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SEE singing stones being played...

3rd Jan 2014

Mexicolore contributor Chris Garcia

We owe a very special thanks to Chris García, not only a highly talented and creative musician but a studious researcher on the indigenous music of Mexico, for creating this wonderful video, specially for Mexicolore, of him playing ‘singing’ or ‘ringing’ stones. Only certain rocks or stones have the right properties that allow them to resonate and sound something like a bell when struck with a hammer or other stone. Evidence for the Mexica or Maya playing these instruments is virtually non-existent, yet it seems highly unlikely that these great peoples would have been unaware of the sound or ‘musical’ qualities of all the natural materials around them: if they ‘played’ instruments made of shell, reed, wood, animal bone and skin, clay, gourds, even metals... why not stone?

Technically singing or ringing stones belong to a family of percussion instruments called ‘lithophones’. We hope to add more on this type of instrument in the future... For the moment, MANY thanks, Chris!

Chris García’s music website ‘Mexica Gongs and Bell Plates’ (Chris Garcia website)

Comments (3)

Jedidiah

23rd Apr 2024

What did the Aztecs call this lithophone instrument in their language?

Mexicolore

tehuehuetl. This word combines the word for ‘stone’ (tetl) and that for drum (huehuetl).

Ron Barber

28th Jan 2017

I have been studying Stone Calendars around the southwest and northern Mexico for the last decade, these are light and petroglyph interaction solar calendars.
At the calendar sites we have found many of these ceremonial instruments in southwest I have also found the quarries where these rock have been extracted. I’m sure the Aztec instruments are very similar.

Christopher Garcia

15th May 2014

TETL
While no one has yet found images, murals, or sculptures showing musicians playing instruments made of stone there are sacred spaces all over the world where resonant stones reverberate and are played, these are known as lithophones. It is not too difficult to imagine an ancient musician experiencing this and trying to replicate it in a different space.
One of the first audio recordings of stones being used as an instruments comes from the GRUPO TRIBU MUSICA based in Mexico City, MX.
CHECK OUT THEIR VIDEO BELOW FROM A PERFORMANCE IN 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJpppnZbfO4
to see 2 masters at work
STONES
13:04 thru 14:31 and 30:37 thru 32:54
BACH ON ATECOCOLLI
33:40

LUIS PEREZ IXONEZTLI
http://www.ixoneztli.com/
There are also caves/sacred spaces found all over the world where stalactites are also played either with a finger, a hand, a mallet or other stones. Luis Perez Ixoneztli has finished making audio and visual recordings of himself doing exactly that in caves in Mexico.
Luis has consistently recorded music on instruments of Mexico since 1980 - visit link below
http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/music/forerunners-of-recorded-music-from-ancient-mexico

LITHOPHOHNE LINKS AND MORE
PLAYABLE STONE LANDSCAPES
http://www.landscape-perception.com/archaeoacoustics/
http://www.landscape-perception.com/acoustic_mapping/
http://www.lithophones.com/index.php?id=2

SACRED MAYAN CENOTES AND CAVES
http://sacredmayancenotesandcaves.blogspot.com/
INAH (National Institute or Archaeology and History of Mexico),

EXPLORING MEXICOS SACRED CAVES
http://abcnews.go.com/International/exploring-mexicos-sacred-caves/story?id=17851339

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DEEPEST CAVE IN THE AMERICAS
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0402/online_extra.html

THANK YOU IAN