Palisade Piano

I remember when I was a kid the joy of cycling along, holding an outstretched stick against the bars of a long fence that ran the length of a nearby park, and being delighted at the random ping pang of the ringing metal posts.

The Palisade Piano is a more technically complex version of that same stick hitting a row of railings.

It consists of a long fence of vertically stretched cables that act as both a fence and an elongated musical instrument. Each of the cables is attached to a sliding block at the top and bottom, along with a tension control. The cables can therefore vary both their distances apart, which becomes the timing, and their tension, which alters the frequency of the individual notes they will deliver.

It is therefore possible by cycling along at a constant speed to play a preset passage of music, which could be constantly varied, even during the process of each journey.

Cyclists wishing to play the instrument would naturally have to travel in one direction only, to avoid collisons, but since the instrument is under the control of microprocessors, several musical selections could be played simultaneously with the rods constantly adjusting their position and tension after each impact.

As long as the cyclists maintained a constant speed and a reasonable distance apart, they could all have the pleasure of generating an individual melody as they cycled merrily along, holding a stick against the singing bars of the Palisade Piano.