Who invented singing wine glasses

Explore sound, music and science in this fun activity to do with kids. With enough glasses and little bit of practice you might be able to play 'Ode to Joy' like Marieke! We'd love to hear how you got on over on Facebook! Find out more here Close. Menu Blog Video. Singing wine glasses Marieke and her daughter Tilly make music with wine glasses and squash, and investigate how changing one variable can affect another. When you take your finger away from the glass, the glass walls continue to vibrate, thus, still producing a musical note.

However, if you stop rubbing the rim and leave your finger touching the glass, your finger will stop the vibrations and the sound stops as well. In a wine glass filled with water, you actually should have been able to see the generated vibrations in the form of a little wave pattern that develops, especially around the glass walls. If you did the extra activity with the ping pong ball, you also probably made the vibrations visible.

The ball should dance inside the glass as it gets pushed around by the vibrations of the walls each time it comes in contact with the glass edges. In each case when you tapped the glass with the metal spoon, you should have heard the same note as when you used your finger.

Using the metal spoon is just another method to get the glass walls to vibrate, and the generated sound waves of the glass thus stay the same. Sometimes, even vibrations of one glass can make another glass vibrate and sing if you put them very close together. However, when adding different amounts of water to the glass, you should have noticed that the pitch of the sound changed depending on the water level; the more water you add to the glass, the lower the pitch of the sound you hear. This is due to the fact that the water volume inside the glass makes it much heavier and therefore, it is more difficult for the glass walls to vibrate.

That means that the sound wave generated by the vibrations is much slower or has a lower frequency. As the frequency of a note is correlated to its pitch, the pitch produced by the glass goes down as you add more water. If you can use more than one glass, you can play around with different water levels or glass shapes and sizes; each one will have a different resonance frequency and will produce a different note.

Try to find different glasses and change water levels to generate each note of the musical scale. Can you play a simple song with your glass harp? This activity brought to you in partnership with Science Buddies. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. Key concepts Sound Physics Music Resonance Introduction Thanksgiving can be a wonderful time of year, with friends and family getting together.

Materials Wine glasses and permission to use them carefully optional: different size and shapes Water Graduated liquid measuring cup Metal spoon Ping pong ball optional Chromatic tuner optional, available as free phone app Piano or keyboard for comparing notes optional Preparation Find a working area that can tolerate some water spills. Carefully gather your wine glass es and your measuring cup, as well as some water. Wash your hands with dish soap and rinse your hands thoroughly.

Procedure Take an empty wine glass and put it in front of you on the table. Singing wine glasses Parupudi, Aarti. One among the many inventions of Benjamin Franklin is the Glass Armonica, a musical instrument whose sound source was a series of resonating glass vessels.

However, the Irish musician Richard Pockrich is typically credited as the first to play an instrument composed of glass vessels, called the Glass Harp in , by rubbing his fingers around the rims. Date: Filename: ParupudiAarti Size: 1. Introduction Benjamin Franklin is a celebrated figure from early U. Terms and Concepts To do this project, you should do research that enables you to understand the following terms and concepts: Vibration Musical note names and frequencies Resonance, resonant frequency Armonica or glass harmonica Questions How does a wine glass produce sound when you rub on its rim with a wet finger?

How does the frequency of the note produced change as fluid is added to the glass? Bibliography These pages have background information on the physics of "singing" wine glasses: HowStuffWorks. Ansell, D. Making Music with Wine Glasses. Naked Scientists Kitchen Science. Here are some references on Benjamin Franklin's harmonica: Wikipedia contributors.

Glass Harmonica. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved September 14, Scientific American Frontiers. This resource shows what the frequencies of different musical notes are: Michigan Technological University.

Physics of Music — Notes. Department of Physics. Retrieved February 20, Note: A computerized matching algorithm suggests the above articles. It's not as smart as you are, and it may occasionally give humorous, ridiculous, or even annoying results!

Learn more about the News Feed. Materials and Equipment To do this experiment you will need the following materials and equipment: Wine glasses 1 or more Water Electronic chromatic tuner, such as Korg CA Chromatic tuners are widely available in music stores and online through suppliers such as Amazon. Experimental Procedure Do your background research so that you are knowledgeable about the terms, concepts, and questions, above. Determine how much water the wine glass can hold.

Fill the glass with water, then pour the water into a liquid measuring cup. Repeat at least three times, and calculate the average of your measurements.