A lithophone is a musical instrument consisting of a rock or pieces of rock which are struck to produce musical notes.[1] Notes may be sounded in combination (producing harmony) or in succession (melody). It is an idiophone comparable to instruments such as the glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone and marimba.
In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, lithophones are designated as '111.22' – directly-struck percussion plaques.
Notable examples
A rudimentary form of lithophone is the "rock gong", usually a natural rock formation opportunistically adapted to produce musical tones, such as that on Mfangano Island, in Lake Victoria, Kenya. The Great Stalacpipe Organ of Luray Caverns, Virginia, USA uses 37 stalactites to produce the Western scale. Other stalactite lithophones are at Tenkasi in South India, and at Ringing Rocks Park in Pennsylvania. An example that is no longer used is at Cave of the Winds, in Colorado Springs.
The Txalaparta (or Chalaparta), a traditional Basque instrument, can be made of wood or stone, but is traditionally wood.
More sophisticated lithophones utilize trimmed and individually mounted stones to achieve full-scale instruments:
- Probable prehistoric lithophone stones have been found at Sankarjang in Odisha, India.[2]
- Recent research into usage wear and acoustics of prehistoric stone artefacts in North America and Europe has revealed a number of possible portable lithophones.[3][4]
- Vietnamese 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 pyeongyeong, derived from the Chinese bianqing.
- The Musical Stones of Skiddaw from Cumbria, England have been made into an instrument placed at Keswick Museum and Art Gallery.
- A lithophone called the Musical Stones has been created at Brantwood, the former home of John Ruskin in Cumbria, England, and may be played there by visitors.[5]
- The Silex Piano, 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.
- Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós played a slate marimba, which sculptor Páll Guðmundsson constructed from rocks found in Iceland.[6] This is demonstrated in their DVD Heima.[7]
- The stone marimba.
- The hōkyō, a lithophone invented in Japan, has been made from the bars of sanukite.[8]
- The German composer Carl Orff calls for a lithophone called Steinspiel in his later works.[citation needed]
- Some lithophones include electric pickups to amplify the sounds.[citation needed]
As architectural elements
Ancient Indians were perhaps the first to use man-made lithophones as architectural elements. Temples like Nellaiyappar temple (8th century) in Tirunelveli, Vijaya Vitthala temple (15th century) in Hampi, Madurai Meenakshi temple (16th century) and Suchindram Thanumalayan temple (17th century) have musical pillars.[9]
Stone marimba
A stone marimba is configured in the same manner as the more typical wooden bar marimba. The bars are usually wide like a wooden marimba, but are thinner, which helps increase resonance. The stone marimba may or may not have resonators.
In 1949 an ancient stone marimba was discovered in modern-day Vietnam near a village called Ndut Lieng Krak. The 11 stone plates, made of schist, were chipped into the tuning of a pentatonic scale. They are currently housed at the Musée de l'Homme and may be the oldest known musical instrument.[10]
Lithophone made of Phonolite in the botanic garden in Schellerhau (Germany)
Ethiopian Lithophones with Stand, Monastery of Na’akuto La’ab
Stone marimba, range C3–C5
Stone xylophone, Clore Garden of Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Stone chimes, Shandong Provincial Museum, Jinan
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See also
References
- The stones of Ndut Lieng Krak. New Scientist. 10 January 1957. p. 8.
External links
- The British composer Will Menter Will Menter, sculptures sonores, sound sculptures, musique contemporaine invented the llechiphone, a marimba with keys made of slate, while working in North Wales.Will Menter lithophones and mbiras
- UK Musician, Tony Dale developed a resonated slate lithophone in 1984 featured by composer John Hardy.
- Other slate lithophones, called stonaphones, are made in the U.S. state of Maine by Jim Doble out of recycled slate roofing.STONE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS (LITHOPHONES)
- An installation in Quark Park by Perry Cook and Jonathan Shor, consisting of 17 bars stretched over a 35-foot (11 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.
Video
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithophone#Stone_marimba
| Extrusive igneous rock | |
 Dark, prismatic phenocrysts of aegirine in phonolite sample | |
| Composition | |
|---|---|
| Primary | nepheline, sodalite, hauyne, leucite, analcite, sanidine, anorthoclase |
| Secondary | biotite, amphibole, pyroxene, olivine |
Phonolite is an uncommon shallow intrusive or extrusive rock, of intermediate chemical composition between felsic and mafic, with texture ranging from aphanitic (fine-grained) to porphyritic (mixed fine- and coarse-grained). Phonolite is a variation of the igneous rock trachyte that contains nepheline or leucite rather than quartz.[1] It has an unusually high (12% or more) Na2O + K2O content, defining its position in the TAS classification of igneous rocks. Its coarse grained (phaneritic) intrusive equivalent is nepheline syenite. Phonolite is typically fine grained and compact. The name phonolite comes from the Ancient Greek meaning "sounding stone" due to the metallic sound it produces if an unfractured plate is hit; hence, the English name clinkstone is given as a synonym.
