Glass harmonica
Encyclopedia
The glass harmonica, also known as the glass armonica, bowl organ, hydrocrystalophone, or simply the armonica (derived from "harmonia," the Greek
word for harmony), is a type of musical instrument
that uses a series of glass bowl
s or goblets graduated in size to produce musical tone
s by means of friction
(instruments of this type are known as friction idiophones).
Because its sounding portion is made of glass, the glass harmonica is a crystallophone
. The phenomenon of rubbing a wet finger around the rim of a wine goblet to produce tones is documented back to Renaissance
times; Galileo considered the phenomenon (in his Two New Sciences), as did Athanasius Kircher
.
The Irish musician Richard Poekrich is typically credited as the first to play an instrument composed of glass vessels by rubbing his fingers around the rims. Beginning in the 1740s, he performed in London on a set of upright goblets filled with varying amounts of water. During the same decade, Christoph Willibald Gluck
also attracted attention playing a similar instrument in England.
The word "glass harmonica" (also Glassharmonica, Glass armonica, Harmonica de verre or Armonica de verre in French, Glasharmonika in German) refers to any instrument played by rubbing glass or crystal goblets or bowls. When Benjamin Franklin
invented his mechanical version of the instrument, he called it the armonica, based on the Italian word "armonia," which means "harmony." The instrument consisting of a set of wine glasses (usually tuned with water) is generally known in English as "musical glasses" or "glass harp
."
The word hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica is also recorded, composed of Greek roots
to mean something like "harmonica
to produce music for the soul by fingers dipped in water," (hydro- for "water," daktul (daktyl) for "finger," psych- for "soul") The Oxford Companion to Music mentions that this word is "the longest section of the Greek language ever attached to any musical instrument, for a reader of The Times
wrote to that paper in 1932 to say that in his youth he heard a performance of the instrument where it was called a Hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica." It is claimed that the Museum of Music in Paris displays a hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica.
Benjamin Franklin
invented a radically new arrangement of the glasses in 1761 after seeing water-filled wine glasses played by Edmund Delaval at Cambridge
in England in 1758. Franklin, who called his invention the "armonica" after the Italian word for harmony, worked with London glassblower Charles James to build one, and it had its world premiere in early 1762, played by Marianne Davies
.
In Franklin's treadle-operated version, 37 bowls were mounted horizontally on an iron spindle. The whole spindle turned by means of a foot pedal. The sound was produced by touching the rims of the bowls with moistened fingers. Rims were painted different colors according to the pitch of the note. A's were dark blue, B's purple, C's red, D's orange, E's yellow, F's green, G's blue, and accidentals white. With the Franklin design it is possible to play ten glasses simultaneously if desired, a technique that is very difficult if not impossible to execute using upright goblets. Franklin also advocated the use of a small amount of powdered chalk on the fingers, which helped produce a clear tone in the same way rosin does for the bows of string instruments.
Some attempted improvements on the armonica included adding keyboards, placing pads between the bowls to reduce vibration, and using violin bows. These variations never caught on because they did not sound as pleasant.
Another supposed improvement was to have the glasses rotate into a trough of water. However, William Zeitler
put this idea to the test by rotating an armonica cup into a basin of water: the water has the same effect as putting water in a wine glass — it changes the pitch. With several dozen glasses, each a different diameter and thus rotating with a different depth, the result would be musical cacophony. It also made it much harder to make the glass speak, and muffled the sound.
In 1975, an original armonica was acquired by the Bakken Museum
in Minneapolis
, Minnesota
and put on display. It was purchased through a musical instrument dealer in France, from the descendants of Mme. Brillon de Jouy, a neighbor of Benjamin Franklin's from 1777 to 1785, when he lived in the Paris suburb of Passy
. Some 18th and 19th century specimens of the armonica have survived into the 21st century. Franz Mesmer
also played the armonica and used it as an integral part of his Mesmerism.
An original Franklin armonica is in the archives at the Franklin Institute
in Philadelphia
, Pennsylvania
. It is only placed on display for special occasions, such as Franklin's birthday. This is also the home of the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial
.
, George Frideric Handel
, Ludwig van Beethoven
, Richard Strauss
, and more than 100 other composers composed works for the glass harmonica; some pieces survived in the repertoire in transcriptions for more conventional instruments. Since it was rediscovered during the 1980s composers have written again for it (solo, chamber music, opera, electronic music, popular music) including Jan Erik Mikalsen, Regis Campo
, Etienne Rolin, Philippe Sarde
, Damon Albarn
, Tom Waits
, Michel Redolfi, Cyril Morin, Stefano Giannotti, Thomas Bloch
, and Guillaume Connesson
.
European monarchs indulged in it, and even Marie Antoinette
took lessons as a child from Marianne Davies. One of the best known myths about the instrument involves the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from the ballet The Nutcracker
. Tchaikovsky
's first draft called for glass harmonica—which used the name but was actually a kind of glass xylophone. He changed it to the newly-invented celesta
(by Mustel, Paris) before the work's premiere performance in 1892. Camille Saint-Saëns
also used this percussive instrument in his The Carnival of the Animals
(in movements 7 and 14). Gaetano Donizetti
originally included it in Lucia di Lammermoor
as a haunting accompaniment to the heroine's mad scenes, though before the premiere he rewrote the part for flute.
One example of fear from playing the glass harmonica was noted by a German musicologist Friedrich Rochlitz in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung
:
Marianne Kirchgessner
was an armonica player; she died at the age of 39 of pneumonia or an illness much like it. However, others, including Franklin, lived long lives. By 1820 the glass armonica had disappeared from public performance, perhaps because musical fashions were changing — music was moving out of the relatively small aristocratic halls of Mozart's day into the increasingly large concert halls of Beethoven and his successors, and the delicate sound of the armonica simply could not be heard. The harpsichord
disappeared at about the same time — perhaps for the same reason.
