How the World's First 'Rock' Concert Was Lost to History

I want to tell you the story of a physician who was the first to make music with a garden that never grows, a sculptor who could make stones sing, a modern mystery of geology tucked away in the forests of rural Pennsylvania, and a study in erosion: a notion that we may never be able to get back that which by our own hands are forever lost.

In todays video we are deep diving into the mystery of Ringing Rocks Park, in Pennsylvania. The Ringing Rocks are a field of musical boulders which produce musical tones when struck with hammers. We will explore the mystery of why they ring with geologist @rockmanethan , some of the acoustic science behind their timbre, and interesting music theory concepts that come up in sampling, recording and composing for rocks.

We will then take a deep dive into the history and lineage of lithophones (rock instruments), from neolithic rock gongs found Karnataka, India and all across Africa to ancient Chinese stone chimes (Quing, & Bianqing). Along the way we will cover famous lithophones like the largest instrument in the world: The Great Stalacpipe Organ in the Luray Caves of Virginia, the Musical Stones of Skiddaw and modern lithophone inventions like a working electromechanical lithophone midi robot who covers Vulfpecks "It Gets Funkier III". Then we take a trip to San Sperate, Sardinia, Italy where we honor the work of the late great sculptor Pinuccio Sciola who designed perhaps the greatest lithophone sculptures in existence. We will examine Sciola's philosophies when it comes to music and sound in stone and try to re-contextualize what we've come to understand through testing of the rock field's sonorous properties, and humanity's effect on them.

Then we will take a turn and examine how the first ever "rock" concert was lost to history. We will look at the case and accounts of John J Ott (JJ Ott) a physician who reportedly played a concert with his brass band on the rocks. One of JJ's songs he played that day, "Sounds from the Ringing Rocks" has since been lost to history. There are no recordings, or sheet music of his tune. In this video, I attempt to bring back this song that has been forgotten for 115 years. Along the way we will discover an interesting controversy in music authorship and inadvertently be the first in the world to ever record a forgotten song that is over 100 years old.

Huge thanks to @rockmanethan for helping me out with this one, check him out here:

Huge thanks to Webster Moore for recording piano for this video, check him out here:

Connect with me here:

Timestamps:
00:00 - Sounds from the Ringing Rocks
00:45 - What are the Ringing Rocks?
02:36 - Musical Geology!
10:14 - Erosion by human hands
10:48 - On Lithophones, and the sculptor who changed music
16:22 - Levi's attempt at internet panhandling
16:57 - In search of the First Rock Concert
21:37 - Lascaux & our innate need for expression
24:36 - Conclusion
28:50 - Composing at the Ringing Rocks

#ringingrocks #lithophones #Pinucciosciola #erosion #musictheory #musicalrocks #musicalstones #firstrockconcert #stonemusic

[shredvansshredquarters]

You should do a video on how fast I became a Levi McClain Patron after hearing Levi McClain utter "I just launched my Patreon"....killer stuff, can't wait for your next creation!!

[.]

As a rock collector and music fan, this is right up my valley.

[MattRynbrand]

This video is incredible. The writing, filming, editing are all 10/10. I felt like I was watching a National Geographic piece. ❤

[SaveTheBodega]

This was awesome ❤ can’t wait to ask someone when the first rock concert was played… devious 😂

[DB-btcd]

amazing that you got jon stone to talk about rocks in the video 3:30

[stephenweigel]

THIS video on ROCKS is AMAZING! I truly love this, great stuff. It's a great deep dive that features a lot of beautiful music. More rock instruments! Especially struck by how many non-Western instruments here used rocks

[phonetyx]

because the tone comes from hitting the rocks, and the rocks can be formed by nature without human influence, its very likely that the rocks could be used for microtonal/xenharmonic compositions, you just gotta find the right rocks

[stephenkhess]

I love it, great video! This much more in depth than I was expecting when you first told my son and me about your idea!

[matthiaswirth]

An absolute gem of a documentary I just found. Keep up the good work :)

[pine_whisperer]

Incredible video! A most fascinating and informative talk I've ever heard on lithophonic rocks and its geological phenomena. Love your composition at the end, you never cease to amaze. Well done!

[Max-elzd]

glad to have found such high quality music content at such in early time in ur channel development

it feels good to be an og ❤

If I could give any recommendations it would probably be to include more background music similar to what David Hilowitz music included in his own videos. I think that would make your already really good videos even better.

[sarahrothfuss]

Good content! Cant wait this channel grows as it should! Keep up the good work

[leftright]

this was super interesting! keep this sort of content coming :D

[braelen]

This video reminds me of my love for geology and the natural sciences, thank you for this gem. Another banger, he doesn’t miss!

[andrewstroud]

My apologies, but I omitted one of the basic criteria for the formation of the boulder fields. When the diabase sills formed 200 million years ago, the tectonic plates of North America and Africa were being pulled apart. The basalt magma was very hot and very fluid, and came up from the mantle in the tension fractures that formed. These sills were emplaced along the entire length of the Appalachian Mountains, from what is now Georgia north into New England. Presumably all of these sills developed the same stressed phenocryst units at the bottom contacts through gravity settling. So theoretically there should be ringing rock boulder fields throughout the Appalachian Mountain system. Searching through the geologic literature, that situation did not happen. Only a narrow zone of ringing rock boulder fields formed in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. This zone is located within about ten miles of the southernmost extent of the glacial ice sheets. See the diagram on the Wikipedia page. So I suspect that this zone is the only area where it became cold enough to provide the intense freeze-thaw conditions to create the boulder fields. Diabase outcrops to the north of this zone were scraped off by the glaciers, and outcrops to the south didn't get cold enough to form boulder fields.

