Welcome to the world's only Stalacpipe Organ. It plays hauntingly beautiful music on natural formations. A product of a partnership between the mind of man and natures magic is an electrically actuated lithophone located in Luray Caverns.
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.
It was designed and implemented in 1956 over three years by some clever clogs called Leland W. Sprinkle inside the Luray Caverns near Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, USA.
Sprinkle created the Great Stalacpipe Organ over three years by finding and shaving appropriate stalactites to produce specific notes. He then wired a mallet for each stalacite that is activated by pressing the correct key on the instrument's keyboard. The stalactites are distributed through approximately 3.5 acres of the caverns but can be heard anywhere within its 64-acre confines.
During its first three decades, weirdly, vinyl records of the Great Stalacpipe Organ were sold in the Luray Caverns gift shop. These early recordings featured Sprinkle at the organ manual. Later recordings of Sprinkle's performances were sold on cassette tape before organist Monte Maxwell created his own arrangements and recordings of the organ which are still sold on CD at Luray Caverns.
WITH NATURAL CAVE SOUNDS
Ripley's Believe it or not Featured The Organ a few years back in a feature..
WATCH OL' STALA' PIPES DOING THEIR THANG.
Pretty neat huh?
Kisses. x
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