Lithophones, By Gayle Young

by Annie Corrigan / 2018 Sound Symposium XIX, All News
July 5, 2018

Courtesy of Gayle Young

Instruments where stones vibrate to create music have been played all over the world since ancient times. Sometimes the stones are carved and tuned, organized like a marimba, sometimes they are suspended as chimes. Gayle Young prefers stones that are rugged and plucked directly from their natural environment.

When she walks along a beach she watches for flat stones. Usually they have been rounded by waves, sometimes they are rough-edged, if they’ve recently been separated from the bedrock. She tests each stone for tone, tapping it with another stone while by holding it at its nodes. (The nodes are the same as on a marimba, where each bar of wood is attached at 1/4 of its length, leaving the rest free to vibrate.) Holding the stone at its nodes lets it vibrate unless there’s a crack or other irregularity that suppresses vibration.

Gayle has chosen stones that have gradually been rounded by waves on the shores of Newfoundland for her performance with James Harley at LSPU Hall.

In Cascade, they combine the sounds of stones played live with pre-recorded sounds of a waterfall recorded through tuned lengths of tubing, some as long as fifteen feet — a low E-flat with shimmering overtones created by water splashes. The stones Gayle uses could easily have been formed by such a waterfall, as small stones fall away from the cliff face, perhaps as winter ice melts, and are then rounded by flowing water and other small stones for many years.

Gayle Young And James Harley At Sound Symposium XIX