Seattle Symphony Music Discovery Center

Took about twenty preschoolers here on a field trip and had a blast! It was engaging and educational. Lots if hands on opportunities for the kids and very helpful staff. Loved it.

What I love most is how everything is hands-​on. The employees are super friendly and encourage the young kids to give the instruments a try and they patiently help them hold the instruments and play them to make sounds. I’ve been taking my 2 ½ year old here to the Kindermusik classes for a year now, and we always stay after class to play on the cello, bass, and other instruments. The look on my kid’s face when she blows into a trumpet and makes a loud sound is priceless. I love the impromptu guitar sessions as well as their scheduled musical story time. They really make music fun!

With your Seattle Symphony Tiny Tots ticket, admission to Soundbridge is free and a welcome idea before or after the performance.
For us, it was before, we went in with the idea that the my daughter and her young guest for the show could play together before the concert, getting out some energy and that first half hour of pure joy of seeing each other outside of preschool.
The space was fun, not huge, but really great options– an electronic piano (with headphones), a cello and stand up bass were the big hits for the two girls, with a drum game of trying to pound the little wooden frog off the top also winning repetitive play.
One of the staff members was really nice and friendly with the girls, immediately learning their names and giving them tips and encouragement to play the cello and bass with the bow.
Why not more stars?
For us, at almost 5, the girls were bored after about 45 minutes, but younger kids could have likely stayed longer so if this had been last year, for our needs, it would have been bumped up.
There was also a class being held but the door was open to it at one point so the girls wandered in, the teacher was pretty ‘sharp’ getting them to leave, he did apologize to us parents that they couldn’t be in there but the harshness towards the kids wasn’t required, as soon as we– the parents– realized it wasn’t an open event, we moved them out quickly. The person at the front desk might have just told us there was a class going on as well as better signage so the girls didn’t feel chastised for something that wasn’t clearly communicated.

I love this place. For a $ 25 individual or $ 50 family membership you can visit whenever you want. There are instruments for kids to play on and the staff will pull out a trombone or a clarinet if your child fancies. There are story times (a free one on Friday) and a drum circle that we’re particularly fond of. My son loves it. The staff are friendly and good with kids. And it’s rarely crowded. It’s an easy hop, skip and jump from the light rail/​bus tunnel which makes going downtown much less intimidating for us. The space itself is set up well — if your kid isn’t going to make it all the way through story time s/​he can wander out and play. There’s stroller parking, nice bathrooms and a place to hang coats so you can settle in and stay a while. We LOVE Soundbridge, what an asset to the community.