A modern version of the "purported dangers" claims that players suffered lead poisoning
because armonicas were made of lead glass
. However, there is no known scientific basis for the theory that merely touching lead glass can cause lead poisoning. Furthermore, many modern versions, such as those made by Finkenbeiner, are made from pure silica glass. Lead poisoning was common in the 18th and early 19th centuries for both armonica players and non-players alike: doctors prescribed lead compounds for a long list of ailments, and lead or lead oxide was used as a food preservative and in cookware and eating utensils. Trace amounts of lead that armonica players in Franklin's day received from their instruments would likely have been dwarfed by lead from other sources.
we primarily use the volume of the sound to differentiate between each ear (left and right) and thus triangulate
, or locate, the source.
Below 1,000 Hertz we use the 'phase differences' of sound waves arriving at our ears to identify left and right for location. The predominant timbre of the armonica is in the range of 1,000–4,000 hertz
, which coincides with the sound range where the brain is 'not quite sure' and thus we have difficulty locating it in space (where it comes from), and referencing the source of the sound (the materials and techniques used to produce it).
began revitalizing interest in the glass harp with his stunning performances. Playing a standard "glass harp" (with real wine glasses in a box), he mastered almost all of the literature written for the instrument, and commissioned contemporary composers to write new pieces for it.
Franklin's glass armonica was re-invented by master glassblower and musician, Gerhard B. Finkenbeiner (1930–1999) in 1984. After thirty years of experimentation, Finkenbeiner's prototype consisted of clear glasses and glasses with gold bands. Those with gold bands indicate the equivalent of the black keys on the piano. Finkenbeiner Inc., of Waltham
, Massachusetts
, continues to produce these instruments commercially.
French
instrument makers and artists Bernard and Francois Baschet
invented a variation of the glass harmonica in 1952, the crystal organ or Cristal baschet
, which consists of 52 chromatically-tuned glass rods that are rubbed with wet fingers. The glass harmonica differs mainly in that the rods, set horizontally, attach to a heavy metal block that the vibration passes to via a metal stem. The crystal organ is a fully acoustic instrument, and amplification is obtained using fiberglass cones fixed on wood and by a tall cut out metal part in the shape of a flame. Metallic rods resembling cat whiskers are placed under the instrument to increase the sound power of high-pitched sounds.
Dennis James
recorded an album of all glass music, Cristal: Glass Music Through the Ages co-produced by Linda Ronstadt and Grammy Award-winning producer John Boylan. James plays the glass armonica, the cristal
and the seraphim
on the CD in original historical compositions for glass by Mozart
, Scarlatti, Schnaubelt, and Fauré
and collaborates on the recording with the Emerson String Quartet
, operatic soprano Ruth Ann Swenson
, and Ronstadt. James played glass instruments on Marco Beltrami's film scores for The Minus Man
(1999) and The Faculty
(1998). "I first became aware of glass instruments at about the age of 6 while visiting the Franklin Institute
in Philadelphia. I can still recall being mesmerized by the appearance of the original Benjamin Franklin
armonica then on display in its own showcase in the entry rotunda of the city's famed science museum.".
. The hydraulophone sounds similar to a glass armonica but has a darker, heavier sound, that extends down into the subsonic range. The technique for playing hydraulohone is similar to that used for playing armonica.
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
word for harmony), is a type of musical instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
that uses a series of glass bowl
Bowl (vessel)
A bowl is a common open-top container used in many cultures to serve food, and is also used for drinking and storing other items. They are typically small and shallow, although some, such as punch bowls and salad bowls, are larger and often intended to serve many people.Bowls have existed for...
s or goblets graduated in size to produce musical tone
Pitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...
s by means of friction
Friction
Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and/or material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction:...
(instruments of this type are known as friction idiophones).
Because its sounding portion is made of glass, the glass harmonica is a crystallophone
Crystallophone
A crystallophone is a musical instrument that produces sound from glass.One of the best known crystallophones is the glass harmonica, a set of rotating glass bowls which produce eerie, clear tones when rubbed with a wet finger....
. The phenomenon of rubbing a wet finger around the rim of a wine goblet to produce tones is documented back to Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
times; Galileo considered the phenomenon (in his Two New Sciences), as did Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher was a 17th century German Jesuit scholar who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology, and medicine...
.
The Irish musician Richard Poekrich is typically credited as the first to play an instrument composed of glass vessels by rubbing his fingers around the rims. Beginning in the 1740s, he performed in London on a set of upright goblets filled with varying amounts of water. During the same decade, Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...
also attracted attention playing a similar instrument in England.
Names
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
invented his mechanical version of the instrument, he called it the armonica, based on the Italian word "armonia," which means "harmony." The instrument consisting of a set of wine glasses (usually tuned with water) is generally known in English as "musical glasses" or "glass harp
Glass harp
A glass harp is an instrument made of upright wine glasses....
."
The word hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica is also recorded, composed of Greek roots
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
to mean something like "harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
to produce music for the soul by fingers dipped in water," (hydro- for "water," daktul (daktyl) for "finger," psych- for "soul") The Oxford Companion to Music mentions that this word is "the longest section of the Greek language ever attached to any musical instrument, for a reader of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
wrote to that paper in 1932 to say that in his youth he heard a performance of the instrument where it was called a Hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica." It is claimed that the Museum of Music in Paris displays a hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica.
Franklin's armonica
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
invented a radically new arrangement of the glasses in 1761 after seeing water-filled wine glasses played by Edmund Delaval at Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
in England in 1758. Franklin, who called his invention the "armonica" after the Italian word for harmony, worked with London glassblower Charles James to build one, and it had its world premiere in early 1762, played by Marianne Davies
Marianne Davies
Marianne Davies was an English musician, and the sister of the classical soprano Cecilia Davies.In 1762 she became the first person to publicly perform on the glass harmonica , an instrument consisting of variously sized and tuned glass bowls that rotate on a common shaft, played by touching the...
