How to Make a Glass Harmonica

En Vino Veritas. There is truth in wine. More than ever, wine is becoming a lifestyle for many Americans, not just something to have at the end of a long day. Some of the best vacations to be had in our country involve taking trips to the wineries, learning about storied grapes, and forming a love affair with all things wine. It is in that same spirit that we look to the memory of one Benjamin Franklin, who invented something very exotic sounding, called the Armonica, or glass harmonica. The glass harmonica, simply put, is a singing wine glass. Most of us have seen this done on television, or at parties, and it looks very easy. Did you know there's a skill to it? If you can master it, you can make beautiful ethereal music with your singing wine glass, your armonica, your glass harmonica, whatever you choose to call it. In ancient times, similar music was made with "singing bowls" for meditation, and many people take the skill very seriously and believe it produces a sound that can cause reverence and spiritual enlightenment. Let's just take a lesson and see how it goes, shall we? Slainte'.

Ingredients to Make a Glass Harmonica, or Armonica:
Crystal wine glass, the thinner-walled, the better
Regular glass of water

Holding the glass by the base of the stem in one hand, dip the index finger of your other hand into the glass of water.
Rub your moistened finger (lightly) along the rim of the wine glass. This makes the singing sound. A wet finger has no oil, and therefore has better contact with the glass. As you get used to this you can adjust how lightly to rub and how often to re-moisten your finger.

To produce higher or lower notes on your glass harmonica, you need to first understand how resonant frequency works. Every kind of material vibrates when it hits a resonant frequency. By using your moistened finger on the rim of your wine glass, you are using your energy to force the resonant frequency of the glass. By moving your finger around the edge of the glass, you are sending a wave of vibration through it, causing air molecules to vibrate at the same frequency-therefore making the armonica sing.

So, how does the water change the pitch of the singing wine glass? As the resonant wave moves around the glass, it drags the water molecules with it, creating a wave of water that you can see near the edge of the glass. The dragging water molecules effectively increase the mass (both the water and the glass molecules) and reduce the energy of the wave traveling through the glass. When the energy is reduced, so is the frequency of the wave in the glass, which is reflected in the pitch of the sound wave that you hear. This means that aside from adjusting the pressure you apply to the wine glass, adding or subtracting liquid inside the wine glass will change the pitch of your Armonica music. This is why when you've seen the glass harmonica demonstrated on television, usually someone is standing at a table with several glasses of varying liquid levels, playing them at the same time. That's a bit complicated for our lesson, but you get the idea.

The science behind the Armonica, or glass harmonica, called resonant frequency, brings alot of interesting points to the discussion of singing wine glasses. For instance, we've all seen commercials where the singer hits an extraordinarily high note and shatters the glass. Is this a real phenoma, and how does it happen? Resonant frequency of course, and it's simpler than you think. If you can sing a note equal to the resonant frequency of a glass, you can shatter it. Don't try that at home, kids.

The very first glass harmonica, or armonica, came in 1761 when Ben Franklin heard an Irishman play music on a set of upright goblets filled with different amounts of water. Franklin had an idea for improving the tone of the music, by varying the size and thickness of the glasses themselves, and his improved armonica became very popular during that time period. Marie Antoinette even learned how to play one. Alas, because of the fragility of the armonicas, few of them survived very long, and they became effectively extinct from 1830 until another inventor picked the invention up where Benjamin Franklin left off, many years later in 1982.

If you love wine, and you love music, why not carry on the proud tradition started so long ago by one Mr. Benjamin Franklin, and make your own glass harmonica? If you find you are not proficient at it, you can always drink all of the glasses empty and pretend it never happened. Cheers!