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“When you find a place that loves music as much as you do as a visitor to this museum, it’s as if the world opens up,” said Grant, who’s been with the museum since its incep- tion in 1998. “People will tell us it’s like, ‘Oh, you mean I’m not alone in this fascination of music?’ It’s a personal goal of mine to make sure that everybody knows that there’s a place for them in music.” THE EVOLUTION OF MOMM Shortly after the public opening in 2001, the museum’s operators noticed a disconnect be- tween the general public and the purpose of the museum. “The general public wasn’t quite clear on what NAMM is, what a music product is, and why we were located in a business park in Carlsbad,” she said. “So, over the years, we did a few retrofits to the museum to bring that more front-and-center so that we could orient our visitors, because we felt like we were missing some opportunities. And people have loved it.” Several decades later, the museum needed to be refocused again. Technol- ogy and its impact on the music-making process had changed. “When we opened, it was a different time,” she said. “So much had changed in 20 years. So, we raised money, and, coincidentally, finished raising money in February 2020, and then the COVID pandemic hit in March, and we closed. We used that next year to completely redo the museum and reinterpret it in such a way that it would speak to today’s audiences.” During the renovation, the team organized the MoMM into themes that would resonate with the general public. “This museum is a bridge between our industry and the general public,” Grant said. “We’re inviting people into our industry. We believe that our industry is so impactful and so valuable that everybody needs to know about it. So, we reinterpreted the museum to simplify it for people about what goes into mak- ing an instrument, why instruments change
In 2000, the Museum of Making Music opened to the public at NAMM’s headquarters in Carlsbad, California. A quarter-century later, it’s seen almost 1 million visitors while changing lives in the process. — By Katie Kailus Carolyn Grant 25 YEARS OF MAKING MUSIC
I n 1998, NAMM was planning for its cen- tennial anniversary in 2001. To celebrate, NAMM leadership decided to open a museum dedicated to music products. Three years after the museum’s inception, it went from an industry-facing operation to a public-facing one. Today, as the Museum of Making Mu-
sic celebrates its 25th anniversary, it’s also nearing another milestone: 1 million visitors. According to Carolyn Grant, NAMM’s director of marketing development and the executive director of the Museum of Music Making (MoMM), the museum has changed lives.
12 I MUSIC INC. I AUGUST 2025
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