The Oldest Lithophone

The Skiddaw Stones are probably the most unusual and certainly the
oldest instrument that Soniccouture has sampled.

A Lithophone ( litho = stone, phone= voice ) dating from 1840,
The Skiddaw Stones are composed of 61 tuned and shaped rocks, made from
the rare hornfels stone, found in Cumbria, England. Hornfels is said to
have a superior tone and longer ring than the more commonly used slate.

Created by Joseph Richardson, a stonemason and musician, it took almost
thirteen years to collect and shape enough individual notes of hornfels
to make an eight-octave range. The stones were taken from Skiddaw, one
of the highest mountains in Cumbria. The massive task of assembling
this instrument consumed Joseph so absolutely that he and his family
were reduced to poverty. Once complete, Richardson and his sons toured
Europe as The Rock, Bell and Steel Band, and even performed at
Buckingham Palace, by command of Queen Victoria.

The Stones currently reside at the Keswick Museum, who very kindly
agreed to let us take them off-site, to a studio for the recording.
As the stones are insured for ?350 000, this was no casual undertaking.
Every stone was carefully wrapped and packed in custom made flight-cases
for transportation. Once at the studio, two different sets of mallets
were used to laboriously capture large sets of velocity hits, then an
extra articulation was recorded - the sound of the head of the wooden
mallet being scraped across the stone surface - a surprisingly haunting
and resonant sound.

The result is a truly bewitching instrument, one that sounds truly
ancient, even older than it is. Totally unique rock music.

http://www.soniccouture.com/en/products/g4-the-skiddaw-stones/

Download File Size:1.96 GB

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