Mary The Natural History Museum in London, UK has used background sound in an Art exhibition recently in our Jerwood Gallery. For William MacGillivray, Scottish natural history artist, a soundtrack was edited together consisting of birds song, Scottish folk music, together with sound effects of wind, meadows, and the sea. This proved very popular with visitors, adding a contextual background to view the Victorian paintings and helping to lighten the reverence sometimes found in art exhibitions. The duration is important, ours was on continuous play but about 20 mins long so as not to drive the gallery guides up the wall. This was put together in-house taking care to blend the sounds so there was nothing too distracting, ie. the Gannet got toned down a lot, and before anyone asks; there were no bagpipes. Regards Simon > > >>Have any of the art museum folks out there made attempts to have >>recorded music in your galleries on a daily basis for the run of an >>exhibit? If so what have your responses been from your audience? >>Your board? Has there been a problem with choosing music to suit a >>range of visitors? If you have not done this but considered it >>what has held you back? I am a curator at a community art museum >>of American art and our board and director want to consider adding >>music or other sounds to our exhibits so I thought I would put the >>question out on the museum discussion list and see what all of you >>wonderful professionals had to say. Many thanks!Mary Agnes Beach >>Curator of Exhibitions and Collections >>Hickory Museum of Art >>Box 2572 Hickory, NC 28603 >>828-327-8576 X 203 >>fax 327-7281 >><http://www.hickorymuseumofart.org>www.hickorymuseumofart.org -- Simon Caslaw Exhibition officer The Natural History Museum Cromwell Rd. South Kensington, London SW7 5BD UK [log in to unmask] 020 7942 5068 ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).