.
Some attempted improvements on the armonica included adding keyboards, placing pads between the bowls to reduce vibration, and using violin bows. These variations never caught on because they did not sound as pleasant.
Another supposed improvement was to have the glasses rotate into a trough of water. However, William Zeitler
William Zeitler
William Zeitler is one of the world's leading performers on the armonica, or glass harmonica, an instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin.Also composer.-External links:*...
put this idea to the test by rotating an armonica cup into a basin of water: the water has the same effect as putting water in a wine glass — it changes the pitch. With several dozen glasses, each a different diameter and thus rotating with a different depth, the result would be musical cacophony. It also made it much harder to make the glass speak, and muffled the sound.
In 1975, an original armonica was acquired by the Bakken Museum
Bakken Museum
The Bakken, previously known as The Bakken: A Library and Museum of Electricity in Life and known in the past as the Medtronic Museum of Electricity in Life, located on the shores of Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States, is the world's only library and museum devoted to...
in Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
and put on display. It was purchased through a musical instrument dealer in France, from the descendants of Mme. Brillon de Jouy, a neighbor of Benjamin Franklin's from 1777 to 1785, when he lived in the Paris suburb of Passy
Passy
Passy is an area of Paris, France, located in the XVIe arrondissement, on the Right Bank. It is traditionally home to many of the city's wealthiest residents.Passy was formerly a commune...
. Some 18th and 19th century specimens of the armonica have survived into the 21st century. Franz Mesmer
Franz Mesmer
Franz Anton Mesmer , sometimes, albeit incorrectly, referred to as Friedrich Anton Mesmer, was a German physician with an interest in astronomy, who theorised that there was a natural energetic transference that occurred between all animated and inanimate objects that he called magnétisme animal ...
also played the armonica and used it as an integral part of his Mesmerism.
An original Franklin armonica is in the archives at the Franklin Institute
Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute is a museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the oldest centers of science education and development in the United States, dating to 1824. The Institute also houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial.-History:On February 5, 1824, Samuel Vaughn Merrick and...
in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. It is only placed on display for special occasions, such as Franklin's birthday. This is also the home of the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial
Benjamin Franklin National Memorial
Benjamin Franklin National Memorial — located in the rotunda of The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — features a colossal seated statue of Benjamin Franklin. The high memorial, sculpted by James Earle Fraser between 1906 and 1911, honors the writer, inventor and American...
.
Works
Wolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
, Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, and more than 100 other composers composed works for the glass harmonica; some pieces survived in the repertoire in transcriptions for more conventional instruments. Since it was rediscovered during the 1980s composers have written again for it (solo, chamber music, opera, electronic music, popular music) including Jan Erik Mikalsen, Regis Campo
Régis Campo
- Biography :Born in Marseille in 1968, Régis Campo is one of France’s best-known young composers. His music possesses a distinct rhythmic energy and vitality, is highly melodic, and possesses a certain humour that found in the work of French composers such as Janequin, Rameau, Couperin, Satie or...
, Etienne Rolin, Philippe Sarde
Philippe Sarde
-Biography:Philippe Sarde was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France.He is the brother of Alain Sarde. He was a member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1988.-Selected filmography:...
, Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn is an English singer-songwriter and record producer who has been involved in many high profile projects, coming to prominence as the frontman and primary songwriter of Britpop band Blur...
, Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, Michel Redolfi, Cyril Morin, Stefano Giannotti, Thomas Bloch
Thomas Bloch
Thomas Bloch is a classical musician specializing in the rare instruments ondes Martenot, glass harmonica, and Cristal Baschet....
, and Guillaume Connesson
Guillaume Connesson
Guillaume Connesson is a French composer born in 1970 in Boulogne-Billancourt, France.- Biography :Connesson studied the piano, music theory, music history and choir conducting in Conservatoire National de Région in Boulogne-Billancourt and composition by Marcel Landowski during six years from...
.
European monarchs indulged in it, and even Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
took lessons as a child from Marianne Davies. One of the best known myths about the instrument involves the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from the ballet The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...
. Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's first draft called for glass harmonica—which used the name but was actually a kind of glass xylophone. He changed it to the newly-invented celesta
Celesta
The celesta or celeste is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. Its appearance is similar to that of an upright piano or of a large wooden music box . The keys are connected to hammers which strike a graduated set of metal plates suspended over wooden resonators...
(by Mustel, Paris) before the work's premiere performance in 1892. Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
also used this percussive instrument in his The Carnival of the Animals
The Carnival of the Animals
Le carnaval des animaux is a musical suite of fourteen movements by the French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns. The orchestral work has a duration between 22 and 30 minutes.-History:...
(in movements 7 and 14). Gaetano Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
originally included it in Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
as a haunting accompaniment to the heroine's mad scenes, though before the premiere he rewrote the part for flute.
Purported dangers
The instrument's popularity did not last far beyond the 18th century. Some claim this was due to strange rumors that using the instrument caused both musicians and their listeners to go mad. It is a matter of conjecture how pervasive that belief was; all the commonly cited examples of this rumor are German, if not confined to Vienna.One example of fear from playing the glass harmonica was noted by a German musicologist Friedrich Rochlitz in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung
The Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung was a German-language periodical published in the 19th century. Comini has called it "the foremost German-language musical periodical of its time"...
:
"The harmonica excessively stimulates the nerves, plunges the player into a nagging depression and hence into a dark and melancholy mood that is apt method for slow self-annihilation. If you are suffering from any nervous disorder, you should not play it; if you are not yet ill you should not play it; if you are feeling melancholy you should not play it."
