Music Go Round

The Music-Go-Round, The Lithophone Fence, was Tom’s entry in the 2014 Art Prize Competition in Grand Rapids, and was purchased there by Ripley’s Museums.His inspiration for the piece is the classic image of a child “playing” a picket fence with a stick, and the desire to have that fence play an actual song. The pickets on the fence are made of scrap granite countertop, tuned to pitch, and spaced out to play the song “Row Row Row Your Boat” as you walk or run around it, tapping it with a golfball on a stick. He chose that song and the circular shape, so that as many as four people, could play it as a round, by spacing out four steps apart.

It is one of his favorite creations for a few reasons; everyone was able to play a song without having to know anything about music, it combined movement and music. People of all ages were running around it, laughing happily, several people could enjoy it at once, and after a few times around they were happy to let others try. Tom is currently developing several other pieces based on the same concept.