Hydrocrystallophone

[gfish]

I'm not even sure anyone is reading this community any more, but here is a demonstration video of the musical instrument I just finished inventing, the hydrocrystallophone. It was shown at Steamcon this last weekend. It's entirely mechanical, using an old hand-cranked phonograph motor.

Click to view

Comments

[mercat]

Very cool! :D

[ffutures]

A bit like a more portable glass harmonica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_harmonica

Something I noticed in the clip - at one point some air came out of the nozzle, I'm guessing that it got sucked in when the water level dropped too low. This may mean that your ability to play lower notes degrades during the performance as air enters the pump - not sure how you would fix that.

[gfish]

The pipe could be a bit longer. It was carefully fitted to the size of the previous glass -- which I then broke. I'd also like to try it with narrow champagne flutes. The water spins up onto the sides of the glass centrifugally, dropping the level by about a centimeter in the center, which I must admit I wasn't expecting at all. I could also hack the governor on the motor to slow it down some, I guess. Not sure how fast it has to be going to get a good tone.

[waywalker]

HAhahaha!! I love it! Not -that- is pretty darn amazing. Good job!

[tamara_rose]

This is five thousand different kinds of awesome!

[turkchief]

I still read it. I only post when I have something gremaine to say...TC