Marianne Kirchgessner
Marianne Kirchgessner
Marianne Kirchgessner, born Maria Antonia Kirchgessner on 5 June 1769 in Bruchsal, Germany, was a German glass harmonica player left blind by eye disease as a result of smallpox when she was only four years old...
was an armonica player; she died at the age of 39 of pneumonia or an illness much like it. However, others, including Franklin, lived long lives. By 1820 the glass armonica had disappeared from public performance, perhaps because musical fashions were changing — music was moving out of the relatively small aristocratic halls of Mozart's day into the increasingly large concert halls of Beethoven and his successors, and the delicate sound of the armonica simply could not be heard. The harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
disappeared at about the same time — perhaps for the same reason.
A modern version of the "purported dangers" claims that players suffered lead poisoning
Lead poisoning
Lead poisoning is a medical condition caused by increased levels of the heavy metal lead in the body. Lead interferes with a variety of body processes and is toxic to many organs and tissues including the heart, bones, intestines, kidneys, and reproductive and nervous systems...
because armonicas were made of lead glass
Lead glass
Lead glass is a variety of glass in which lead replaces the calcium content of a typical potash glass. Lead glass contains typically 18–40 weight% lead oxide , while modern lead crystal, historically also known as flint glass due to the original silica source, contains a minimum of 24% PbO...
. However, there is no known scientific basis for the theory that merely touching lead glass can cause lead poisoning. Furthermore, many modern versions, such as those made by Finkenbeiner, are made from pure silica glass. Lead poisoning was common in the 18th and early 19th centuries for both armonica players and non-players alike: doctors prescribed lead compounds for a long list of ailments, and lead or lead oxide was used as a food preservative and in cookware and eating utensils. Trace amounts of lead that armonica players in Franklin's day received from their instruments would likely have been dwarfed by lead from other sources.
Perception of the armonica sound
The somewhat disorienting quality of the ethereal sound is due in part to the way that humans perceive and locate ranges of sounds. Above 4,000 HertzHertz
The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....
we primarily use the volume of the sound to differentiate between each ear (left and right) and thus triangulate
Sound localization
Sound localization refers to a listener's ability to identify the location or origin of a detected sound in direction and distance. It may also refer to the methods in acoustical engineering to simulate the placement of an auditory cue in a virtual 3D space .The sound localization mechanisms of the...
, or locate, the source.
Below 1,000 Hertz we use the 'phase differences' of sound waves arriving at our ears to identify left and right for location. The predominant timbre of the armonica is in the range of 1,000–4,000 hertz
Hertz
The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....
, which coincides with the sound range where the brain is 'not quite sure' and thus we have difficulty locating it in space (where it comes from), and referencing the source of the sound (the materials and techniques used to produce it).
Modern revival
Music for glass harmonica and glass harp was all-but-unknown from 1820 until the 1930s, when German virtuoso Bruno HoffmannBruno Hoffmann
Bruno Hoffmann was a German player of the glass harp. Hoffmann is widely acknowledged as the virtuoso who reanimated contemporary interest in the glass harp and glass harmonica....
began revitalizing interest in the glass harp with his stunning performances. Playing a standard "glass harp" (with real wine glasses in a box), he mastered almost all of the literature written for the instrument, and commissioned contemporary composers to write new pieces for it.
Franklin's glass armonica was re-invented by master glassblower and musician, Gerhard B. Finkenbeiner (1930–1999) in 1984. After thirty years of experimentation, Finkenbeiner's prototype consisted of clear glasses and glasses with gold bands. Those with gold bands indicate the equivalent of the black keys on the piano. Finkenbeiner Inc., of Waltham
Waltham, Massachusetts
Waltham is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, was an early center for the labor movement, and major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, the city was a prototype for 19th century industrial city planning,...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, continues to produce these instruments commercially.
French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
instrument makers and artists Bernard and Francois Baschet
Baschet Brothers
The Baschet Brothers are two French brothers named François Baschet and Bernard Baschet who collaborate on creating sound sculptures and inventing musical instruments, such as the cristal Baschet. François Baschet is a sculptor and Bernard Baschet is an engineer...
invented a variation of the glass harmonica in 1952, the crystal organ or Cristal baschet
Cristal baschet
The Cristal Baschet is a musical instrument that produces sound from oscillating glass cylinders. The Cristal Baschet is also known as the Crystal Organ and the Crystal Baschet, and composed of 54 chromatically-tuned glass rods. The glass rods are rubbed with moistened fingers to produce vibrations...
, which consists of 52 chromatically-tuned glass rods that are rubbed with wet fingers. The glass harmonica differs mainly in that the rods, set horizontally, attach to a heavy metal block that the vibration passes to via a metal stem. The crystal organ is a fully acoustic instrument, and amplification is obtained using fiberglass cones fixed on wood and by a tall cut out metal part in the shape of a flame. Metallic rods resembling cat whiskers are placed under the instrument to increase the sound power of high-pitched sounds.
Dennis James
Dennis James (musician)
Dennis James is an American musician who has played "a pivotal role in the international revival of silent films presented with live music." Primarily an organist, since 1971 he has presented live accompaniments for silent films, with piano, theatre organ, chamber ensemble and full symphony...
recorded an album of all glass music, Cristal: Glass Music Through the Ages co-produced by Linda Ronstadt and Grammy Award-winning producer John Boylan. James plays the glass armonica, the cristal
Cristal baschet
The Cristal Baschet is a musical instrument that produces sound from oscillating glass cylinders. The Cristal Baschet is also known as the Crystal Organ and the Crystal Baschet, and composed of 54 chromatically-tuned glass rods. The glass rods are rubbed with moistened fingers to produce vibrations...
and the seraphim
Glass harp
A glass harp is an instrument made of upright wine glasses....
on the CD in original historical compositions for glass by Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, Scarlatti, Schnaubelt, and Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
and collaborates on the recording with the Emerson String Quartet
Emerson String Quartet
The Emerson String Quartet is a New York–based string quartet in residence at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Previously the Quartet was in residence at The Hartt School. Formed in 1976, they have released more than twenty albums and won nine Grammy Awards. Both violinists...
