By MICHAEL PERKINS
THIS WEEK, AS I PREPARE TO MOVE OUT OF ARIZONA after twenty-five years, one of the things that will be hardest to leave behind will be my eleven years as a mentor and guide at Phoenix' astounding Musical Instrument Museum. I have done a lot of volunteer work here and there over the years, but no other assignments compare with the miraculous gifts I have received on every single day of service at MIM. And that also covers the creations of a heaping helping of photographs.
You would think that, after tracing millions of steps over the museum's vast layout, often with camera in hand, I would have somehow found "the" picture, the image that captures the blessings that this place have conferred upon me. There are pictures of every hall, every meeting room, hundred of exhibits, and thousands of objects in every kind of light, snapped on every imaginable occasion, from concerts to field trips, training sessions to corporate events to award celebrations. There are wide-angles, selective focus art effects, fisheyes, macros, and double exposures, taken with every piece of kit in my arsenal. And yet, after wading through all that in an attempt to draw a line under all my years there, I find that it's one of the first, almost accidental photos I made in my inaugural year that still has the greatest impact on me.
The guide shown here is instructing a young girl on how to play the Theremin, one of the earliest practical electronic instruments from the 1920's, and the earliest influence on synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog, who taught himself its magical circuitry by making repairs on surviving models when he was fresh out of college. It's also the only instrument in MIM's collection that must be played without touching.
As the image indicates, one needs to be taught how to position one's hands to create a bit of electrical connection between the device's two steel poles (which both oscillate at distinct frequencies) and whose silent transmissions can create both audible volume and pitch variations when guided by the player. Explaining the theremin would require a separate technical essay, but that's not what the picture is "about". It's about the wonderment that is playing across the face of the small girl, no doubt a young woman by now, possibly with girls of her own to astound. As I head for the museum's exit one last time, it is this moment that I will remember, because all of us spent every day in joyful pursuit of That Face. A-Ha moments. Lightbulb moments. I couldn't capture all of the wonders every day, either by trying to explain them to guests or by photographing them. But this time, this one time, I got lucky, and something magical jumped into my box.
Which is, really, what keeps all of us coming back for more, camera in hand.
Because, at the end of the day, you might go home with a miracle.
And that is music to everyone's ears.
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