Glass Instruments

Glass Instruments
$19.00

The Glass Harmonica was invented in 1761. Mozart wrote several pieces for this instrument. The hemispherical glass bowls which rotate around a horizontal axis driven by a pedal were rediscovered only in the last decades of the 19th century. Sounds are produced by touching the rotating glasses with moistened fingertips. Today, the glass harmonica is an absolute rarity, with roughly ten professional players world-wide.

Another rather rarely encountered jewel is the Verrophone (from the french word "la verre" for glass). The youngest of the glass instruments was developed only 20 years ago in Germany. Chromatically tuned glass tubes are rubbed with moistened fingers like the musical glasses, but are also struck with mallets. The lingering, atmospheric sound is highly esteemed by modern composers due to its extraordinary intensity. The musical glasses present one of the oldest forms of making music and sounds with glasses. The instrument consists of several custom-made wine glasses. In order to get different pitches the musical glasses are filled with varying amounts of water. The musical glasses sampled by the Vienna Symphonic Library have a chromatic range from G3 to G6.

The Glass Instruments are rounded off by the bottles which are blown with articulations such as sustains and flutter tonguing.

Glass Harmonica
ARTICULATION GROUP    
01 GLASS HARMONICA Portato, sustained Half tone trills, mallet hits normal and secco, mallet glissandos
Verrophone
ARTICULATION GROUP    
02 VERROPHONE Staccato, sustained Portato, tremolo, half tone trills, mallet hits normal and secco, chromatic mallet trills, mallet glissandos
Musical glasses - A
ARTICULATION GROUP    
03 MUSICAL GLASSES - A   Staccato, portato, sustained, tremolo, and half tone trills
Musical glasses - B
ARTICULATION GROUP    
04 MUSICAL GLASSES - B Staccato, sustained Portato, tremolo, half tone trills, single hits with soft, medium, and hard mallets, mallet glissandos
Musical glasses - C
ARTICULATION GROUP    
05 MUSICAL GLASSES - C   Staccato fast and slow, portato fast and slow, sustained, tremolo, mallet single hits
Bottles
ARTICULATION GROUP    
06 BOTTLES Staccato, sustained, flutter tonguing Portato, sforzato

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System Requirements

  • Windows 8.1 (latest update, 64-bit), Intel Core i3 or AMD Athlon 64 X2
  • macOS 10.14 (latest update), Intel Core i3
  • 7200 rpm hard drive for the sample content
  • 4 GB RAM (8 GB recommended)
  • iLok Account and iLok License Manager software for activation in the cloud or on a physical iLok 2/iLok 3 key

Recommended

  • Windows 10/11 (latest updates, 64-bit), Intel Core i5/i7/i9/Xeon
  • macOS 11 (or higher), Intel Core i5/i7/i9/Xeon
  • 8 GB RAM
  • SSD (M2, SATA 6 or USB3/3.1, UASP Support - HFS+, APFS or NTFS formatted) for the sample content
  • AU/VST/VST3/AAX Native compatible host
  • 88 key master keyboard

Hard Drive Space Requirements

  • 6 GB