Glass Armonica
Wed, 04/10/2013 - 06:38
Here's an article in today's Toronto Star that I thought might interest some members. Seems to me I read somewhere that the glass harmonica was a predesessor to the harmonica as we know it.
http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/04/10/rare_instrument_makes_a...
Harmonica H.
Actually there's no relationship between the glass harmonica and our instrument except the name. But the glass harmonica is a pretty amazing instrument. Probably wouldn't sound good for blues though ;)
From the wikipedia article on the harmonica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonica#Related_instruments):
The glass harmonica has the word "harmonica" in its name, but it is not related to free-reed instruments. The glass harmonica is a musical instrument formed from a nested set of graduated glass cups mounted sideways on an axle. Each of the glass cups is tuned to a different note, and they are arranged in a scalar order. It is played by touching the rotating cups with wetted fingers, causing them to vibrate and produce a sustained "singing" tone."
Mozart wrote a nice piece for the glass harmonica: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE_MZzvigd4
Steve