BLOG IN A BOTTLE

Petr Spatina spent his early life playing the accordion and the piano, before discovering a love for the glass harp. In 2010 he amazed viewers of an Austrian talent show with his self-developed 33-glass harp on which he plays music ranging from classical to pop.

Car-maker ŠKODA saw Spatina on the talent show and asked him to perform a piece of music for the ad that would introduce the new ŠKODA Superb. Watch and be amazed as Spatina plays the 597 crystal glasses that make up his Superb-shaped glass harp!

Our Austrian and Swiss Friends of Glass have been busy creating a new game called Sounds of Glass. The game enables you to compose a tune for your very own glass bottle and jar orchestra. Although the site is in German, you don’t need to understand the language to make your own beats. There are four different types of sound available: Lead; Percussion; Bass; and Drum.

Select the type of sound first, then click on a bottle or jar to fill it with water. The filled containers are ‘played’ as the light passes over them. You can combine one or more of the four sound types to create your tune.

For each sound type, there are four different ‘rooms’. Experiment by creating different tunes in each room and combining them together in your own unique sound combinations. You can save your song and share it with others on the Sounds of Glass site. While the results might not be as sophisticated as the Lernert & Sander glass harp we featured here earlier this year, it’s a lot more fun!

The game is incredibly simple but devilishly addictive. Cancel your meetings, take the telephone off the hook and put on your headphones now!

Dutch performance artists, Lernert & Sander have created an 18^th Century glass harp which they use to play a very modern piece of music: No Limits by 2unlimited. The result is visually beautiful and, although the artists describe it as ‘easily the worst song ever,’ we think it sounds pretty cool played on glass. What song would you most like them to play?

CDEFGABC from Lernert & Sander on Vimeo.

Meet Glasso – The Singing Glasses from Hungary:

… or if you prefer something not quite as classical (but yet, still a classic):

Aside from a fantastic musical ability, can you just imagine how exacting and painstaking it must be to perfectly tune each glass?

Glasso, we salute you!