, operatic soprano Ruth Ann Swenson
Ruth Ann Swenson
Ruth Ann Swenson is an American soprano who is renowned for her brilliance in coloratura roles.Born in Bronxville, New York and raised in Commack, New York on Long Island, Swenson studied at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and briefly at Hartt College of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut...
, and Ronstadt. James played glass instruments on Marco Beltrami's film scores for The Minus Man
The Minus Man
The Minus Man is a 1999 film based on the novel by Lew McCreary. It was directed by Hampton Fancher, who also wrote the screenplay. The film centers on a psychotic killer whom Fancher describes as "a cross between Psycho's Norman Bates, Melville's Billy Budd and Being There's Chauncey...
(1999) and The Faculty
The Faculty
The Faculty is a 1998 science fiction horror film written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Robert Rodriguez...
(1998). "I first became aware of glass instruments at about the age of 6 while visiting the Franklin Institute
Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute is a museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the oldest centers of science education and development in the United States, dating to 1824. The Institute also houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial.-History:On February 5, 1824, Samuel Vaughn Merrick and...
in Philadelphia. I can still recall being mesmerized by the appearance of the original Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
armonica then on display in its own showcase in the entry rotunda of the city's famed science museum.".
Historical
- Marie AntoinetteMarie AntoinetteMarie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
- Marianne DaviesMarianne DaviesMarianne Davies was an English musician, and the sister of the classical soprano Cecilia Davies.In 1762 she became the first person to publicly perform on the glass harmonica , an instrument consisting of variously sized and tuned glass bowls that rotate on a common shaft, played by touching the...
- Benjamin FranklinBenjamin FranklinDr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
(United States) - Franz MesmerFranz MesmerFranz Anton Mesmer , sometimes, albeit incorrectly, referred to as Friedrich Anton Mesmer, was a German physician with an interest in astronomy, who theorised that there was a natural energetic transference that occurred between all animated and inanimate objects that he called magnétisme animal ...
- Marianne KirchgessnerMarianne KirchgessnerMarianne Kirchgessner, born Maria Antonia Kirchgessner on 5 June 1769 in Bruchsal, Germany, was a German glass harmonica player left blind by eye disease as a result of smallpox when she was only four years old...
- Mrs. Philip Thicknesse (born Anne FordAnne FordAnne or Ann Ford, after 1762 Mrs. Philip Thicknesse, was an 18th-century English musician and singer, famous in her time for a scandal that attended her struggle to perform in public.-Life and music:...
), 1775, United Kingdom)
Contemporary
- Thomas BlochThomas BlochThomas Bloch is a classical musician specializing in the rare instruments ondes Martenot, glass harmonica, and Cristal Baschet....
(France) - Bill HayesBill HayesWilliam "Bill" Foster Hayes III, born on June 5, 1925 in Harvey, Illinois) is a long-time American actor and Billboard Hot 100 #1 artist. Following a 20 year-long career as a musician, he achieved fame once again when he began playing Doug Williams on NBC's long-running Days of Our Lives in 1970. ...
(New York City) Broadway Musician and Percussionist, Barbra Streisand Orchestra 1994, 2006, 2007 - Martin Hilmer(Germany)
- Glass DuoGlass DuoGLASS DUO was founded by Anna and Arkadiusz Szafraniec. They are the only glass harp music group in Poland, one of few professional ensembles worldwide....
(Poland) - Bruno HoffmannBruno HoffmannBruno Hoffmann was a German player of the glass harp. Hoffmann is widely acknowledged as the virtuoso who reanimated contemporary interest in the glass harp and glass harmonica....
(Germany) - Dennis JamesDennis James (musician)Dennis James is an American musician who has played "a pivotal role in the international revival of silent films presented with live music." Primarily an organist, since 1971 he has presented live accompaniments for silent films, with piano, theatre organ, chamber ensemble and full symphony...
(United States) - Gloria ParkerGloria ParkerGlorious Gloria Parker is an American entertainer and female icon during the big band or swing era, as an all girl bandleader. The Gloria Parker Show aired nightly from 1950 to 1957, coast to coast on WABC Radio and Parker entertained her audience playing the marimba, organ and the singing glasses...
(United States) glass harp - Sascha Reckert, Glassharmonica, Verrophon, Musical Glasses
- Gerald Schönfeldinger (Austria)
- Dean ShostakDean ShostakDean Shostak is an American crystallophone-player and violinist. He regularly performs his Crystal Concerts which consist of music played on his glass instruments, such as the glass violin, the glass armonica, and the crystal handbells.-Personal life:...
(United States) - William ZeitlerWilliam ZeitlerWilliam Zeitler is one of the world's leading performers on the armonica, or glass harmonica, an instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin.Also composer.-External links:*...
(United States) - Timofey Vinkovsky (Russia)
- Igor SklyarovIgor SklyarovIgor Yevgenyevich Sklyarov is a former Russian footballer. He last worked as an athletic director for FC Sibir Novosibirsk.-Background:...
(Russia) - Lazar Bojicic (Serbia)
- Cecilia Brauer (United States)
Videos
- http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=theondes&p=vA large choice of glassharmonica videos (solo, orchestra, chamber music from classical to pop music collaboration: GorillazGorillazGorillaz is an English musical project created in 1998 by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. This project consists of Gorillaz music itself and an extensive fictional universe depicting a "virtual band" of cartoon characters...
, Tom WaitsTom WaitsThomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, Mozart, Sombach...) played by Thomas BlochThomas BlochThomas Bloch is a classical musician specializing in the rare instruments ondes Martenot, glass harmonica, and Cristal Baschet....
