The Haus der Musik is an interesting and unusual museums as it manages to explain the world of sound in an amusing and highly interactive way (in English and German) for both children and adults. Exhibits are spread over four floors and cover everything from how sound is created, through to Vienna's Philharmonic Orchestra and street noises.
Floor 1 hosts the Museum of the Vienna Philharmonic . Here you can find out about the history of Vienna's Philharmonic Orchestra's and its famous new year's concerts. You can listen to the highlights of the last one, as well as the most recent free Summer Night concert held in Schloss Schönbrunn. The interactive highlight is a tool that allows you to compose your own waltz by rolling dice.
Floor 2, called the Sonosphere , is packed with engaging instruments, interactive toys and touch screens. Here you can test the limits of your hearing and play around with sampled sounds to record your own CD (€7). One of the highlights for aficionados of everyday audioscapes is a collection of street and subway sounds from New York, Tokyo and other places.
Floor 3 covers Vienna’s classical composers and is polished off with an amusing interactive video in which you conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Bizarrely, you can also hear your own name as a Mozart composition here. The last floor has the so-called virto|stage in which your own body language and movements shape the music to create an opera. The exit is through the shop, which has a good collection of music.
