Cyber Diary
Trip to The National Centre for Popular Music (18th
March 1999)
Author: Nigel
As a birthday treat for me this year, Gill and I went to the above centre not long after it had opened. The attraction is located in Sheffield, in fact bang smack in the centre of the city near to the University. First impressions were a little disappointing as I'd expected the building to be much bigger than it actually was.
The building looks like four touching spheres resting on the ground and inside is arranged on two levels with the upper level housing the main attractions. The main attractions are Making Music, Turning Points, SoundScapes and Perspectives.
Making Music is where you have a chance to play with instruments and multi-media
technology and was one of the reasons I wanted to visit the place. I was disappointed as
rather than actually playing many of the instruments directly, you could only view them
behind a glass screen and activate them via a limited set of push buttons. Bit of a let
down for musicians but probably interesting for kids and those who don't actually play
music themselves. Gill thought it was very good. Best for me was the TV mixing setup where
you could pretend to be a production editor with a Phil Collins concert.
SoundScapes consisted of a room where you sat and listened to uninspiring twelve channel
sound music whilst dry ice floated around your feet.
Perspectives consisted of 6 smaller areas dedicated to popular themes some of which were
the topic of popular music themselves.The themes were dancing and dance music, rebellious
music, love, rock, great vocalists and pop stardum and worship. Mainly films representing
each theme although the sets were quite interesting.
Turning Points was essentially a very large room showing films on very large screens. The films being shown were again depicting music themes (transport, british music scene, rap and reggae). Reasonable sound accompanied the films.
Downstairs you had an art gallery dedicated to music memorabilia, a shop, cafeteria and a cafe bar. The food in the cafeteria was very basic.
Overall impression.
Probably wouldn't go twice. Kids would probably enjoy it more than parents. Eat first before you go. Reasonable value for money.