Latest news with #SonicPlayground
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
L.A.'s GRAMMY Museum Launches Interactive Sonic Playground Exhibit
The GRAMMY Museum's newest permanent exhibit, Sonic Playground, features a stage with real instruments visitors can describing the GRAMMY Museum's new interactive exhibit, Sonic Playground, Chief Curator and Vice President of Curatorial Affairs Jasen Emmons described the installation as a safe space for people to discover music."For me, Sonic Playground is a way to have people realize they can make music themselves, but it's also a way to help deepen people's appreciation for music, because even if they don't become a musician themselves, they understand what it takes to create music," said GRAMMY Museum opened its newest permanent exhibit, Sonic Playground, on February 14. The exhibit features different interactive opportunities for both kids and adults to its non-traditional interface focused on connection, Sonic Playground provides a hands-on experience by combining music, technology and education. The heart of the exhibit is its Electric Forest. 16 vibrant poles stand tall and act as audio levels, and visitors can interact with the exhibit by motioning their hand up or down to raise or lower the volume of a certain sound."What this leads to is the potential of discovery... you might go and you might raise three poles that are three strings playing in harmony, but you might also then hear a combination of say, cello with banjo, with electric bass, with synthesizer," said Shaun Chasin, a film, television and video game composer who created the music for the Electric Forest. The 16 different poles are based on a 19-minute original composition by Chasin, which allows each visitor to create a blend of light and sound completely unique to themselves."One of our main goals with this is that we wanted to give, especially young people, the ability to feel like they had control over music," said Chasin. "What we might be fighting against is, say, somebody who took piano lessons with the neighbor down the street, who was really mean to them, and they hated it, and they lost whatever would have been a passion for music."Chasin describes the composition as a "balancing act." He began writing the music in November, recorded by the end of December, and installed it in the museum in January."There's never a big chunk of silence at the park. And so that leads to the challenge that you don't want it to be overly busy, where there's just tons of things happening," said Chasin. "It has to be able to work in any combination of those stems, where you might hear two [poles] together and they sound like they could work, but you might hear 16 together and that also has to work."In addition, the exhibit offers a stage with real instruments, a DJ set, a SoundTrax Career Wall, that showcases different job opportunities in the industry and sound booths where users can practice their singing skills, play with instruments and rap over artists' original tracks. The installation serves as the museum's most interactive space."We've had interactives before, but in this space we have 17 different interactives and 51 people at any one time could be doing something," said Emmons. "This space was really designed to be fully hands on."The museum aims to serve as a community and educational space for visitors."Education is really the cornerstone of what everything the museum does, whether it's a public program and you get to hear it firsthand from an artist or coming into the space and learning more [about] how to make music. And also the workshops and programs that we offer," said GRAMMY Museum worked with a Youth Advisory Board throughout the creation of Sonic Delgado, a high school senior and Youth Advisory Board Member, first learned about Sonic Playground through the GRAMMY Museum's Student recalled meeting Emmons and discussing the Sonic Playground. From there, she began attending meetings with other students interested in the project."It's been a really great learning experience and I'm really thankful that the GRAMMY Museum values the opinions of the youth and they want to include them in everything they're doing when it comes to music education and just bringing awareness to the music industry," said Delgado. While she says the process of putting the exhibit together was a great experience, seeing people interact with the space has been "the most rewarding part.""I hope that everyone can find something that resonates with them here," said Delgado. "I hope that everyone can discover their own potential within the music industry through just play and through fun and through collaboration because I feel like that's where everything really starts."Sonic Playground is dedicated to the legacy of Jim Long and was made possible by the Long Family Trust and additional support from Roland Corporation and is the cornerstone of the GRAMMY Museum's Campaign For Music Education, which was launched in museum announced that they will offer free general admission for all visitors ages 17 and under. They have also expanded their fundraising goals to $10 million after surpassing its original $5 million funds will go towards expanding the museum's education and community programs such as, GRAMMY Camp, GRAMMY In The Schools and the Quinn Coleman Scholarship Fund. Be the First to Know! Keep up with the latest from Los Angeles Magazine. Sign up for The Daily Brief below or by clicking here.
