The Sound Lab

At first glance, the Sound Lab at EMP resembles a NAMM exhibit, with instruments set up in open cubicles and people playing them through headphones. Trade shows, however, are about doing business. EMP is about having fun with music -- and the Sound Lab makes the case that learning your licks can be almost as much fun as showing them off in public.

The room surrounds what looks like a monstrous gray mushroom festooned with blinking lights. Turns out that this thing is what EMP calls its Jam-O-Drum, a high-tech take on that most democratic of musical events, the drum circle. Seated at the Jam-O-Drum, visitors follow the prompts and slap their hands on different parts of the surface. Their impact gets absorbed by the rhythm sequence, and voila! An artist is born.

Well, not really. But if you're a beginner, you've just discovered that you are capable of making gestures that can translate into sound. It's just a few steps from the site of this epiphany to the booth of your choice. Here you can follow tiny lights on a keyboard or guitar neck to poke out your first melody or hammer-on. (In allegiance to Seattle's heritage, stone novice guitarists are led through a few bars of the Kingsmen version of "Louie Louie," and a power-chord primer draws from Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit.")

You can also disappear into the Jam Room, pick up a guitar or sit behind the electronic drums, set whatever ambience you'd like through wall-mounted effects, and lay down a groove for whoever is singing live into a mic in the next room -- unless that person is watching Ann and Nancy Wilson from Heart on the video monitor as they teach the basics of vocal harmony. By the winter of 2000, visitors will be able to burn their performances in the Jam Room onto CD.

Doors lead from the Sound Lab into a couple of classrooms, where artists will teach children's courses, advanced player workshops, and all points between. In the weeks after EMP's opening, Dave Stewart is scheduled to offer some insights into production, Patti Smith will talk about songwriting, and Taj Mahal will lead a children's introduction to the blues. ("Well, I woke up this morning, and my Playstation had died/My mother didn't care, she told me to go play outside. . .

Performance Opportunities

One of EMP's many industry partnerships is with JBL Speakers, for whom the Project's 200-seat JBL Theater is named. This intimate space may prove to be one of the most important among those at EMP for musicians.

Advanced tutorials will be conducted here, with artists such as Joe Jackson, Patti Smith, and Dave Alvin, either in the main room or in two classrooms next door, each of which can hold up to 50 students or be combined with the other into a larger space. Special film projects will be presented here, from rare concert footage to first performances of ambitious new works. Tom Verlaine, formerly of Television, will premiere a score he recently completed for a silent movie, for example.

The JBL Theater will also be open for record release parties, meetings, and showcases by new bands. Jon Kertzer, director of multimedia and special projects, has had more than ten years' experience booking acts at the Seattle nightclub Backstage, the Bumbershoot Festival, and elsewhere. It's his goal to use this facility as a means of keeping in touch with emerging talent. Some of these bands may be invited to record for EMP, the Project's own label. He's already looking for acts: If you're curious, send an inquiry to Jon at jonk@emplive.com.

Guitars Galore

Everyone expected that Jimi Hendrix would be well represented in EMP's exhibit of guitars. But the Hendrix Gallery goes way beyond that. It is, in fact, a mini-Smithsonian of items associated with the ultimate rock guitarist and Seattle success story. There are his costumes from historic concerts, one of Noel Redding's basses, Mitch Mitchell's drum kit, the guitar on which Hendrix gave new meaning to "The Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock, and lots more.

But for guitar junkies, the Hendrix Gallery is just the appetizer. The main course is next door, at EMP's Guitar Room. This circular room traces the history of the electric guitar, from its origins in the acoustic, pre-Edison era through some bizarre prototypes that were played through telephone and radio speakers. A stroll around the display leads visitors past some milestone designs, including the 1940 Rickenbacker Electro Spanish Model B, on which the first whammy bar is attached, and the Vivi-Tone Electric, the first solidbody ever built.

There are gemlike rarities too, such as the 1933 Dobro All-Electric (one of only two or three surviving examples of this early electric guitar), and -- a true one of its kind -- Gibson's embryonic attempt at an electric guitar. The collection is also home to the first electric bass, a Seattle-built Audiovox from the '30s that was virtually unknown until just three years ago. (Until its discovery, it was long thought that Leo Fender built the first electric bass in the early '50s.)

Weary visitors can pass some time on the black, pick-shaped benches in the Guitar Room and watch recorded performances by Jeff Beck, Merle Travis, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Roy Buchanan, Eric Clapton, and even a couple of non-electric players, Son House and Andres Segovia. Or they can hang out by one of the touch screens mounted throughout the room and move through a maze of charts, text, and illustrations that map out the history of the electric guitar. The name of this program -- "Quest for Volume" -- says all you need to know about EMP's perspective on music technology and the mystique of modern rock.

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