] - William Zeitler playing Adagio in C on the Armonica
- William Zeitler playing Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
- Robert Riso demonstrating how to set up and tune a glass harp
- J.S. Bach: Toccata D minor played by Glass DuoGlass DuoGLASS DUO was founded by Anna and Arkadiusz Szafraniec. They are the only glass harp music group in Poland, one of few professional ensembles worldwide....
Related instruments
Another instrument that is also played with wet fingers is the hydraulophoneHydraulophone
A hydraulophone is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water where sound is generated or affected hydraulically. Typically sound is produced by the same hydraulic fluid in contact with the player's fingers...
. The hydraulophone sounds similar to a glass armonica but has a darker, heavier sound, that extends down into the subsonic range. The technique for playing hydraulohone is similar to that used for playing armonica.
Popular culture
- Pink FloydPink FloydPink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
's 1975 track, Shine On You Crazy DiamondShine On You Crazy Diamond"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is a nine-part Pink Floyd composition written by Roger Waters, Richard Wright, and David Gilmour. The song is a tribute to former band member Syd Barrett, although it was not originally explicitly written with him in mind. It was first performed on their 1974 French...
, opens using a glass harmonica.- David GilmourDavid GilmourDavid Jon Gilmour, CBE, D.M. is an English rock musician and multi-instrumentalist who is best known as the guitarist, one of the lead singers and main songwriters in the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a producer for a variety of...
's 2006 album, On An IslandOn an IslandOn an Island is the third solo album by David Gilmour, best known as vocalist and lead guitarist for Pink Floyd. It was released in the UK on 6 March 2006, Gilmour's 60th birthday, and in the United States the following day. It was Gilmour's first new solo album in 22 years...
, features a glass harmonica on several tracks. The subsequent tour featured a glass harmonica being played at two shows to open "Shine On You Crazy Diamond."
- David Gilmour
- American nu-metal band KoRnKornKorn is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, formed in 1993. The current band line up includes four members: Jonathan Davis, James "Munky" Shaffer, Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, and Ray Luzier. The band was formed as an expansion of L.A.P.D.The band released their first demo album,...
featured a glass armonica on some songs from their 2006 album See You on the Other Side including "TearjerkerTearjerkerTearjerker is something that provokes sadness or pathos, as the name suggests.Tearjerker may refer to:* "Tearjerker" , a 2008 episode of American Dad!* "Tearjerker" , a 1995 song by Red Hot Chili Peppers...
" and "Seen it All". They also used one for the songs "CreepCreepCreep may refer to:* CREEP, the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, associated with the Watergate scandal of U.S. president Nixon's administration....
" and "Falling Away From MeFalling Away From Me"Falling Away from Me" is a song by American nu metal band Korn. It was released as the first single from their fourth album Issues, where it appeared in an episode of Comedy Central's animated series, South Park, entitled "Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery"...
" from their 2007 MTV UnpluggedMTV UnpluggedMTV Unplugged is a TV series showcasing many popular musical artists usually playing acoustic instruments. The show has received the George Foster Peabody Award and 3 Primetime Emmy nominations among many accolades.-Unplugged:...
concert. - A short animated film entitled "The glass harmonica" was directed by Andrei KhrzhanovskyAndrei KhrzhanovskyAndrei Khrzhanovsky is a Russian animator, documaker, writer and producer. He is the father of director Ilya Khrzhanovsky.He rose to prominence in the west with his 2009 picture "Room and a half" about Joseph Brodsky.-Filmography :*Glass Harmonica *A Pushkin Trilogy *The Lion With the White...
in 1968. It has been uploaded to YouTube: part 1 and part 2. - The instrument has been used in several film soundtracks, including Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire ChroniclesInterview with the VampireInterview with the Vampire is a vampire novel by Anne Rice written in 1973 and published in 1976. It was the first novel to feature the enigmatic vampire Lestat, and was followed by several sequels, collectively known as The Vampire Chronicles...
, Mansfield Park, and the first original version of March of the PenguinsMarch of the PenguinsMarch of the Penguins is a 2005 French nature documentary film. It was directed and co-written by Luc Jacquet, and co-produced by Bonne Pioche and the National Geographic Society. The film depicts the yearly journey of the emperor penguins of Antarctica...
(La Marche de l'Empereur), performed by Thomas BlochThomas BlochThomas Bloch is a classical musician specializing in the rare instruments ondes Martenot, glass harmonica, and Cristal Baschet....
, who also played Ondes MartenotOndes MartenotThe ondes Martenot , also known as the ondium Martenot, Martenot and ondes musicales, is an early electronic musical instrument invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot. The original design was similar in sound to the theremin...
and cristal BaschetCristal baschetThe Cristal Baschet is a musical instrument that produces sound from oscillating glass cylinders. The Cristal Baschet is also known as the Crystal Organ and the Crystal Baschet, and composed of 54 chromatically-tuned glass rods. The glass rods are rubbed with moistened fingers to produce vibrations...
with Damon AlbarnDamon AlbarnDamon Albarn is an English singer-songwriter and record producer who has been involved in many high profile projects, coming to prominence as the frontman and primary songwriter of Britpop band Blur...
/ GorillazGorillazGorillaz is an English musical project created in 1998 by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. This project consists of Gorillaz music itself and an extensive fictional universe depicting a "virtual band" of cartoon characters...
(Monkey: Journey to the WestMonkey: Journey to the WestMonkey: Journey to the West is a stage adaptation of the 16th Century Chinese novel Journey to the West, by Wu Cheng'en. It was conceived and created by the Chinese actor and director Chen Shi-zheng with the British musician Damon Albarn and British artist Jamie Hewlett.-Development:In 2004,...
) Tom WaitsTom WaitsThomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
/ Marianne FaithfullMarianne FaithfullMarianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....
/ Bob WilsonRobert Wilson (director)Robert Wilson is an American avant-garde stage director and playwright who has been called "[America]'s — or even the world's — foremost vanguard 'theater artist'". Over the course of his wide-ranging career, he has also worked as a choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor, video...
