This was easily one of the most unique and fascinating museums we’ve ever visited! Not only do you get to listen to beautiful music from antique music boxes, but the experience is taken to another level with live performances by the staff on antique pianos, creating an atmosphere that's incredibly calming, soothing, and even a little mesmerizing. There’s also a small interactive section where kids can try out a few instruments, which is a lovely touch. That said, I spent most of the time on high alert, reminding my toddler (about a hundred times!) not to touch the antiques 😅 One random thought I had — I couldn’t help but wonder whether the pianists’ shoes might affect the antique pianos over time, especially with the pedals. Maybe playing in socks would be gentler? Not a big deal, just something that crossed my mind! Notes: Free to visit, closes on Monday, mostly locals visiting too when we were there.

+3

I never in my life thought that I would hear a working vintage Welte-Mignon reproducing grand piano. Theirs seemed to be in perfect working order. Do you have any idea how rare that must be? Also, the various pianos upstairs were the real thing, OLD, and from what I could tell by the snippets of playing I heard they were all maintained to a high standard, totally playable and in tune. So that pretty much blew my mind. (However now I am going to impishly say that I much prefer the sound of a modern concert grand over every instrument they had in there! Or my own Mason & Hamlin 7' BB for that matter.) Oh, and I thought the young lady playing the pianos was charming, though she did sound rather like a Japanese anime character talking.

I had a lovely time in the Min-on Museum, it's well worth a visit for the two concerts, at the hour mark and the 30 minute mark you get to hear automatic music boxes on the first floor, and a short concert playing old pianos on the second floor. I'd never heard any of these in person and it was a wonderful experience! For the price of free, this is absolutely worth a visit, especially if you're in the area. Special thanks to the attendants, who were extremely nice and gracious.

+3

A very small museum with its unique interactive strength. It has many real, functioning automatic music playing boxes and pianos! I could not take photos but take a look at their website. I don’t know how they manage to find all these from all over the world. I never have seen an automatic playing piano with special paper rolls marked with unique music note marks. When the paper rolls get rolling, the piano automatically plays live music recorded almost a hundred years ago. They also collected made in 16xx to modern pianos, demonstrated by a real piano player. This will take you to a short music journey from Beethoven to Mozart to modern piano players, a passage from delicate sounding to powerful modern sound. These two elements are the gems of this museum. Well done!

+3

This was a fun and relatively short stop. Among other intersting exhibits, the museum has a hall of piano heritage, including instruments from a 400-year old harpsichord to a modern Steinway. Each is showcased in a brief liveperformance of the music from its own period in the small 2nd floor auditorium. The presentation was in Japanese, but a written translation was provided in English. Well worth a visit.