musical water memories Besides being known for its beaches, my hometown of Grand Haven, Michigan is home to the "world's largest" musical fountain. When I was in the fourth grade, my family moved across town. From then on, I heard the fountain through my bedroom window at 9:45 p.m. each summer night. The musical program lasted 15 minutes, and then everyone went home. That's when you could hear the waves lapping again on Lake Michigan.
Whenever a relative or guest came to town, we walked to see the Fountain. I have seen the show at least 50 times, including every Fourth of July. It's located on a hillside across the channel that connects the Grand River with Lake Michigan. Spectators sit on the populated side of the channel on the grass, or in a set of observation bleachers. If you are a local, you sit in the grass in Bicentennial Park, on a blanket.
Each show begins with a little blue flume of water and a baritone voice, "Welcome. I am the voice of the Musical Fountain" while the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey booms in the background. The program begins. Flutes of water shoot skyward, varying in color and height to correspond with the ebb and flow of that night's musical selections.
The computerized synchronization must have created a stir when the Fountain was completed in 1963. Residents had raised the funds and moved about 50,000 yards of sand from the dunes to make room. City officials immediately began boasting that theirs was the largest musical fountain. When I was 17 and an intern at the local paper, I heard a rumor that there was a larger fountain in Germany. But I'd seen how much everyone loved the Fountain and so I didn't ask too many questions.
A few years ago, I bought The Official Musical Fountain Souvenir Book, published in 1965, at a garage sale for a nickel. Its author apologizes to the reader for his poor attempt to "capture some of the fountain's infinite variety of color and form." He notes that recalling the "enchantment" of the Fountain in print is "like recalling 'Swan Lake' just from seeing colored pictures of the dancers. But it is the best we can offer." The writer continues, "the Fountain responds so subtly, so delicately, so beautifully to the changes in musical mood and tempo that most observers have but one thought to express their awe: 'Why, it's almost human!' " I had that thought sometimes.
The Fountain draws 40,000 gallons of water for each performance, or enough to fill 800 bathtubs. It's pumped from the river to a 12-inch-deep basin. It's then pumped through a 16-inch main at the rate of 4000 gallons per minute (a garden hose delivers about 10 gallons per minute). Eight thousand feet of pipe, 300 valves and 1300 nozzles are used to shoot the water 100 feet into the air. The equivalent of a thousand 100-watt bulbs illuminate the flumes. The programs were initially coordinated by computer punch cards. They allowed for 1,875,352,500,000,000 variations that would take 20 million years to perform.
The Fountain typically plays classical music and big band tunes. But I remember waiting each summer for the night it interpreted the Beatles. (Once I even heard the strains of Led Zeppelin and I thought I was losing it.) You haven't lived until you've seen a giant colored water fountain perform an interpretation of A Day in the Life. Following the crescendo, there's that pause, and then the Fountain shuts off and the wall of orange water drops back into the basin with a crash.
When I was in college, my friend's little brother's summer job was to row across the river each night to start the Fountain. He always said he'd take me but I guess he forgot. I wonder how he started it, whether it was a big switch. He had to sit there until the show was over and then row back. I saw the bowels of the Fountain in elementary school during a field trip, but it was during the day and just looked like a big heating coil. It must have been in the winter, because there was no water in the basin.
The Musical Fountain was a huge part of my growing up. When you heard the Fountain kick in on Memorial Day, you knew summer had arrived. The Fountain was always there at 9:45, like a lullaby. Now I've moved too far away to hear the Fountain or the lap lap lap of the waves. I remember dancing with my first girlfriend on the picnic tables at the beach, and the lake breeze on the back of my neck, and the music sneaking along the shore, and I kissed her. I was happy.

More Musical Fountains

According to The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste, one of the first American musical fountains was the Waltzing Waters near Fort Myers, Florida. The Fountain is located inside an auditorium. The voice that begins the show is described as "breathless, bordering on hysteria" as it announces, "Get ready to tap your feet, as we all get hooked on the classics!" The program begins with classical music, proceeds to populist fare such as the theme from Entertainment Tonight, and finishes with a patriotic flourish.
The first musical fountains were created in Berlin in the early Thirties by Otto Przystawik (his grandson now runs the company in Missouri). The original set-up had a guy playing the sprinklers and an orchestra playing the music. A conductor dressed in white would pretend to direct the flumes. Today the "liquid fireworks" are operated by computer.
There are indoor and outdoor fountains in many parts of the world, including Branson, Missouri, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Strasburg, Pennsylvania and Newtonmore, Scotland.