Museum of Making Music

Before you can make music, you have to make the things that make music. Sure, you can sing, but unless you’re a chanting monk, it’s kind of nice to have some instrumental backup. The Museum of Making Music’s five permanent galleries trace the development of those instruments from the ’20s through the ’80s, when synthesizers made everything else irrelevant. Each gallery explores the popular musicians and innovations of the day, and the whole museum traces the history of the industry behind the recording industry. The Museum’s been in business since 1998, when it opened to professionals (and two years later, the general public) as part of the National Association of Music Merchants’s headquarters in Carlsbad.