Lithophone
musical instrument made from rock
A lithophone is a musical instrument consisting of a rock or pieces of rock which are struck to produce musical notes. Notes may be sounded in combination (producing harmony) or in succession (melody). It is an idiophone comparable to instruments such as the glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone and marimba.
In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, lithophones are designated as '111.22' – directly-struck percussion plaques.
History
Research has found evidence of lithophones dating from prehistoric times.
The first documented description is from Peter Crosthwaite in his memorandum on 11 June 1785. He described them as "Music Stones," rediscovering the Lithophone and creating one that stayed at the Keswick Museum and Art Gallery. Crosthwaite assembled 6 different stones (later adding 10 more over 6 months), each with their own pitch to complete the major scale. The length and thickness of each rock determines its pitch. Longer and thicker rocks gave lower note pitches and vice versa.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Lithophone” is musical instrument made from rock. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Lithophone, musical and instrument, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1704079. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1785.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lithophone” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.