Our City Expert's Tips

The architectural design of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum brilliantly incorporates a musical motif throughout--from the piano-key design of the facade's windows to the drum shape of the rotunda (which also features a "radio tower") to the bass-clef shape that can be seen only from above. Keep your eyes open and you'll probably notice more symbolism in the structure.

Musical Journey
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum regularly brings in special exhibits that are not to be missed. "I Can't Stop Loving You: Ray Charles & Country Music" was one recent, excellent example. Other exhibits have focused on such varied topics as the history of rhythm-and-blues in Nashville and the lives of Earl Scruggs, George Jones, Ray Price, and other musical legends.

Special Events
The 214-seat Ford Theater at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is the site for frequent concerts, songwriter sessions, musical demonstrations, and other special events.

Education
The Country Music Hall of Fame's "Words & Music" program gives students the opportunity to collaborate with a professional songwriter to create a song. A curriculum provided by the Hall of Fame helps schoolteachers guide their students through the process of writing lyrics in the classroom. The lyrics are then given to volunteer pro writers, who add music and then perform selected collaborations during a visit by the class to the Hall of Fame.

Artsy
"The Sources of Country Music," a fascinating 6-by-10-foot mural by American painter Thomas Hart Benton, is the final exhibit you'll come to as you tour the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. This is the last painting that Benton completed before his death at age 85 in 1975. It vividly illustrates the various cultural influences on country music using symbolic, life-size figures, including a railroad, a steamboat, a cowboy, a church choir, fiddlers and square dancers, a black banjo player, and a mountain dulcimer player.

Tips From Other Travelers