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All the United States Massachusetts North Adams Gunnar Schonbeck Exhibit

Gunnar Schonbeck Exhibit

More than 200 unconventional musical instruments that anyone can play.

North Adams, Massachusetts

Added By
Lew Blank
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The exhibit.   Courtesy of MASS MoCA
The exhibit.   Courtesy of MASS MoCA
Mark Stewart plays the giant banjo.   Courtesy of MASS MoCA
Playing the instruments.   Courtesy of MASS MoCA
Drums   Courtesy of MASS MoCA
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Throughout his life, Gunnar Schonbeck, a musician and professor at Bennington College, believed that anyone and anything can make music. Armed with this simple philosophy and an arsenal of ordinary objects and scrap materials, he created more than 1,000 unique musical instruments that can be played by anyone, regardless of skill level.

More than 200 of Schonbeck’s unconventional instruments are on display at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, in an exhibit aptly titled "No Experience Required." The eccentric collection includes drums made from aircraft fuselages, a towering 9-foot banjo, a steel-string harp, and ukuleles made from coconuts. 

The collection includes colorful monochords in the shape of trapezoids, and triangle-shaped cellos. There is a “Western Gamelan” made from the leaf springs of automobiles, and a series of “Sound Towers,” large plywood boxes that can be struck with a mallet to make a sound. 

Schonbeck constructed his instruments over a 50-year period, up until his death in 2005. Six years later, Mark Stewart, Paul Simon's music director and guitarist, brought the instruments to the museum. All are open to visitors to play, honoring Schonbeck's belief that every human being is a musician.

Update: The Gunnar Schonbeck Exhibit is currently closed until further notice.

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Music Museums And Collections Inventions Collections Sounds Art Museum Art

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Added By

lewblank

Edited By

webbkcrawford, Meg

  • webbkcrawford
  • Meg

Published

May 14, 2018

Updated

May 4, 2022

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  • http://www.benningtonbanner.com/stories/the-unlikely-roadtrip-of-gunnar-schonbeckrsquos-creations,230476
Gunnar Schonbeck Exhibit
1040 Mass MoCA Way
North Adams, Massachusetts
United States
42.701872, -73.11519
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North Adams, Massachusetts

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