This will be a museum unlike any other in the world. It will be a place for exploring other cultures and civilizations through their music. It will be a place for learning about the art and craft of creating music. It will be a place for being inspired by the genius and passion of great musical souls. It will be a place for embracing and honoring all types of music and all its uses and places in our lives.

It will be much more than exhibits of objects and artifacts. Although it will include traditional gallery spaces, it will be alive with music, interactive technologies and people making music. Visitors will be able to create some of that music and shape their own explorations. Everyone will leave with more music in their soul – and even a custom-made recording in their hands to help them re-live their personalized experience.

The Museum will be global, literally linked to the entire world by state-of-the-art communications networks, and host to musical guests representing every continent and culture.

The sparkling, new facility in metro Atlanta will be more than an architecturally stunning landmark. It will be a warm and inviting place, with large halls, quiet corners and surprising bursts of dazzling technological and interpersonal magic.

Indeed, technology will play an essential facilitating role – but the main attraction will be people. A retired Midwestern couple, a touring German family with small children, and a teenager from urban Atlanta will each find their own familiar, comfortable portals to the world of music – but they will cross paths in a sunny alcove, will linger to admire a trio of Pakistani musicians seated in a close circle in the center, and then will notice each other and the enjoyment they have been sharing together. Kindred musical souls from disparate backgrounds and cultures will meet each here, grab a bit of lunch together between activities and form lasting ties based on a mutual passion for music.

This will not be a theme park, although it will be interactive, fun and full of laughter. It will not be a scholarly facility, but it will be historically accurate, educational, and a place for expanding the world’s knowledge about music with academic integrity. It will not be a children’s museum, but it will be an extraordinary place for young people to interact with and learn about music, in school groups or with their families.

The Museum will not be another Hall of Fame. This will be a people’s museum, not primarily designed to celebrate celebrity. Neither will it be about a particular genre of music – it will be about all music and the uncountable and wonderful ways in which music pervades our lives. It will not be just for accomplished experts, or for the musically successful. This museum will be for everyone.

People will come to the Museum from all over the planet to discover more about the music that makes their hearts sing, their toes tap and their heads swim. Their experience will not be solely of the mind, like the quiet, passive and intellectual experiences that the word "museum" often invokes. Our visitors will be moved – the Museum of Music will be an emotional place, a place of the heart.

And our visitors will return again and again. Like the jazz, bluegrass and hip-hop improvisations that are among the many musics that will regularly swirl in our halls, the Museum of Music will be constantly changing, and no two visits will ever be the same.

The Museum will be the place people turn to when they want to know how music works – and why it matters.

The Museum of Music will be the coolest place on earth.

-- Museum of Music Concept Paper, Aug. 2002