Memphis Gong Chamber (at Memphis Drum Shop)

The story

From the sidewalk on Cooper Street, 878 South Cooper looks like a long-standing brick shop dedicated strictly to percussion—snare drums, hardware, mallets, and cymbal racks. Walk past the retail counter and head up to the second floor, however, and the standard music store gives way to something far more subterranean: a dimly lit room holding roughly 250 gongs, ranging from compact 20-inch brass plates to massive 80-inch sheets of alloy.

Co-owners Jim and Nancy Pettit built the space into what is essentially an acoustic vault for low-frequency sound. The undisputed anchor of the collection is an 80-inch, $28,000 Paiste Symphonic gong—an imposing piece of metal that Jim admits produces vibrations so intense visitors describe the sensation as either floating through open space with planets passing by or lying on the sea floor watching waves crash overhead. Atlas Obscura quoted Jim summarizing the whole setup with plain-spoken accuracy: 'weird stuff.'

Rather than treating these instruments as static gallery pieces or high-dollar inventory for touring drummers, Nancy Pettit leads scheduled sound sessions in the space. You recline in the dark while complex harmonic overtones rattle through the floorboards and directly into your chest, turning a Midtown drum store into one of the city's most singular sensory experiences.