Local Park in Downtown WP Adds New Instrumental Features
Trevor Phipps
Anyone who has walked through Woodland Park’s Memorial Park recently may have been shocked to hear mysterious melodic sounds coming from the playground area.
Earlier this month, new musical instruments were installed near the playground at Memorial Park that anyone can play.
The newest upgrades occurred following a donation offered by the Ute Pass Kiwanis Club. The construction and installation of the instruments was then completed by the local Andersen Construction company. The process took a few months to finalize as permitting had go through the proper city channels. But in recent weeks, a new concrete pad was poured near the playground.
Then, Andersen’s team worked tirelessly to properly mount the large public-use instruments. The goal was to have the project completed before the park would attract hundreds of children for the city’s Old Fashioned Fourth of July celebration. The crews finalized the project and held a small event celebrating the park’s new addition on July 2.
The brainchild behind the project was Karin Taylor, a local musician and Kiwanis member. According to her husband and fellow Kiwanis member Lee Taylor, Karin seeks out parks with public musical instruments on virtually every trip they take. Moreover, Karin Taylor has enjoyed playing the instruments in parks and teaching children and others how to play them.
Her interest in musically enhancing public parks meshed well with the club’s pursuits.
When the local Kiwanis club was looking for a way to add something to the signature park that everyone could use, Taylor got to work with research. After trying to find a partner to help them with the project, Taylor figured out that the Kiwanis organization could make it happen themselves.
“I have seen parks with musical installations for years, and I thought this would be fabulous for Woodland Park,” Karin Taylor said. “They are all instruments that make a xylophone or gong or large wind chime type sounds. So, it is a very melodic, centric experience. They are percussion in the fact that you use a mallet with it but it is not like a drum.”
Taylor said that the instruments are limited at a certain decibel level, so the sound won’t disturb neighboring residents or businesses. In fact, many have said that the instruments aren’t as loud as the sounds of children playing in the playground.
Putting on a Public Concert
Taylor personally sourced the musical instruments through a company called Freenotes Harmony Park, which is the largest manufacturer of musical instruments for public and commercial spaces in the country. The larger instruments were hand-picked so that everyone (including children) could take their turn playing on the instruments.
“Freenotes Harmony Park instruments were originally developed by Grammy Award-winning musician Richard Cooke in 1995,” the Freenotes website states. “The idea came as a solution to the impediments of learning to play a traditional instrument and needing to read music. Cooke’s experience of learning to play the flute in an improvisational style without taking any lessons or reading music was so profound, he wanted to teach others how they might experience this freedom of playing music instinctively. So many barriers of time, cost and talent were in the way of public exposure to music that he decided to create outdoor instruments that sounded so beautiful that everyone who started to play wouldn’t want to stop.”
The instruments (which double as art sculptures) were purposely placed near the playground so that children could enjoy them while they play on the playground and river area. A concrete pad was poured and the instruments were placed strategically far apart so that they could be accessible to everyone.
Ever since the instruments were installed, people of all ages can be seen in Memorial Park, creating their own unique tunes. In fact, a number of children are often mesmerized by the sounds they make with the sculptures.
The project was a result of cooperation with Woodland Park’s Parks and Recreation Department. Under this program, anyone who wishes to raise the appropriate funds can upgrade any city park. “You go through parks and recreation, you meet with the city, you meet with the city planners and you have to get sign-offs from everyone,” Taylor said. “It was probably easier than another type of construction project because they consider this a playground or park-type construction.”
The musical instruments now add a feature that isn’t necessarily easy to find anywhere else nearby. Taylor said she has visited a few similar musical parks in other parts of Colorado. To her knowledge Memorial Park’s musical sculptures are the only ones like them in the entire Southern Colorado/Pikes Peak Region.
And following the project’s success, Kiwanis member Lee Taylor has aspirations for similar efforts. The group is considering adding musical sculptures to parks in other towns in Teller County, such as Divide, Florissant and Cripple Creek.
