I'm Tackling the Glass Harmonica!

This:



is not a glass harmonica. But this fun little party trick is based on the principles of the Glass Harmonica, where, according to the dictionary this item is a musical instrument consisting of a set of graduated glass bowls on a rotating spindle that produce tones when a finger is pressed to their moistened rims.

Not that I want to discuss fingers and moistened rims.

Here's what a Glass Harmonica looks like. Not bad. I wouldn't mind having one of these in my house.

Next, I found out about this guy called G. Finkenbeiner--an obvious fake name--who created his spooktacular version of the Glass Harmonica in 1986! Can you believe it? Totally.

This is what the GH sounds like: Shenandoah from Revolutions (The kind of music I'd like to have playing on repeat relentlessly in my grave. Please make it happen.)

Who do you think plays the Glass Harmonica besides Ben Franklin? Shoot! All kinds of people!

Stephen Merritt from the Magnetic Fields

This person called Emile Simon who exploited that creative freedom to the maximum, mixing her echoey vocals with samples of rare instruments such as the glass harmonica.

And of course, glass music virtuoso Lynn Drye!
For real folks, she's one of the few glass music concert artists in the world today! How many of you out there can say that for yourselves.

Is that more than enough Glass Harmonica information for you? If you're ever in Philly, take yourself to the Ben Franklin Institue and see Mr. Franklin's real-life Glass Armonica (no typo--no lie!) in person. Spooky!

C'est Trivial Tackles! after all...