Formation
 |
Unusually, phonolite forms from magma with a relatively low silica content, generated by low degrees of partial melting (less than 10%) of highly aluminous rocks of the lower crust such as tonalite, monzonite and metamorphic rocks. Melting of such rocks to a very low degree promotes the liberation of aluminium, potassium, sodium and calcium by melting of feldspar, with some involvement of mafic minerals. Because the rock is silica-undersaturated, it has no quartz or other silica crystals, and is dominated by low-silica feldspathoid minerals more than feldspar minerals.
A few geological processes and tectonic events can melt the necessary precursor rocks to form phonolite. These include intracontinental hotspot volcanism,[2] such as may form above mantle plumes covered by thick continental crust. A-type granites and alkaline igneous provinces usually occur alongside phonolites. Low-degree partial melting of underplates of granitic material in collisional orogenic belts may also produce phonolites.
Mineralogy and petrology
Phonolite is a fine-grained equivalent of nepheline syenite. They are products of partial melting, are silica-undersaturated, and have feldspathoids in their normative mineralogy.
Mineral assemblages in phonolite occurrences are usually abundant feldspathoids (nepheline, sodalite, hauyne, leucite and analcite) and alkali feldspar (sanidine, anorthoclase or orthoclase), and rare sodic plagioclase. Biotite, sodium-rich amphiboles and pyroxenes along with iron-rich olivine are common minor minerals. Accessory phases include titanite, apatite, corundum, zircon, magnetite and ilmenite.[4] Phonolite's characteristic dark color comes from its concentration of dark pyroxenes such as aegirine and augite.
Blairmorite is an analcite-rich variety of phonolite.[5][6]
Occurrence
Nepheline syenites and phonolites occur widely distributed throughout the world[7] in Canada, Norway, Greenland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Ural Mountains, the Pyrenees, Italy, Eifel and Kaiserstuhl in Germany, Brazil, the Transvaal region, the Magnet Cove igneous complex of Arkansas, the Beemerville Complex of New Jersey,[8] as well as on oceanic islands such as the Canary Islands.[9]
Phonolite is common across Europe, particularly within the Eifel Plateau and the Laacher See. It is also found in the Czech Republic and the Mediterranean area near Italy. For localities in the United States, phonolite can be found in the Black Hills Forest in South Dakokta. The most well known phonolite-composed natural structure is the Devil's Tower, found in Wyoming.[1]
Nepheline-normative rocks occur in close association with the Bushveld Igneous Complex, possibly formed from partial melting of the wall rocks adjacent to that large ultramafic layered intrusion. Phonolite occurs in the related Pilanesberg Complex and Pienaars River Complex.[10]
Examples
North America
- Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mine phonolite pipe in Colorado
- Baldface Mountain, west-central British Columbia, Canada
- Devils Tower, Wyoming, United States, an example of columnar-jointed phonolite[11]
- Hoodoo Mountain, northwestern British Columbia, Canada
- Missouri Buttes, Crook County, northeast Wyoming, United States
Europe
- Bass Rock, North Berwick Law and Traprain Law in southeast Scotland, UK[12]
- Bořeň, northwestern Czech Republic
- Mont Gerbier de Jonc, Ardèche, France[13]
- Montiferru, Sardinia
- Wolf Rock, Cornwall
Other
- Jebel Nefusa, Libya[14]
- Dunedin, New Zealand[15]
- Teide, a stratovolcano on the island of Tenerife[16]
- The phonolitic lava lake in Mount Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica
- The 'Bellstone' in Saint Helena[17]
Economic importance
Phonolites can be of interest as dimension stone or as aggregate for gravels.
Rarely, economically mineralised phonolite-nepheline syenite alkaline complexes can be associated with rare-earth mineralisation, uranium mineralisation and phosphates, such as at Phalaborwa, South Africa.
Phonolite tuff was used as a source of flint for adze heads and such by prehistoric people from Hohentwiel and Hegau, Germany.[18]
Phonolites can be separated into slabs of appropriate dimensions to be used as roofing tiles in place of roofing slate. One such occurrence is in the French Massif Central region such as the Haute Loire département.[citation needed]
References
- Affolter, J., 2002, Provenance des silex préhistoriques du Jura et des régions limitrophes, Archéologie neuchâteloise, 28.
External links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonolite
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