Brightwater Commons Musical Fountains

Give a history of where musical fountains come from

I am not ashamed to admit that I just love musical fountains. water and fire combine to create a sensory delight with sound music and colour. for me this is a really good alternative to fire works!

The simple pleasure of watching musical fountains, no matter how many times I watch them I am enthralled- it brings out the child in me, the magical and fairy tales all come alive. For a magic moment I am thrown into another dimension of wonder, colour and sounds. For a moment I am with my mother and grandmother watching their faces delighting in the simple wonder of dancing water.

You may have seen a musical fountain, and thought "isn't modern technology wonderful" but did you know that musical fountains are older than you think - in fact much older.

Over 100 years ago in 1908 we saw the "birth" of "The electric fountain" made by FW Darlington. In short, this was a custom made concrete building in the Ferril lake in Denver U.S.A.
It was very cleverly constructed. It had nozzle formations on the roof which were built around what we would now refer to as skylights. Below each skylight was an electric arc light above each arc light was a coloured disc which could be remotely rotated to give different colours, in short a colour wheel. ingenious!!

The whole building was submerged underwater and everything was controlled remotely from the shore, including the steam driven pumps that made the water shoot high up into the air.

The remote operator controlled the fountain by moving a series of levers in time to music played by the local band.

The first truly portable musical fountains had to wait at least another 12 years, the company was started by Otto Przystawik, the company is still running today.

so what is a musical fountain?

"A musical fountain is a type of animated fountain for entertainment purposes that creates an aesthetic design (including three-dimensional images). This is achieved by employing the effects of timed sound waves and timed light (including laser) against water particles. The water refracts and reflects the light, and in doing so, three-dimensional images can be produced."

Installations can be really large scale, employing hundreds of water jets and lights, and costing millions. Then there are the smaller household forms.. Musical features tend to be complex, and require a degree of mechanical, hydraulic, electrical, and electronic components out of view that might be as impressive to its audience as the show itself.

In the begining the earliest musical fountains were played manually by a live operator, who usually controlled pumps or valves and sometimes lights by way of switches on a control panel.

The music was almost always live, however much later choreography was actually prerecorded on a punched paper card which was scanned by a computer. Then followed a recording on a magnetic tape. Today its on a CD with the music included. This does not mean that the choreography is still not painstakingly programmed by hand, some types of shows being played live from a control console and connected to a computer that records the operator's actions for later automatic playback. Recent advances in technology provides for unattended automatic choreography that can rival manual programming. literally with a flick of a switch!!

The musical fountains at Brightwater Commons operates at the following times: Mondays to Thursdays: 7:30pm 8:00pm and 8:30pm 9pmFridays, Saturdays and Sundays: 7pm 7:30pm, 8pm 8:30pm, 9pm 9:30pm on Fridays.