There are long wooden sticks and pieces of metal, giant wooden lizards, metal creatures on stands and rectangular-shaped wooden boxes. These are Mr Lyons' creations - musical instruments with international influences yet rejigged to reflect the Australian landscape and culture. Words do not do justice to the array of sounds that can be beaten and blown out of these instruments. The sounds are simply beautiful, like those from the rain sticks which, when tipped upside-down, make the lasting and varied sounds of rain falling. It's really cool.
Kids have their mouths wide open.
The older people say it evokes a memory. For all the beauty of his instruments, the science behind them is simple - years of banging all kinds of stuff to discover what sounds good. You'd be surprised what kind of crap makes the most beautiful noises. Mr Lyons also makes musical playgrounds for indoor and outdoor use, and usually creates them along some kind of theme, like a musicasaurus, shaped like a dinosaur where children play the bones. He has discovered how to create the most amazing noises from such simple objects.