Sunday, May 25, 2014

The Beautiful Sound of the Wine Glass Harp

What junk orchestra would not be complete without the haunting, beautiful sound of rubbing your finger around a wine glass rim. Easier said than done, though. I went to multiple stores, brought my little container of water with me, and proceeded to 'test' the wine glasses in the stores, much to the salesperson's chagrin. I used the tuner on my phone to determine the exact pitch of each glass, and I finally found some that would complete an entire octave (8 notes). I took the note when it was empty, then took the note when full, and that is the range of the glass. Normally the range is less than 5 tones, so I needed 3 different types of wine glasses to complete an octave. And further problems are that you lose some of the beautiful resonance the more water you put in the glass, and thus the resonance won't match with the empty glasses. OK, enough tech talk, bottom line is that I have an octave and I will be delivering the glasses to a young lady who will try to see if she can play them. I wrote one piece already featuring the glasses and scored it for her. She is a piano player/singer eager to learn the glasses!


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