Mark Dixon's Invisible Chairs look like a typical wooden chair until you take a peek underneath. Dixon has fine tuned these chairs into twenty limited edition chairs that come tuned to specific notes, divided into categories like "traditional Japanese" or "West African inspired". Take a look underneath to see how it works...

I use a strobe tuner and a spindle sander to tune the bars that make up the seat. There are twenty chairs in the edition and seventeen different scales. The scales are all over the map. I particularly enjoyed asking musician friends for the five notes they would take to the deserted island. Custom scales are also possible.
The 20 limited edition Invisible Chairs are available with the following notes:
- D, D#, F, A, D
- D, D#, G#, A, D (a scale danny elfman, the soundtrack composer, likes to use)
- C, C#, F, G, G# (”yo” scale, one of two traditional Japanese scales)
- C, D, F, G, A (SOLD)
- C, D, D#, F, G (minor pentatonic)
- D, E, F, G, G# (”in” scale, one or two traditional Japanese scales)
- C, D, E, G, A (major pentatonic)
- C, D, E, G, A (major pentatonic)
- C#, D, E, G#, A (Gamelon Pelog scale)
- E, G, A, B, E (West African inspired #2) (SOLD)
- C, E, F, G, C (West African inspired #1)
- C, E, F, G, A (West African inspired #4)
- C, D, F, G, B (West African inspired #3)
- C, D#, F, G, A# (Minor Pentatonic) (SOLD)
- D, E, F#, A, B (Major Pentatonic)
- D, F#, G, A, D (West African inspired #1 but in D)
- D, F, G, A, D (Minor with octave)
- D, D#, G#, A#, B (”yo” scale in D)
- D, F, G, A, D (West African inspired #2 but in D)
- D, F#, A#, C, C#
what a cool idea, although having only five notes to play seems a bit limiting. how about a musical bench with a traditional western scale?
view lemonpie's profile
seems fun
view LaDonnaNichole's profile
lemonpie: that would be called a marimba
view drblanc's profile
Lemonpie: There's a furniture maker in Washington state that makes playable coffee tables.
My boyfriend has one and it's really amazing. It's made for a house with kids so it is very sturdy. It has been used as seating frequently.
view cola's profile
wow. what a great idea. and those coffee tables are awesome.
view loislane's profile