Los Angeles Times
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The Grammy Museum's Sonic Playground: Where accessibility meets creativity
The Grammy Museum's second floor just got a little louder. Sonic Playground, its newest permanent exhibit, demystifies the music-making process for people of all ages. Its 17 different interactive installations — featuring soundproof recording booths, an instrument-filled stage and even a how-to-DJ booth — allow visitors to uncover their musical potential. 'We hope people can come in, be curious and feel like they could explore. It isn't a 'Oh, I don't know how to do that,' or a 'I might embarrass myself' environment,' said Jasen Emmons, the museum's chief curator and VP of curatorial affairs. 'We want people to get into that playful state.' With an emphasis on creativity and curiosity, the downtown L.A. museum brings a new, accessible perspective to the competitive industry. The exhibition was fully funded by the institution's Campaign for Music Education, an initiative focused on lessening music education costs and fostering music's next generation. Since its inception, this fundraising effort has made the museum free to anyone under the age of 17 and expanded its scholarship programs. Now, Sonic Playground stands as the campaign's 'crown jewel' — making music available and digestible to visitors through expert-led tutorials and access to hands-on technology. Every year, the museum welcomes nearly 25,000 students. President and CEO Michael Sticka is hoping that the number at least doubles in the coming years. When he joined the institution seven years ago, one of the first things he did was create a department for community engagement. He says that it continues to be reflected in each of the museum's accomplishments. 'Community, in my mind, is such a core aspect of what a cultural institution should be. So the fact that we can make the Grammy Museum free for young people and have a one-of-a-kind, music-making experience in L.A. gets back to the core of what we're supposed to do,' Sticka said. 'We are supposed to provide an opportunity and exposure to music to those in our community.' Emmons, who joined the museum in 2022 from Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture, says he's well aware of how uncomfortable people can get when asked to make music — so he decided to prioritize experiences that 'just get people to be people.' Inside the Recording Academy hub, the Sonic Playground resembles a collaborative studio. Students gather around the small stage to watch their classmates try their hand at the keytar, experiment with different drum patterns and share the connected headphones. Toddlers, and their trailing parents, wander through the electric forest — a series of touch-responsive LED poles — picking and choosing which sounds to play in the echoing composition. Before its official opening on Friday, students from Steam Legacy High School took a field trip to test out the new show. Crystal Ochoa, the school's psychiatric social worker, was excited to see how engaged the students were, especially because their school doesn't offer music curriculum. 'As they go in the little recording studios, you can see them light up,' Ochoa said. ' I don't even know if they've ever touched an instrument before. It's so important to expose them to every type of music and its process. It just goes to show how many steps go into a particular thing, and I think that's a lesson that can be applied to so many different things.' Inside the booths, small friend groups take turns either playing the guitar, freestyling over a hip-hop beat or practicing their vocal skills. Other visitors sit attentively, following the step-by-step tutorials on how to use a drum machine or create a sample. Jennesys Ortiz, Alexa Vidana and Janessa Segura, all students at Legacy High, weren't sure what to expect at the museum; they thought they were just coming to see a bunch of trophies. As big fans of stars like Karol G and Tyler the Creator, they say they were excited to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes of their favorite songs. 'Music is a way for people to express their feelings and some people don't listen to certain kinds of music or don't sing. So this is a way for all of us to experience things we have never heard of,' said Segura, who was particularly intrigued by the loop machines. 'I've seen this kind of stuff before in movies, but I had never actually seen it in real life.' Most attendees also won't be going home empty-handed. A majority of beats or looping tracks they produced can be downloaded, via a QR code. This was one of the priorities of the Sonic Playground's youth advisory board — a small group of young musicians who helped inform the exhibit's curation. Throughout the planning process, they met once a month to discuss goals and provide feedback to Emmons. 'We needed to make the museum relevant and exciting to their age group. It's not enough to only offer free admission. It has to be useful to them,' said Emmons. 'I had to have them involved so we don't as adults think, 'Oh, this is what they're gonna want.' It's about hearing from them directly — especially because they're all musicians.' Beyond pulling music's curtain back, Sonic Playground aims to expose a young audience to the industry and its possibilities. While visitors are learning to DJ or produce a beat, the SoundTrax Career Wall offers quick answers to those interested in pursuing a job in music. The 50-foot wall diagram highlights different career paths, paired with informational interviews from people in these positions. Emmons says everyone, whether aspiring to be a musician or not, can learn something from this space. 'Not everybody's going to become a musician, but having somebody show you what a drum machine or what sampling is, that's when you start to have a deeper appreciation for music,' Emmons said. 'A big part of this is, 'How can we train people to be better listeners?' But also be able to hear things and say, 'Hey, I know how that's made.''
