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FeedOff the walls: Good vibrations at the Buffalo Museum of Science
Photos by Jennifer Wettlaufer
A souvenir mandolin from the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo.
Noise bounces off the walls at the Buffalo Museum of Science as grownups and kids play among the house-designed installations and borrowed objects from the Exploratorium of San Francisco. Live performances and museum treasures add to the hubbub of Good Vibrations, a hubbub that resonates with the physics and culture of sound.
I happily sought out this show, as I’d originally been fascinated by some of the pieces at their home in San Francisco. New to me—and perplexing—was a huge metal tube with six-foot loops. I tried hooting into the tube for echoes, an attempt that fell flat. I saw a little boy stick his whole head into the tube and blow into the rubber-bandy Sound Sandwich he’d just made at the projects table. Maybe that worked out for him, but the true charm happens when you stick your hands inside and clap, and the texture of the tube separates the sound into distinct layers you can hear. (Note to self: read exhibition labels.) The tube, like Good Vibrations overall, acts like a prism that shows us common elements in new light. Metal rings display resonance, and water in a transparent tube splashes and rebounds in response to different vibrations. 
Chinese ceramic figurines, circa 618–907 A.D.
Parental caution: the borrowed pieces do not come packaged with physicists, so be prepared for arguments on the way home. With one installation, for example, a stroboscopic effect gives the illusion that a plucked guitar string takes on the shape of a wavy line. Along with noise, the museum offers sightings of masks, musical instruments, and devices from across the world and decades. Tiny figurines from China, for example, 618-907 A.D., hold musical instruments that look much like acoustic instruments of today. Don’t miss the whisper dishes as I did—I looked for them because I liked them so much at the Exploratorium, and found later that they stand ready in the Main Hall nearby. The big hall is good for something else; when I visited, half a dozen couples danced to swing. Bands, orchestras, choruses, string ensembles, dancers, and solo musicians donate performances on Saturdays and Sundays as part of the exhibit through December and January, and general admission includes all.
More information and listings of performances are at /www.sciencebuff.org/exhibits/goodvibrations.
