Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll

For the first time, a major museum exhibition will explore the powerful relationship between rock and roll musicians and their instruments. Rock musicians embraced the expanding possibilities of sound electrification, amplification, and mass distribution during a period of technological innovation. This exhibition will explore the instrumentation of the rock band and how individual artists used their instruments to create their unique sound as well as their visual identity. 

The exhibition is co-organized with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and will present approximately 130 instruments alongside posters and costumes. Many of rock's most celebrated and recognized instruments will be featured, representing artists across generations and subgenres. In addition to institutional and private collectors, many musicians are lending their performance and recording instruments.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website

 Whether you go or not, the exhibition catalog, Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll, celebrates the musical instruments that gave rock and roll its signature sound—from Louis Jordan’s alto saxophone and John Lennon’s Rickenbacker to the drum set owned by Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, Lady Gaga’s keytar, and beyond. Seven essays by veteran music journalists and scholars discuss the technical developments that fostered rock’s seductive riffs and driving rhythms, the thrilling innovations musicians have devised to achieve unique effects, and the visual impact their instruments have had. Abundant photographs depict rock’s most iconic instruments as works of art in their own right. Produced in collaboration with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, this book goes behind the music to offer a rare and in-depth look at the instruments that inspired the musicians and made possible the songs we know and love.

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