This description is for our 4' Musical Fence which is designed for younger children (You'll find the same description under our 6' fence for older children).
Our unique Musical Fence is sized to fit within a Natural Playground setting as part of the music/sound garden. The fence frame is cedar, and it holds vertical, galvanized, metal tubes spaced closely together so that children walking or running along the fence while dragging their hand or a stick along the pipes make percussive musical sounds (like in the old days of running a stick along fence balusters).
But the neat thing, is that when kids swipe their hands across all the tubes, the tubes swing into each other, thus setting off a series of resounding, random notes that sound just like wind chimes (but with much deeper sounds). Further, a child can also strike the individual tubes with a stick or a stone to create individual notes!
This is sort of like a giant chime, but it’s operated by kid and not the wind (well, unless it’s a hurricane! :)
This wonderfully inventive, unique musical instrument teaches many lessons about rhythm, movement, and sound. The pipes are not "tuned" for a very simple reason: Children need to "find" sounds on the playground, just as they find and hear different sounds in nature. if they’re given perfectly tuned pipes in consecutive order, then they will always think that musical sounds are always perfectly pitched and "come" that way.
Our pipes teach them about the randomness of sounds and notes, and that making traditional "music" is up to them.
In-ground installation instructions are included. Built/installed dimensions for the 4' Fence: L=48", W=12", H=43" without the roof.
Note: If you want the four foot Musical Fence for use inside (or even outside when you don’t have the option of mounting it in the ground), just choose the “with feet” option from the pull down menu (see photo below). There is an extra charge for the feet.