Hydraulophones
Ryan Janzen, playing with Hart House Symphonic Band
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| Other instrument | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Woodwater instrument |
| Classification | |
| Hornbostel–Sachs classification | NaN (Hydraulophone) |
| Playing range | |
| Basic range of a diatonic hydraulophone with 12 water jets: More detailed ranges and compasses appear below. |
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| Related instruments | |
| Musicians | |
A hydraulophone is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water (sometimes other fluids) where sound is generated or affected hydraulically. Typically, sound is produced by the same hydraulic fluid in contact with the player's fingers. The term also refers to an acoustic sound-producing mechanism used as an interface or input device involving the monitoring of fluid flow. Examples include hydraulophones for fluid-flow monitoring and measurement applications, such as building automation, equipment monitoring, and the like (for example, determining which faucet or toilet in a building is operating and how much water it is consuming). The hydraulophone in the first sense was invented and named by Steve Mann, and has been used as a sensory exploration device for low vision individuals. Hydraulophones around the world are designed by Splashtones Music.
The term may be applied based on the interface used to play the instrument, in which a player blocks the flow of water through a particular hole in order to sound a particular note, or based on a hydraulic sound production mechanism. Hydraulophones use water flow sound producing mechanisms. They have a user interface, which is blocking water jets to produce sound. Those described in Mann's paper Hydraulophone design considerations use water jets striking perforated spinning disks, shafts, or valves, to create a pulsating water flow, similar to a siren disk. A single disk, shaft, or valve assembly can have rings or passages with different numbers of holes for different notes. Some hydraulophones have reeds (one or more reed for each finger hole) and some are reedless, having one or more fipple mechanism associated with each finger hole, thus having no moving parts to wear out.
Blocking flow through a finger hole directs the water instead to one or more of the above-described sound-production mechanisms, or resulting changes in flow or pressure affect a separate sounding mechanism associated with each finger hole.
Some hydraulophones include an underwater hydrophone pickup to allow the sounds produced by the water to be electrically amplified. Electric amplification allows effects to be added (as with an electric guitar) as well as making the hydraulophone a hyper-acoustic instrument (that is, using computation to change the acoustic sound of the water into some other instrument).
The hydraulophone is similar to a woodwind instrument, but it runs on incompressible (or less compressible) fluid rather than a compressible gas like air. In this context hydraulophones are sometimes called "woodwater" instruments regardless of whether or not they are made of wood (as woodwind instruments are often not made of wood).
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Wikipedia