Glass Armonica

Alright, for some reason I can't keep away from weird instruments, but the sound that this instrument emits is very very creepy and I love it. Anyone know what the average written range on one is (so to speak) and sort of things I should be advised against when writing for one? And is it written for one stave or on two?

Thanks mates

... I would advise against writing for one at all, unless you personally know someone that owns and plays one. Otherwise, why waste your time writing music that will NEVER be played?

... I would advise against writing for one at all, unless you personally know someone that owns and plays one. Otherwise, why waste your time writing music that will NEVER be played?

Hehehehehehehehhe

it is an optional part that I would love to write into the piece of music. I was inspired by Lucia di Lammermoor where they had an armonica-ist playing in the 3rd act and it was really chilling to hear that ethereal glassy soulless sound. I can't help myself sometimes :-P

... I would advise against writing for one at all, unless you personally know someone that owns and plays one. Otherwise, why waste your time writing music that will NEVER be played?

considering all the epic advice that i have seen from you in almost every other thread, im really surprised by this.

why wouldnt you encourage someone to write something for an instrument they cant get their immediate hands on? who knows, that piece may become famous, and then it will most certainly get played.

maybe im a little biased, i absolutely love the glass armonica

And precisely HOW will that piece become famous if no one ever plays it?

"Oh look, here's a piece for an instrument no one's played in 200 years."

It's really not much diffrent than my advice for writing other rare instruments. Sure, you may love your Hyperbass Flute concerto, but which one of the 4 living Hyperbass Flute owners are you going to convince to play it? (if you can find one at all?)

If you're rich or famous (or both) you might be able to spend enough money (or influence) to get your piece played. If you're neither, why are you wasting your time?

But don't you see? This is this very attitude that keeps these instruments from being played. If nobody writes for them, there's no interest for people to learn these odd/old instruments (which are certainly not obsolete, is a harpsichord obsolete?) The Wagner tuba for instance has some solo repertoire now, and I'm seeing more people that specialise in the instrument cropping up on the net. My mentality is that if enough people are writing good music for an instrument, more people will want to take up that instrument. Don't try and stunt the exposure of what could be a great instrument with the people to play it. Who cares if your piece gets played any time soon? You can perform it on other instruments if need be, and you surely wrote other music that can be performed. We get the thrill out of doing something out of the ordinary, so when you get the desire, why not take advantage?

my thoughts exactly, this is the simple philosophy i apply to all the genres of art i participate in.

if it makes you feel good/happy, do it, regardless whether or not anyone will see/play/hear/perform it!

obviously you wouldnt want to do it if it was for a commission for say a piano piece, but in your own free time, why the hell not?

Indeed. And there are instruments, such as the recorder, which were almost extinct for 200 years until they were revived and now have a very rich repertoire of contemporary music again. And the great thing is that recorder players are generally much more open towards playing contemporary music than, say, violinists/pianists/cellists/vocalists who have tons of repertoire from many centuries up to now at their disposal and thus are completely happy spending their lives with that huge repertoire that already exists, without having to get into any contemporary music.

Sure, it might be harder to find players of less common instruments, but on the other hand they are often more easily convinced to play your pieces, because they are glad to have some more repertoire for their instrument.

Despite knowing way more violinists or pianists than recorder players or percussionists, I find it a lot easier to find some of the latter to play a piece of myself and actually spend some time practicing it, than the former.

But still, we're not talking about an instrument that once fell out of interest and now a lot more people are interested in writing for it and performing it - we're talking about an instrument which 99% of the people in this forum (including me) have never seen or heard live, and probably don't even know what it is.

And to Daemon of Musiq: why don't you just write for crystal glasses? Crystal glasses are considered standard percussion instruments and you can get very accurate pitches from them - the only problem is that potentially you can't play many more notes than two at a time per player, and probably you don't have that much control over dynamics and sustain (or rather, it's more difficult to gain that control over crystal glasses than it is on the glass harmonica, I assume). It's a lot easier to find percussion players than glass harmonica players, and unless what you want to write specifically asks for the tiny differences in timbre and the bit of flexibility that the glass harmonica provides more than the crystal glasses, I don't see why you should write for it when you don't even know if there's a glass harmonica in your country :X

my 1/50th of a euro..

