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A traveling exhibit exploring the way humans and animals make and interpret sound has found a permanent home in Ashland. "Wild Music: Sounds & Songs of Life" is ScienceWorks Hands-on Museum 's largest single exhibit ever, says Executive Director Dan Ruby. The installation, which opened Saturday, fills up the Ashland museum's entire main exhibit hall. “Wild Music” draws from equipment as varied as parabolic microphones, electrolarynxes and xylophones to demonstrate the different ways wildlife make sounds above ground and in the ocean. A popular draw is an interactive exhibit that lets museum goers listen for different bird calls. Robert Baum of Boston explained to his 5-1/2-year-old grandson, Omo, how the dish-shaped microphone helps scientists collect far-away sounds. Baum’s grandson, who lives in Ashland, also enjoyed the enclosed Jamming Room, a simulated music studio in which participants work with drums and prerecorded audio to compose their own music or make some noise. Anthony Chase of Phoenix said he liked how the parabolic microphone exhibit included ornithologists’ explanations as to why birds have such a wide variety in their calls. “They just break everything down really well,” Chase said as his almost 10-year-old daughter, Ivey, moved on to a bioacoustic lab section and tried out an electrolarynx at an exhibit that explains how the machine helps people speak without a voice box. The “Wild Music” exhibit has spent more than a decade at science museums around the country in places as varied as New Mexico and Georgia, but Ashland’s installation is different, according to Ruby. “We got this outright from the Science Museum of Minnesota,” Ruby said, adding that although pieces may still be toured around, “it is now ours.” Ruby said the museum has hosted traveling exhibits before, but he believes this is the first time the museum has purchased an exhibit outright. The museum will keep the entire exhibit up through Labor Day, but he anticipates that pieces later will be rearranged into new exhibits. For example, he anticipates the parabolic microphone exhibit could be reincorporated into a future exhibit about forests, while another could be brought back for the ocean. The popular pieces likely will stay up. For example, Ruby said he believes the jam room will “probably be up for forever at ScienceWorks.” “We’re glad to have given it a good home, and we’ll be reusing this stuff down the road,” Ruby said. Reach reporter Nick Morgan at 541-776-4471 or [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter @ MTCrimeBeat .