We’ve all misbehaved in restaurants or at dinner parties by running our wet fingers round wine glasses to make sounds. In fact one of the first people to write about the phenomenon was Galileo — and the trick wasn’t new then! And sets of water-tuned glasses on which you can play tunes were popularized in England by Richard Pockridge and Gluck in the early 1700s.
But did you know that there is a real musical instrument based on just this principle: the Glass Armonica (often called the Glass Harmonica).
In 1761 Benjamin Franklin was in London (representing the Pennsylvania Legislature to Parliament) and as a capable amateur musician he regularly attended concerts. One such concert was given by a guy called Deleval, who performed on a set of water tuned wineglasses patterned after Pockridge’s instrument. Franklin was enchanted and set out to invent and build “a more convenient” arrangement.
What Franklin came up with in 1762 was the glass armonica.
The armonica is composed of between 20 and 54 blown crystal (or quartz) glass bowls (37 bowls is a standard size). These are fitted into one another, but not in contact, with a horizontal rod going through their centres; the rotation of the rod is controlled by a pedal. The diameter of the bowl determines the note. Once the bowls are rotating around the rod, the player rubs the edges with wet fingers, thus producing a note — and indeed usually complex chords.
Apparently the armonica was quite a hit, especially in Germany where Franz Mesmer used it to “mesmerise” his patients and who introduced the instrument to Mozart. Indeed Mozart wrote a couple of pieces for the armonica, as did Beethoven and a number of their contemporaries.
If you want to know what the glass armonica sounds like, then here it is, with some instrumental accompaniment.
I’m spending this week home alone as Noreen is doing a week’s consultancy work in Derbyshire. I was originally going to go with her, just to get a week away, but it was decided — for all sorts of reasons — it would make more sense for me to stay here.
We are not impressed. We aren’t used to having to “do for ourselves” these days; we expect our slaves to be there on demand.
As a very minimum we need intravenous tea.
And I keep having to ask questions like “What’s a dishwasher?” and “How do I get into this tin?”.
Well, no, not really. But you get the point.
On the other hand it is sufficiently quiet that I’m also getting quite a bit done, which was part of the intention because, as always, I have mountains of work to do for both the Anthony Powell Society and the two Patient Participation Groups I chair. I managed to kill off lots of jobs yesterday, but there’s still a lot to do.
I’m not doing so well today, though. Firstly I got a phone call this morning summoning me to go to see my doctor as she wants to change my medication. And I also have our friend Tom here replacing some corkboard for us — he’s currently scraping away at the other side of the wall from where I’m sitting.
And while Noreen’s away I’m taking the opportunity to give her laptop the once over — no she decided she wasn’t going to need it so left it behind. (No, I don’t understand how you can survive for a week away without your laptop, either!) Said laptop needs a good clean — both physically and virtually — as well as it needs various updates and changes doing; so this is a good chance. Luckily much of what’s needed can be done between other jobs, otherwise you just end up watching the proverbial paint dry.
What has really surprised me, though, is how quiet the house is. It isn’t as if Noreen is noisy — if anything I’m the noisy one! But without a second person in the house it is just so quiet — I noticed it as soon as Noreen went out the front door before daybreak yesterday morning. You could almost hear a pin drop. Suddenly the house was quiet and different, even before I got out of bed, as if it knows it is alone.
Needless to say the cat is confused too. But then she’s not a creature of routine and often lays low for hours at a stretch — especially with Tom in the house as he’s the bringer of noise and pusser-eating machines.
It all just feels weird.
But, barring intervention by The Kindly Ones, it’s only until Friday evening.
This week’s photograph is another from the archives, and something slightly different. This wonderful Victorian pillar box is in Eton High Street. It is one the earliest designs, dating from 1856, and is said to be one of only 10 remaining in the UK. Needless to say it is Grade II listed by English Heritage, and thus protected. My original photograph has been translated into 1960s colour.
Victorian Postbox Eton High Street; September 2011
Click the image for larger views on Flickr
Eccentric looks at life through the thoughts of a retired working thinker
