I'm currenty in Budapest, and yesterday I visited the House of Music. Since RS doesn't have a lot of details in his guidebook, and I didn't find much mention of it on a search of this forum, I thought I'd give a few tips.
First: Go to this amazing museum!!! It has taken its place at the top of my list of the best non-visual-art museums I have ever been to, alongside the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. The problem with museums about music is that whereas visual art takes space, music takes time. You can't hang music on the wall of a museum. I've been to musical instrument museums, and I find them dull and lifeless because they treat the instruments as a piece of art. (Side note: has anyone ever been to a musical instrument museum where you can hear the instrument you are looking at?)
House of Music has figured out how to provide a truly fulfilling experience of hearing music while seeing related displays. You wear headphones that have a very precise positioning sensor. Sometimes there are spots on the floor to stand, sometimes you stand in front of a monitor, sometimes just being in the room, you hear the music relevant to what you are seeing.
The museum takes you on a journey from the earliest music making through the history of western art music. There is a special emphasis on Hungarian music: folk music, patriotic music, and the top Hungarian composers (Liszt, Kodály, Bartók, and others). And it ends with an extensive section on how technology has changed and continues to change both the music and our experience of it. Much of the exhibit is hands-on, so there's stuff for kids (and for the kids in all of us).
What I'm describing is just the "permanent exhibition." There are other things in the museum, but I spent 2 1/2 hours just in the permanent exhibition, and I didn't do those other things. I gave short schrift to the technology stuff. If that is of interest to you, you could spend even longer. (I saw a lot of people going through at about the same pace I was, so I don't think I went atypically slowly. But you could certainly do it in less time if you have limited time in this gorgeous city.
If you go:
- Buy a ticket in advance. They (wisely) limit entries. I showed up at 11:30 am on a Thursday, and they told me the next available slot was at 12:45. This was okay for me because it gave me time to wander around City Park and grab a quick lunch.
- They have a senior discount. Be sure to ask if you think you're a senior.