That's true, and personally I wouldn't write for a glass harmonica without knowing a glass harmonica player, because hearing my pieces performed (without having to spend months actively searching for performers without having time for other stuff, like composing) is always important for me - but that's an individual choice.

Also, if you -do- get in contact with a glass harmonica player, chances are that it won't be too hard to convince them to play a new piece, if it's not too hard. And there are some glass harmonica players out there - so if you want to have it performed really much, I think you could find someone, if you actively look out for them. The questions are merely:

1. Is it important for you to hear it performed?

2. If yes, do you mind the time and effort you have to put into finding a performer?

3. Is the choice of this particular instrument more important to you than the difficulties this brings with it?

If you answer no to 1 or yes to 3, that's IMO a sufficient justification to write for any weird instrument.

Yes, it would be lovely if this magnificent instrument COULD have a resurgence, HOWEVER...

Probably the only maker of glass armonicas disappeared in 1999.

The instruments cost around $30,000.

Very few people have them or have access to a glass maker/studio who blows quartz glass (lead crystal will NOT work.. it shatters too easily).

I've been trying to get a glass armonica for the last 10 years,without success.

Add to that, the fact that the instrument is completely non-standardized.

They range from 2 octaves to 5 octaves. What are your chances of having near you a performer with the size of instrument for which you wrote your piece?

Flint's advice is sound advice.

IF you have access to a performer, then go for it. Write for that person and for that instrument.

If you do NOT have access to one, at least get in touch with a performer and find out about it.

If you cannot do EITHER of those, then I highly suggest you abandon the idea of writing for the instrument.

It's not like writing a piece for flute... there are ALWAYS players around to play those.

Oh, and the comparison to recorder is erroneous.

Recorders went out of style with the advent of the "superior" traversi

Well then, it appears the concensus is that the decision revolves around whether one hopes for a performance or not.

That probably wouldn't stop me if I really had a hankering to write for that instrument or any other, since I've practically given up the notion of getting my music performed.

After listening to the Ballets de Village of Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755) - an unjustly neglected master, if you ask me - I'm tempted to write a suite for baroque orchestra with pairs of baroque musettes and hurdy-gurdies.

i am aghast that there are people who have obviously been composing for a long time, giving another composer advice as apalling as "dont do it if it wont get played."

this is ridiculous advice in every respect. the only time this advice has a shred of legitimacy is when someone's livelihood depends upon it. "dont do it because if you do, you wont be able to feed your family"

if everyone abided by this philosophy, (yes im talking even about composing for obscure instruments such as the armonica) this world would be seriously devoid of a LOT of precious artwork.

i could list hundreds of artists who are revered in today's society who were despised/ignored/unheard of/had no hopes of being heard(seen, published, read etc)

what kind of world would this be if they had given up when the community around them said "dont do that, no one will buy it!" ?

honestly people, get real.

this attitude is unfortunately permeating every aspect of art and some great work is really suffering because of it.

to the OP, forget this ridiculous mentality and write EXACTLY what YOU want to, not what other composers tell you is passe, or "hopeless." you may or may not end up with a masterpiece, but you WILL learn something, and there is always the possibility that if and when such an instrument makes a comeback, it will get played.

Be "aghast" and "apalled" all you want.

The advice is sound advice for a young composer.

If you want to grow and learn, then write for instruments that will be available for performances.

If all you want to do is write it for the heck of it, then sure, go ahead, it's not like we're going to find you and stop you.

The OP asked about the range of the instrument and how one writes for it.

It's an exceedingly rare instrument, completely non-standardized, and possibly near extinction because of it (sadly).

So the advice was "talk to someone who plays it".

That's about as solid a piece of advice as ANYONE could ask for.

