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Home»Culture»Uncover the Oldest, Weirdest Instrument On Earth: The Lithophone
Culture

Uncover the Oldest, Weirdest Instrument On Earth: The Lithophone

Buzzin DailyBy Buzzin DailyOctober 1, 2025No Comments3 Mins Read
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Uncover the Oldest, Weirdest Instrument On Earth: The Lithophone
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Sta­lac­tites cling tight to the ceil­ing, and sta­lag­mites push up with would possibly from the ground: it is a mnemon­ic machine it’s possible you’ll as soon as have discovered, however chances are high you haven’t had a lot occa­sion to remem­ber it since. Nonetheless, it would certain­ly be referred to as to thoughts by a vis­it to Luray Cav­erns within the Amer­i­can state of Vir­ginia, dwelling of the Nice Sta­lacpipe Organ. As its title sug­gests, that attrac­tion is an organ made out of sta­lac­tites, the geo­log­i­cal for­ma­tions that develop from cave ceil­ings. Not lengthy after the dis­cov­ery of Luray Cav­erns itself in 1878, its sta­lac­tites have been discovered to res­onate by way of the below­floor area in an virtually musi­cal fash­ion when struck — a prop­er­ty Leland W. Sprin­kle took to its log­i­cal con­clu­sion within the mid-nine­teen fifties.

“Dur­ing a tour of this world-famous nat­ur­al received­der, Mr. Sprin­kle watched in awe, which was nonetheless cus­tom­ary on the time, as a tour information tapped the traditional stone for­ma­tions with a small mal­let, professional­duc­ing a musi­cal tone,” says Luray Cav­erns’ offi­cial website. “Mr. Sprin­kle was nice­ly impressed by this demon­stra­tion and the thought for a most original instru­ment was con­ceived.”

Con­cep­tion was one factor, however exe­cu­tion fairly anoth­er: it took him three years to find simply the best sta­lac­tites, shave them all the way down to ring out at simply the best fre­quen­cy, and rig them up with elec­tron­i­cal­ly acti­vat­ed, key­board-con­trolled mal­lets. For the tech­ni­cal­ly thoughts­ed Sprin­kle, who labored at the Pen­ta­gon as a math­e­mati­cian and elec­tron­ics sci­en­tist, this should not have been fairly as tedious a labor because it sounds.

The outcome was the largest, the previous­est (at the very least accord­ing to the age of the cave itself), and arguably the bizarre­est musi­cal instru­ment on Earth, a litho­cellphone for the mid-twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry’s hero­ic age of engi­neer­ing. You’ll be able to see the Nice Sta­lacpipe Organ in the video from Ver­i­ta­si­um on the high of the put up, and listen to a document­ing of Sprin­kle him­self play­ing it beneath that. In the video simply above, YouTu­ber and musi­cian Rob Scal­lon will get an opportunity to take it for a spin. View­ers of his chan­nel understand how a lot expe­ri­ence he has with exot­ic instru­ments (includ­ing the glass armon­i­ca, orig­i­nal­ly invent­ed by Ben Franklin, which we’ve fea­tured right here on Open Cul­ture), besides, the oppor­tu­ni­ty to play a cave — and to utilize its sur­spherical sound avant la let­tre — onerous­ly comes daily. Right here now we have proof that the previous, bizarre Amer­i­ca endures, and that the Nice Sta­lacpipe Organ is its ide­al sound­monitor.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch an Archae­ol­o­gist Play the “Litho­cellphone,” a Pre­his­toric Instru­ment That Let Historical Musi­cians Play Actual Clas­sic Rock

Nick Cave Nar­charges an Ani­mat­ed Movie in regards to the Cat Piano, the Twist­ed 18th Cen­tu­ry Musi­cal Instru­ment Designed to Deal with Males­tal Unwell­ness

Based mostly in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His initiatives embody the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the e-book The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll by way of Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social internet­work for­mer­ly referred to as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.



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