a small drum) was decorated with a pattern of their language and pictures of their people.

In addition, there were others such as the Thai saw doung (a small drum), the Southeast Asian angklung (instrument made of bamboos attached into a frame), and the African djembe drum.

When I was about to leave the room, I happened to meet two foreigners. Mary Matt and Tyler Burnett from America said they were visiting the museum while travelling in Jeju. They liked the interactive style of the museum, though Tyler pointed out that the museum needs to offer more English explanations to attract foreigners. They said they hoped international travellers would visit the museum.

According to Sound Island Museum Chief Manager Song Chang Nam, they are currently building a concert hall next to the museum, which they hope will draw a new set of visitors when completed in July.


Sound Island (Soriseom) Museum
15 Jungmun Gwangwang-ro 110, Seogwipo City
Telephone: 064-739-7782
Hours: 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (in July and August: 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.)  <Jeju Weekly>

<Kim Jung Lim  supuleit@jejuweekly.com ⓒ Jeju Weekly All rights reserved>


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