Then the recommendations were, "and if you DON'T have access to a performer, maybe writing for that instrument isn't the best idea, especially if you want to get the music performed".

Again, very sound advice.

Don't go about being all "aghast and apalled" by perfectly sound advice. If the OP says "bah, I'll write for it anyways", then that's his choice. Only he can decide whether the risk of never getting the music performed is worth it.

Everytime any composer sets pencil to paper there is the risk that the music will not be performed (yes, even when it's a commissioned piece... it happens, far too often). So why add an additional obstacle to performance?

I'd say "choose another rare, but LESS rare, instrument"... how about a piece for theramin? or onde martenot?

I'd say "choose another rare, but LESS rare, instrument"... how about a piece for theramin? or onde martenot?

However apparently distasteful to the YC audience it may be, I am a firm believer that it is difficult for one to grow as a composer without the learning process that occurs when one receives actual audio feedback on their works. As creative and idealistic a student may be, the axiom "the devil is in the details" still applies in the real world. It would be an exceedingly poor use of your limited time while in school to not avail yourself to the resources you have on hand... because, trust me, once you're out of school, you're on your own. Learning and perfecting your art by using the musicians you have available is surely an easier and more effective way to spend your time as a student of music.

You are free to disregard my advice at your leisure. It is, of course, your own time to waste.

Would you like some windmills to tilt against as well?

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the possibility of finding an armonica sample set. I mean it would seem to me that if you have access to composing software and a midi sequencer that creating a recording would be possible. And if you don't have access to the software maybe you could still write the piece and see if someone else would be willing to sequence it in. However that all depends on being able to find the sample set.

I don't know if I agree with what is being said about not writing a piece that will never be performed, I mean why not keep something like that in a notebook. It may inspire you down the road as well as on the spot. Maybe you'll get into the piece and find out that it needs accompanying instruments and it turns out to be another piece entirely. Anyway, it's probably a good exercise.

Samples are not real instruments and do not behave as such. Using samples to create music for an obsolete instrument is doing nothing more than writing for synthesizer.

In my opinion, writing for samples is hardly stretching one's musical horizons, since samples teach you nothing about how an instrument actually works or what it's actually capable of. A sample doesn't screw up a passage you've written badly and grind a rehearsal to a halt. A sample doesn't corner you after a performance and say, "that solo passage really sucks, can't you come up with something actually idiomatic to the instrument?" A sample doesn't run out of breath because you've written an impossibly long phrase.

Etc., etc., etc.

Samples have their use as a tool, but to the learning composer it's far too easy to learn bad habits from them.

As someone else said, why not just use crystal glasses? They're more common and have virtually the same timbre.

It's not as easy to play freestanding crystal glasses. In the glass armonica, the glasses are mounted so that they're nestled within each other, like a stack of bowls mounted on a shaft turned by a footpedal; that close together, it's easier to play relatively rapid passages and even chords, neither of which can easily be accomplished playing crystal glasses.

A word of advice - if you like an instrument that you find is unappreciated, maybe help by introducing more people to it. Try all the people around you, especially if they are people interested in music. Tell as many people as you can. Hopefully it will spread and people will start looking around for more recordings of these instruments. Since they aren't any, there will be a high demand, and the result is people will hear the demand and see it, making more recordings, writing more music, hell, somebody might try and make an instrument themselves. If I knew how to blow glass, I'd make one. I don't care how long it'd take, I'd figure it out. But the point it, nobody's gonna play it if they haven't HEARD of it. So get it out there and help the cause to letting people know it exists - that's the real uphill battle.

Write it and, if anything, find a decent keyboard that can replicate the sound. I have 2 that can do just that quite well. As for the score, I know nothing about writing for the instrument. Sorry =(

As for the score, I know nothing about writing for the instrument. Sorry =(

Having the sound patch on your keyboard tells you nothing about how to write for the instrument.

You *COULD* DIY one yourself.

You *COULD* DIY one yourself.

yes, this IS a possibility, but of course would require a glass blowing facility, with the capacity to do quartz glass.