The glass armonica
A while ago I was standing in the kitchen at work, eating something and I flipped the usual channel, ESPN, to the History channel on the TV. It was some show about Ben Franklin.
Dude was incredible.
At that point the show was focusing on an invention that I had never heard of before. The Glass Armonica.
Long story short Ben was in Europe watching some dude play crystal glasses filled with water by rubbing his fingers along the rim of each glass (tee hee! rim! rubbing! fingers!)
Ben got to thinking and figured it must be a bitch filling each glass with just enough water to get the right pitch. So he invented the glass armonica.
Here. Play on it.
Glass Armonica
Dude was incredible.
At that point the show was focusing on an invention that I had never heard of before. The Glass Armonica.
Long story short Ben was in Europe watching some dude play crystal glasses filled with water by rubbing his fingers along the rim of each glass (tee hee! rim! rubbing! fingers!)
Ben got to thinking and figured it must be a bitch filling each glass with just enough water to get the right pitch. So he invented the glass armonica.
Here. Play on it.
Glass Armonica
posted by Hooker at 5:12 PM
7 Comments:
Ooo... spooky!
Especially while playing it in a dark empty office.
I can honestly say that I've never heard of that thing.
I saw that progrum. That thing rules!!!
Rock on, Ben Franklin. See, Hooker, this is why I love history. Random-ass discoveries like this. :
i have seen that thing at the frankin house in philadelpha and it's cool. when ever i mention it to someone else they think i am crazy but it's there! i swear! and it's freakin' awesome.
whoa. i want to go
I have always wanted one! Now I can look for it on ebay w/confidence since I never knew 'armonica' didn't start w/an H.
A couple years back I saw this awful movie "Mesmer" with Alan Rickman, in which he plays a glass (h)armonica - and it looks SO FUN. It's also neat to set up a bunch of wine glasses in a row with different levels of water and do basically the same thing. takes a bit of practice to get the sound, but once you got it, it's really easy.
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