Lithophone
Encyclopedia
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
consisting of a rock or pieces of rock which are struck to produce musical notes. Notes may be sounded in combination (producing harmony) or in succession (melody). The lithophone is an idiophone
Idiophone
An idiophone is any musical instrument which creates sound primarily by way of the instrument's vibrating, without the use of strings or membranes. It is the first of the four main divisions in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification...
similar to instruments such as the glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
, metallophone
Metallophone
A metallophone is any musical instrument consisting of tuned metal bars which are struck to make sound, usually with a mallet.Metallophones have been used in music for hundreds of years. There are several different types used in Balinese and Javanese gamelan ensembles, including the gendér, gangsa...
, xylophone
Xylophone
The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...
and marimba
Marimba
The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...
.
Notable examples
- A rudimentary form of lithophone is the "rock gongRock gongA rock gong is a lithophone. Found in Africa, Asia, and Europe, the gong is a slab of rock that is hit like a drum. Other regional names for the rock gong include kungering, kwerent dutse, gwangalan, kungereng, kongworian, and kuge...
", usually a natural rock formation opportunistically adapted to produce musical tones, such as that on Mfangano IslandMfangano IslandMfangano Island lies in the eastern part of Lake Victoria, at the mouth of the Winam Gulf. Part of Kenya, it lies west of Rusinga Island. The island is 65 km² in area and rises to 1,694 m at Mount Kwitutu. It had a population of 16,282 as of 1999 census of population...
, in Lake VictoriaLake VictoriaLake Victoria is one of the African Great Lakes. The lake was named for Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, by John Hanning Speke, the first European to discover this lake....
, KenyaKenyaKenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
. The Great Stalacpipe OrganThe Great Stalacpipe OrganThe Great Stalacpipe Organ is an electrically actuated lithophone located in Luray Caverns, Virginia, USA. It is operated by a custom console that produces the tapping of ancient stalactites of varying sizes with solenoid-actuated rubber mallets in order to produce tones...
of Luray CavernsLuray CavernsLuray Caverns, originally called Luray Cave, is a large, celebrated commercial cave just west of Luray, Virginia, USA, which has drawn many visitors since its discovery in 1878. The underground cavern system is generously adorned with speleothems...
, VirginiaVirginiaThe Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, USA uses 37 stalactites to produce the Western scale. Another stalactite lithophone is to be found at TenkasiTenkasiTenkasi pronounced as is a town and a municipality in Tirunelveli district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located in the foothills of the Western Ghats near the Courtallam Waterfalls.Tenkasi is also famous for saaral...
in South India. Ringing Rocks ParkRinging RocksRinging Rocks are rocks that have the property of resonating like a bell when struck, such as the Musical Stones of Skiddaw in the English Lake District as well as the stones in Ringing Rocks Park, in Upper Black Eddy, Bucks County, Pennsylvania USA and the Bell Rock Range of Western Australia...
in PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
is another well known lithophone.
A more sophisticated lithophone trims and mounts individual stones to achieve a full-scale idiophone
Idiophone
An idiophone is any musical instrument which creates sound primarily by way of the instrument's vibrating, without the use of strings or membranes. It is the first of the four main divisions in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification...
:
- Probable prehistoric lithophone stones have been found at SankarjangSankarjangSankarjang , Orissa, India is an archaeological site near Angul, a former cemetery and settlement with large, splendid worked stones...
in OrissaOrissaOrissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
, India. - VietnamVietnamVietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
ese lithophones dating back to ancient times, called đàn đá, have been discovered and revived in the 20th century. - The ritual music of Korea features the use of stone chimes called pyeongyeongPyeongyeongA pyeongyeong is a traditional Korean percussion instrument, a kind of stone chime or lithophone formed of sixteen L-shaped stone slabs suspended from a frame...
, derived from the Chinese bianqingBianqingThe bianqing is an ancient Chinese musical instrument consisting of a set of L-shaped flat stone chimes, played melodically. The chimes were hung in a wooden frame and struck with a mallet...
. - The Musical Stones of SkiddawMusical Stones of SkiddawThe Musical Stones of Skiddaw is a lithophone made of a type of hornfels rock found in Cumbria, England. Constructed between 1827 and 1840, the instrument has entertained royalty; it is now housed at the Keswick Museum and Art Gallery in Cumbria....
from CumbriaCumbriaCumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
, EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, have been made into an instrument found in Keswick Museum and Art GalleryKeswick Museum and Art GalleryThe Keswick Museum and Art Gallery in Cumbria was founded in 1873 and had a number of temporary homes as it grew, including the Moot Hall in Keswick town centre....
. - The Silex PianoSilex PianoThe Silex Piano is a musical instrument of the Lithophone family, which was created by a Mr. Honoré Baudre, circa 1885.According to Cassell's Family Magazine Illustrated, 1885;...
, circa 1885, employed suspended flints of various sizes which were struck with other flints to produce sounds. - Composer-vibraphonist Wolfgang Lackerschmid uses an instrument called the gramorimba, which is featured alongside the vibraphone and marimba in a trio setting.
The German composer Carl Orff
Carl Orff
Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...
calls for a lithophone called Steinspiel in his later works. Some lithophones include electric pickups to amplify the sounds.
External links
- The British composer Will Menterhttp://www.willmenter.com invented the llechiphone, a marimbaMarimbaThe marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...
with keys made of slateSlateSlate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...
, while working in North WalesNorth WalesNorth Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...
.http://www.neufportes.net/inst.htm - Other slate lithophones, called stonaphones, are made in the U.S. state of MaineMaineMaine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
by Jim Doble out of recycled slate roofing.http://www.tidewater.net/~xylojim/edstone.html - An installation in Quark Park by Perry Cook and Jonathan Shor, consisting of 17 bars stretched over a 35 feet (10.7 m) long path.
- Audio and video of Stalacpipe Organ on Sound Tourism site
- lithophones.com Photographs, audio clips, and videos of lithophones from around the world, historical and contemporary.