Glass Harmonica

Soniccouture has announced that Glass / Works is finally available.

Glass Works is the first SC product to be packaged in Native Instruments’ Kontakt Player, meaning that non-Kontakt owners can enjoy the enhanced scripting and control that Soniccouture instruments have become renowned for.

Glass Works is a sampled collection of 3 instruments which generate sound from glass. Read more…

Soniccouture has introduced Glass Works, a set of 3 virtual instruments based on the sounds of glass.

The instruments include:

• The Cristal Baschet – A bizarre ’sound sculpture’ designed in 1952 by Bernard and François Baschet. It consists of about 4 octaves of chromatically tuned glass rods, which are rubbed with wet ?ngers. The vibration of the glass is passed to a heavy block of metal, which itself is tuned and in fact determines the ?nal pitch. The entire mechanism is ampli?ed by a large steel plate, called the “?ame”. There are also three small ?berglass cones that amplify the higher frequencies.
• The Glass Armonica – A musical instrument that uses a series of glass bowls or goblets graduated in size to produce musical tones by means of friction (instruments of this type are known as friction idiophones ). The instrument was invented by Benjamin Franklin, who called his invention the “armonica” after the Italian word for harmony. He worked with London glassblower Charles James to build one, and it had its world premiere in early 1762, played by Marianne Davies.
• Cloud Chamber Bowls – The Cloud Chamber Bowls are Soniccouture’s recreation of an instrument built in the 1960s by maverick American composer Harry Partch. It consists of hanging “bowls” which are sections of 12-gallon glass carboys. Both tops and bottoms of the carboys are used. Partch had 14 (later 13) bowls hanging from a large wooden frame he called a “tori”. The name “Cloud Chamber Bowls” arose from the fact that Partch found the original tops and bottoms at a Radiation Laboratory at UC Berkeley in 1950. The bowls were originally used for cloud chambers used in tracing paths of subatomic particles.

Glass Works is priced at £99 GBP / $159 USD.

This is a little off-topic, because it’s not an electronic instrument – but this Glass Harmonica performance is amazing, and offers the same sense of otherworldliness that people often try to coax out of synthesizers.

Ben Franklin invented the Glass Harmonica in 1761, after hearing a performer play glasses musically.

“He collected a number of glasses of different sizes, fixed them near each other on a table, and tuned them by putting into them water, more or less as each note required,” according to Franklin. “The tones were brought out by passing his fingers round their brims.”

Franklin thought he could do better, and came up with the Glass Harmonica design, which puts glass hemispheres of descending sizes on a spinning shaft.

G. Finkenbiener manufacturers Glass Harmonicas based on Franklin’s concept.

via johntamaro:

Invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761. Music by Wolfgang A. Mozart. Played by French artist Thomas Bloch, exhibiting the glass harmonica in the Paris Music Museum, Nov. 29, 2007.

iGlassHarp (App Store link) is a new virtual glass harmonica for the iPhone.

Description:

The ‘Glass Harp’ is a Crystallophone, meaning instruments that create sound through the vibration of glass or other brittle substances Also referred to as a “Seraphim” (perhaps due to the heavenly sounds), or “Angelic Organ.”

A Glass Harp consists of a number of crystal glasses of varying sizes. When rubbed along the rim with wet finger, the vibrations create musical notes. Its beautiful tones have been enjoyed since the 1700’s.

Features:

• Actual digitally recorded tones were used in the production
• 24 sampled notes
• C Major scale
• Simple to use
• Polyphonic

If you’ve used iGlassHarp, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Arman Bohn has released a free virtual instrument for Windows, the Glass Armanica VSTi.

It’s a virtual recreation of Ben Franklin’s rubbed glass instrument, known as the Glass Harmonica, Armonium, Hydrocrystalophone, or Armonica.

The Glass Harmonica makes gorgeous, ethereal sounds.

Here’s a sample from Bohn’s Glass Armanica:

 

 Glass Armanica Demo [0:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The samples were created by filling wine glasses with water and tuning them with a chromatic tuner to the appropriate pitches (drop by drop). It was recorded with an Oktava MC-012 cardioid condenser microphone running into a Seventh Circle C84 Preamp.

The VSTi features:

• A single octave octave of samples running from MIDI note 72 to 84 (Octave 6)
• Amplitude ADSR controls
• Velocity sensitivity
• Reverb with width, size and mix controls
• Hi-Cut and Master Volume controls

It’s a free download from Bohn’s site.