GLASS HARMONICA , CRYSTAL BASHCET, BOWED PSALTERY,BARYTON and BAZANTAR

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

This guy, Thomas Bloch owns (and beautifully plays) an Ondes Martenot, a 
Glass Harmonica and a Crystal Baschet.
_*http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=7qagAnX6eJ8&NR=1
*_As the guy in this interview says,  'there is probably no room in the 
world that has all three
of these instruments in it.

Skip to 1:24 of this video to hear Bloch play the Crystal Baschet on this
French Talk show
_*http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=G5RupsBUx6g*_

I love playing Crystal Wine Goblets so much that I investigated purchasing
a Glass Harmonica (invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1781 and used in 
composition
by Mozart, twice!
_*http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=dE_MZzvigd4&feature=related*_

One company makes them..........hold onto your chair.     $17,000  each!

Interestingly,    I have a custom  Bowed Psaltery and , to my ears , it 
sounds
like a perfect cross between a violin and a glass harmonica.
_*
http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=aD_dsfp1Uyk&feature=related*_

This is perhaps because there are chromatic and undampened strings
so that all kinds of dissonant overtones are excited in much the same
way as a Glass Harmonica

The Bowed Psaltery set me back $100 (unbelievable for a beautiful custom 
instrument
but the instrument maker liked me and made me several desert island 
instruments over
a five year period............i met him at the flea market and he's 
dissappeared---
a Marxaphone and even a prototype Hurdy Gurdy that is so weezy that it's 
useless
for Celtic music but fantastic for Industrial music............lol.


And,  just for oddities' sake check out this fascinating instrument that 
Hadyn composed
for,  the BARYTON

It has plucked strings in back of the instrument (invisible to the 
audience) and bowed strings in the
front.
_*
http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=QZApJANZjl0&feature=related*_


Finally, here is the amazing musician/instrument inventor playing his 
invention,
the Bazantar which is a cross between a Sitar (with sympathetic 
resonating strings)
and and a contra Bass.

_*http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=QZApJANZjl0&feature=related*_