Also, It seems that there is likely a minimum size for the boulder fields. Tannic acid from the surrounding temperate rain forest tends to break the diabase down quickly, so the fields have to be large enough to isolate the the well-drained boulders.

So the basic 'recipe' for creating ringing rock boulder fields is:
1. The formation of diabase sills with a basal layer of coarse olivine and pyroxene phenocrysts which retain the formation stresses;
2. Erosion of the upper portions of the sills to expose the basal unit;
3. Large areas of the basal unit are exposed at the correct slope-dip conditions (usually top or base of a hill slope);
4. Acidic groundwater circulates through the fractures in the rock formation, converting the extremely hard rock to soft clay and thus releasing the boulders;
5. The exposures are broken up into boulder fields by intense periglacial freeze-thaw conditions, boulders outside of the fields are quickly weathered away due to soil acid; and
6. Hopefully the boulder fields were not wiped out by some unscrupulous developer.


Cheers, AES

[andrewstroud]

Nice piece of work, well done! It sounds like you found my notes in the TALK tab of the Ringing Rocks Wikipedia page. After having visited most of the ringing rock boulder fields in Pennsylvania and Montana, I wouldn't be too worried over the stresses becoming dissipated. I've taken geochemistry samples from both areas and a 12-pound sledge hammer just simply bounces off without a dent. One boulder in Montana was about 20 feet across, and was so loud when I hit it that it took about ten minutes to get my hearing back (industrial ear plugs help!). If possible check out the Stony Garden boulder fields which don't have nearly as much traffic (they are where Ott actually got his boulders, not from the county park field) and you will hear pretty much the same sounds (B flat seems to be the most common). Best guess from comparing the rocks from all of the sites, this type of ringing rock formed in shallow igneous intrusions that contain large crystals (phenocrysts) of which about 5% are composed of olivine (magnesium silicate) and 20-25% are pyroxene (magnesium iron silicate). Most likely the stresses were captured by these minerals when the rock was still molten and under compression. The Rutgers experiment suggested that the stresses were imparted on the boulders through surface weathering, but that model implies that the rock is like a rubber ball that can be deformed. In actuality they are more like glass bottles: when the glass is semi-molten it changes shape just fine, but when it cools and hardens then it simply shatters under stress. Not to mention that the weathering forces could not possibly be great enough to create the effect. These ringing rock boulder fields required very specific conditions to form. For the Pennsylvania fields the main rock formation was a series of diabase sills which were emplaced 200 million years ago when the North American plate began rifting away from Africa. Basalt magma from the upper mantle migrated upward into the extended crust, and as it nearly reached the surface then it spread out into horizontal sills like a series of blisters. The sills were about 1, 000 feet thick in most places. As the magma was emplaced it was a mixture mostly fine grained pyroxene and plagioclase feldspar, but also it included phenocrysts of pyroxene and olivine which had been dragged up from the mantle. As soon as the sills formed and were still molten the heavier phenocrysts settled to the floors of the sills, forming a layer about 10-15 feet thick. If you look at the diabase rock around the parking area for the county park you will see a diabase that is fine grained and smooth black. This rock is the 'normal' diabase from the upper part of the sill. The ringing rock material from the floor of the sill is also dark, but is mainly composed of these larger phenocrysts. That was the first miracle, to create the stressed rock unit. The next trick was to get it exposed in boulder fields. Over millions of years the rock formations were slightly folded so that they were not perfectly horizontal, and the upper portion of the sills were eroded away. To get these thin layers of stressed rock to become exposed at the surface required a very special condition. The slope of the ground surface had to match the structural dip of the rock unit (slope-dip relationship). See the diagram in the Wikipedia page. To get precisely the right angles is pretty tricky and doesn't happen very frequently. Usually it occurs at either the top of a hill (Bucks County Park field, Pottstown field) or at the base of a slope (Stony Garden, Devil's Potato Patch). If you follow around the sides of the boulder fields into the forests there are usually plenty of boulders of the stressed rock which have been severely weathered because they were buried in soil. Typically the slope was too steep to allow the boulder fields to form. I suspect that the tannic acid from vegetation tends to chemically break the rock down pretty quickly despite the hardness of the material. This condition also accounts for the weird weathering patterns in the boulders. Just before erosion had exposed the tops of the stressed rock units, groundwater carrying tannic acid circulated into the cracks and fissures of the rock. The acid converted the hard minerals into soft clays and micas which were washed away once the boulders were exposed at the surface, leaving what looks like sedimentary solution features. The weathered fractures also controlled the final shape and size of the boulders. Thanks for the well done video! Cheers, Andy Stroud

[Astrochronic]

Let me stop you at 6:30...The rocks formed under great pressure. The outer layers of the rocks act like a shell, like surface tension. This is why the rocks resonate. Heat from sunlight and cooling at night would expand and release this stress and cause the "dead" effect. Mystery solved. You can thank me next century and build a statue.

[Astrochronic]

Dial down the pretentiousness a notch...just my advice.