The World’s Largest Natural Underground Musical Instrument Took Thousands of Years to Form

Petr Lebedev of Veritasium visited the Luray Caverns in Virginia to learn more about The Great Stalacpipe Organ, the world’s largest natural underground musical instrument, which took thousands of years to form. Rather than listening to the music, the visitor becomes part of the music.

You’re actually inside the organ right now. The organ covers three and a half acres. All the notes are scattered out around us.

The idea to turn the caverns into a fully embodying instrument came to mathematician Leland W. Sprinkle in 1954. As the story goes, Sprinkle heard a beautiful ring when someone or something hit one of stalagmites which inspired him to “tune” these natural wonders to be playable.

This was the start of Sprinkle’s three-year project to turn the cave into a musical instrument. …What he did is he walked around these caverns with a ladder and climbing equipment and little mallets and little tuning forks, and he would hit on stalactites. And then when there was one that was close enough to concert pitch that he wanted, he’d take a disc grinder and grind off the stalactite until it came to the pitch that he wanted.

Rob Scallon Plays The Great Stalacpipe Organ

Unfortunately, the organ was not working the day that Lebedev visited. Luckily Rob Scallon had played the giant instrument in the past year and was able to share his experience of playing a cave.

The organ wasn’t connected to the console when we visited, so Petr didn’t get a chance to play it. But Rob Scallon…made a video about it a couple years ago. We asked him what it’s like to play a cave.

RS: It’s hard to describe the feeling of playing a cave. It’s very like grounding, very surreal, very beautiful. You know, if I’m being romantic about it, you can hear the eons and eons and eons of time that were needed to create this thing.

A Recording of Leland W. Sprinkle Playing His Instrument