(The Black RiderThe Black RiderThe Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets is a self-billed "musical fable" in the avant-garde tradition created through the collaboration of theatre director Robert Wilson, musician Tom Waits, and writer William S. Burroughs. Wilson was largely responsible for the design and direction....
), RadioheadRadioheadRadiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
, Vanessa ParadisVanessa ParadisVanessa Chantal Paradis is a French singer, model and actress. She became a child star at 14 with the worldwide success of her single "Joe le taxi"...
, in AmadeusAmadeusAmadeus is a play by Peter Shaffer.It is based on the lives of the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, highly fictionalized.Amadeus was first performed in 1979...
by Milos FormanMiloš FormanJan Tomáš Forman , better known as Miloš Forman , is a Czech-American director, screenwriter, professor, and an emigrant from Czechoslovakia. Two of his films, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, are among the most celebrated in the history of film, both gaining him the Academy Award for... - The main phrase to the album version of BjörkBjörkBjörk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...
's "All Neon Like" (HomogenicHomogenicHomogenic is the fourth studio album by Icelandic musician Björk, released in September 1997. Produced by Björk, Mark Bell, Guy Sigsworth, Howie B and Markus Dravs, it was released on One Little Indian Records...
) is played on a glass harmonica. - In an episode of The Simpsons, Hugh HefnerHugh HefnerHugh Marston "Hef" Hefner is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.-Early life:...
plays Peter and the WolfPeter and the WolfPeter and the Wolf , Op. 67, is a composition written by Sergei Prokofiev in 1936 in the USSR. It is a children's story , spoken by a narrator accompanied by the orchestra....
on a glass harmonica. - Glass harmonica was used by Elliot GoldenthalElliot GoldenthalElliot Goldenthal is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a student of Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, and is best known for his distinctive style and ability to blend various musical styles and techniques in original and inventive ways...
in the soundtrack of Final Fantasy: The Spirits WithinFinal Fantasy: The Spirits WithinFinal Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a 2001 Japanese-American computer animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series of role-playing video games. It was the first photorealistic computer animated feature film and also holds the record for the most...
. - Peter GriffinPeter GriffinPeter Griffin is a fictional character and the protagonist of the animated comedy series Family Guy and the patriarch of the Griffin family. He is voiced by cartoonist Seth MacFarlane and first appeared on television, along with the rest of the family in the 15-minute short on December 20, 1998....
plays the song "What I Did for Love" from the musical A Chorus LineA Chorus LineA Chorus Line is a 1975 musical about Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch....
on a glass armonica in an episode of Family GuyFamily GuyFamily Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
called "One If by Clam, Two If by Sea". - The glass harmonica is used for SpockSpockSpock is a fictional character in the Star Trek media franchise. First portrayed by Leonard Nimoy in the original Star Trek series, Spock also appears in the animated Star Trek series, two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, seven of the Star Trek feature films, and numerous Star Trek...
's theme on the soundtrack of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered CountryStar Trek VI: The Undiscovered CountryStar Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is the sixth feature film in the Star Trek science fiction franchise and is the last of the Star Trek films to include the entire main cast of the 1960s Star Trek television series. Released in 1991 by Paramount Pictures, it was directed by Nicholas Meyer and...
, composed by Cliff EidelmanCliff EidelmanClifford Glen “Cliff” Eidelman is an American composer and conductor who scored films such as Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Free Willy 3: The Rescue, and Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.- Career :Eidelman began his formal training in violin at the age of eight and continued with...
. Previously, James HornerJames HornerJames Roy Horner is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements...
had used a glass harmonica and pan flutePan fluteThe pan flute or pan pipe is an ancient musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting usually of five or more pipes of gradually increasing length...
for Spock's theme in Star Trek II: The Wrath of KhanStar Trek II: The Wrath of KhanStar Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a 1982 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the second feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise. The plot features James T...
.
Literary references
- In his novel Mason & DixonMason & DixonMason & Dixon is a postmodernist novel by American author Thomas Pynchon published in 1997. It centers on the collaboration of the historical Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in their astronomical and surveying exploits in Cape Colony, Saint Helena, Great Britain and along the Mason-Dixon line in...
Thomas PynchonThomas PynchonThomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist. For his most praised novel, Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon received the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature...
fictionally describes Franklin's armonica: "If Chimes could whisper, if Melodies could pass away, and their souls wander the Earth... if Ghosts danced at Ghost Ridottoes, 'twould require such Musick, Sentiment ever held back, ever at the edge of breaking forth, in Fragments, as Glass breaks." - The novel The Glass Harmonica by Louise MarleyLouise MarleyLouise Marley is an award winning author of science fiction and fantasy. Her fiction often features strong female characters, and explores themes of hope, humanity, and faith in the distant future...
is speculative/historical fiction focusing on the glass harmonica. It describes Benjamin Franklin's invention of the armonica, the public debut of the armonica as played by Marianne DaviesMarianne DaviesMarianne Davies was an English musician, and the sister of the classical soprano Cecilia Davies.In 1762 she became the first person to publicly perform on the glass harmonica , an instrument consisting of variously sized and tuned glass bowls that rotate on a common shaft, played by touching the...
, and exposure of a young Mozart to the instrument. A future story arc describes the modern revival of the instrument and the superstitions regarding its potential effects on the nerves.. - In Guardians of the Gates of Madness, the first story in E. E. Nalley's Care Givers Company Tales, a transgender fictionTransgender and transsexual fictionThis is a list of fictional books featuring transgender persons in either a peripheral or central role.-Sacred Country:Sacred Country by Rose Tremain published in 1992 is a prizewinning novel about Mary Ward, who at the age of six decides she should be a boy...
shared universeShared universeA shared universe is a fictional universe to which more than one writer contributes. Work set in a shared universe share characters and other elements with varying degrees of consistency. Shared universes are contrasted with collaborative writing, in which multiple authors work on a single story....
