The displays show how Puerto Rican music started and how it has developed over the years. It is also widely played throughout other parts of the world, especially in the United States. The distinctive Puerto Rican music is often exported to other islands in the Caribbean. The museum is 'designed to produce the necessary visual and auditory impact on the audience so as to maximize the potential to draw the actual value of the unique Puerto Rican music'. The museum building is located at the southeast corner of Isabel and Salud streets. The museum exhibitions are presented in both Spanish and English. The building is easily spotted as it is housed in a pastel-colored villa, intentionally meant to attract visitors. The building was restored in 1990 by the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture with the goal of paying tribute to the works of Puerto Rican musicians in the most honorable way possible. Museo de la MГєsica PuertorriqueГ±a is not to be confused with Museo de la MГєsica, in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, also known as Museo de la MГєsica Rafael Ithier, an $18 million museum project by the Guaynabo municipal government which failed to open and was abandoned in March 2020. The back yard of the property still preserves an outdoors bar-like area complete with the Destileria SerrallГ©s and Don Quixote logo. This house on Calle Isabel was the SerallГ©s family's everyday downtown Ponce residence, as compared to their hilltop Serralles Castle residence. FГ©lix Juan SerrallГ©s, who married Francisca NevГЎrez, was a prominent local industrialist, and himself the grandson of prominent businessman Juan SerrallГ©s, the founder of the DestilerГa SerrallГ©s rum company. The current structure, acquired by the ICP, was built as the residence of the SerrallГ©s-NevГЎrez family. In 1996, the Instituto de Cultura PuertorriqueГ±a (ICP) moved the Music Museum to its current location at Isabel and Salud streets. It was designed in the neo-classic architectural style, specifically a French style architecture.

The pastel villa building was built by a well known architect named Juan Bertoli Calderoni, who also built many other buildings throughout Puerto Rico.

In 1991 the first headquarters of the Museo de la Musica PuertorriqueГ±a were located at 70 Cristina Street in what is now the Centro Cultural de Ponce. However, the idea of turning Castillo SerrallГ©s into a music museum was subsequently discarded. In 1986, the Ponce Municipal Government purchased the Castillo SerrallГ©s to turn it into the Museum of Puerto Rican Music. The building that houses the museum is known as Casa SerrallГ©s and it was the former downtown residence (as opposed to his hilltop Castillo SerrallГ©s structure) of Juan Eugenio SerrallГ©s and his family, owners of DestilerГa SerrallГ©s and makers of the Don Q rum.

The Museum traces the rich musical history of Puerto Rico through memorabilia of prominent musicians and displays of the musical instruments associated with the three genres of music that originated in this Caribbean island. Also on display are memorabilia of composers and performers. The Museo de la MГєsica PuertorriqueГ±a (English: Museum of Puerto Rican Music) is a museum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, that showcases the development of Puerto Rican music, with displays of TaГno, Spanish, and African musical instruments that were played in the romantic danza genre, the favorite music of 19th-century Puerto Rican high society, as well as the more African-inspired bomba and plena styles.

La musica de puerto rico