How to Make Them

Different from the tomato cans, the musical glasses make about the sweetest music ever heard. To make a set get eight very thin glass goblets and mount them on a board 12 inches wide and 2 feet long. An easy way to do this is to fasten the foot of each goblet down

101 These are the three chief factors that make up the various combinations of tones which we call music.

102 Chopin (pronounced Sho'-pan) was a Polish musical composer.

103 A dirge is a tune expressing grief and mourning.

with a couple of thin strips of tin or brass placed across it and screwing the ends of these to the board as shown in Fig. 108.

To tune the glasses pour water in them until each has exactly the right pitch and together they form an octave. When you have learned to play simple tunes on an octave of musical glasses you can build up the set to 22 glasses or three octaves, which will give you enough notes to play almost any of the popular airs.

Fig. 108. THE MUSICAL GLASSES

How to Play the Glasses

Before starting in to play moisten the rims of the glasses and rub your fingers with water in which you have put some vinegar, or better, a little acetic acid,104 until they feel quite rough.

Now when you lay the tips of your fingers flat on the rim of a glass and rub them around it, the friction between the skin of your roughened fingers and the edge of the glass will set the latter into vibration and a wonderfully sweet tone will be sent out. By varying the pressure of your fingers on the glasses you can produce a very beautiful tremolo effect.

104 This is the acid contained in vinegar that gives it its value.

It is a good scheme to put a few drops of acetic acid into each goblet so that just as quickly as the volume of sound begins to fall off you can dip your finger tips into whatever glass they are nearest to and so increase the friction between them and the glass.

If you can play a set of musical glasses well your services will be in demand for all kinds of entertainments.