, Persephone Chartrand plays the glass armonica. It is described as, "...an instrument invented by an American named Ben Franklin." In The Best and the Brightest (also set in the Care Givers universe) by Maggie Finson, we learn that Persephone's introduction to the instrument was as a child when her great grandmother played it. When she engages to study it as an adult, her instructor turns out to be one of her great grandmother's students. - In Mitch CullinMitch CullinMitch Cullin is an American writer of Scotch-Irish and Cherokee descent. He is the author of seven novels, and one short story collection. He currently resides in Arcadia, California and Tokyo, Japan with his partner and frequent collaborator Peter I. Chang...
’s novel, A Slight Trick of the MindA Slight Trick of the MindA Slight Trick of the Mind is the seventh book by American author Mitch Cullin. It was first published in April 2005 as a hardcover edition from Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, and during the same month an unabridged audio book version read by Simon Jones was released on both compact disc and cassette by...
, Sherlock HolmesSherlock HolmesSherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
investigates the case of a grief-stricken woman’s fascination with the music of the glass armonica. - Dorothee Kocks' novel, "The Glass Harmonica" follows the journey of a young musician named Chjara Vallé as she journeys from Corsica, through early post-revolutionary France and the new United States of America.
See also
- Glass harpGlass harpA glass harp is an instrument made of upright wine glasses....
- Cristal BaschetCristal baschetThe Cristal Baschet is a musical instrument that produces sound from oscillating glass cylinders. The Cristal Baschet is also known as the Crystal Organ and the Crystal Baschet, and composed of 54 chromatically-tuned glass rods. The glass rods are rubbed with moistened fingers to produce vibrations...
- HydraulophoneHydraulophoneA hydraulophone is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water where sound is generated or affected hydraulically. Typically sound is produced by the same hydraulic fluid in contact with the player's fingers...
- WaterphoneWaterphoneA waterphone is a type of atonal acoustic musical instrument constructed largely of a stainless steel resonator "bowl" with a cylindrical "neck", which may or may not contain a small amount of water, and with brass rods around the rim of the bowl. The waterphone produces a vibrant ethereal type of...
- Bruno HoffmannBruno HoffmannBruno Hoffmann was a German player of the glass harp. Hoffmann is widely acknowledged as the virtuoso who reanimated contemporary interest in the glass harp and glass harmonica....
- Gloria ParkerGloria ParkerGlorious Gloria Parker is an American entertainer and female icon during the big band or swing era, as an all girl bandleader. The Gloria Parker Show aired nightly from 1950 to 1957, coast to coast on WABC Radio and Parker entertained her audience playing the marimba, organ and the singing glasses...
- VerrophoneVerrophoneA verrophone is a musical instrument, invented in 1983, by Reckert, in which open-ended glass tubes are arranged in various sizes . The sound is made by rubbing one end of one or more of the glass tubes, or also by striking them or rubbing them with a special mallet...
- Singing bowlSinging bowlSinging bowls are a type of bell, specifically classified as a standing bell. Rather than hanging inverted or attached to a handle, singing bowls sit with the bottom surface resting...
Notations
- King, A.H., "The Musical Glasses and Glass Harmonica," Royal Musical Association, Proceedings, Vol.72, (1945/1946), pp. 97–122.
- Sterki, Peter. Klingende Gläser. Bern. NY 2000. ISBN 3-906764-60-5 br.
- History of the Glass Harmonica
- The Glass Harmonica: Stairway to Madness
Instruction books
- Bartl. About the Keyed Armonica.
- Ford, Anne (1761). Instructions for playing on the music glasses (Method). London.
- Franklin, J. E. Introduction to the Knowledge of the Seraphim or Musical Glasses.
- Hopkinson-Smith, Francis (1825). Tutor for the Grand Harmonicon. Baltimore, Maryland.
- Ironmonger, David. Instructions for the Double and Single Harmonicon Glasses.
- Muller, Johann Christian (aka John Christopher Moller). Anleitung zum Selbstunterricht auf der Harmonika.
- Roellig, Leopold. Uber die Harmonika / Uber die Orphika.
- Smith, James. Tutor for the Musical Glasses.
- Wunsch, J. D. Practische - Schule fur die lange Harmonika.
External links
- Wiener Glasharmonika Duo, Information about the artists and the instruments
- Thomas Bloch's website, a prominent glassharmonica player (also ondes Martenot and cristal Baschet) - facts, videos, pictures, biography, discography, contact... - http://www.thomasbloch.net
- G. Finkenbeiner Inc. site, manufacturer of glass harmonicas
- Display of glass armonica at The Bakken Library and Museum
- Hear the Glass Armonica History, articles, www.crystalisa.com
- Articles (with citations) about the armonica by William Zeitler, www.glassarmonica.com, free MP3 and videos.
- 'The Glass Harmonica' A history by Thomas BlochThomas BlochThomas Bloch is a classical musician specializing in the rare instruments ondes Martenot, glass harmonica, and Cristal Baschet....
- Play the armonica Interactive version of playing the armonica.
- The World of Glass Music
- bizbash Water Glasses
- Hear excerpt from Weeps and Ghosts for Glass Harmonica and String Quartet by Jan Erik Mikalsen. New piece dedicated to and performed by Thomas BlochThomas BlochThomas Bloch is a classical musician specializing in the rare instruments ondes Martenot, glass harmonica, and Cristal Baschet....
. - Dennis James interview
- Historic 18th-century Glass Harmonica at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- 'Die Seiten der Glasharmonika' A history of the glass armonica: persons, anecdotes, pictures and links, in German, www.armonica.de
- 'Cecilia Brauer's website, Performances by living Armonica player, history of the instrument'