Cristal Baschet (an instrument that needs to be wet)

[Music] hmm [Applause] dennis james master of glass instruments that's it master of glass you can see right through me master of wet instruments thanks again so much what is this so this is the chris style and it's a french instrument so they do the spelling differently they do c-r-i-s-t-a-l now that the inventors have passed on we an homage to the two francois and bernard bache we call it the kristal bache how does it work yeah really why does it need to be wet all the time we covered it pretty much by you figuring out yeah yeah that was what was fun this is set up to be the sculpture front i honestly have no idea what this is got our dog just got back from surgery bowls these two posts go in these holes yeah that's it these are tuned everything is for sound production now this is what's fun for me you are me the first time i saw it yeah i don't know i don't understand this at all precedent for this instrument is the euphone by clodney from the 18th century whoa this is glass yeah i had been doing my research learning all about the history of glass music somehow i saw a picture of it i thought that's cool so i went around and found out that it's art it's a sculpture that makes sound they call them sonorous sculptures bernard bachet with his brother francois built these and it was a particular movement in the 50s which they invented it's like oh my god i got to see i got to see one of these someday this is just too cool what i'm holding are the resonators these are not electronically driven but they are speakers they're they're they vibrate and they amplify it seems like these this is your keyboard and then these are tuned what makes you say it's keyboard because these are coming out oh that's what it seems like you would and i can see here the red is in every 12 so these are your octaves here's the black keys and the white keys and you're the seams the red one the red ones are the seas yeah if it's glass you must play it with wet fingers now you're gonna see suspended under here water in a minute but why the why the glass that's coming oh that's the fourth speaker cone the originals didn't have these it just had these and had two of these these are just wildly colorful with the sound that they produce i was expecting the glass to be tuned but the glass is just providing the maybe we start with the basics of this instrument how i see it is you put some water on your finger you play a wine glass right it's that but a line of wine glasses the tuning has to come from that yeah bingo these are gonna vibrate these are glued into this little metal coupling and then he finds the node point you know about nodes yeah he mounts it with a screw on each side and just tightens until it just stays at that spot this is the tuning vibration goes up comes into here is amplified by looping back down here and it becomes a loop of of uh vibration reinforced by your movement it's what he called a circle of vibration that's like kind of like feedback well yeah a loop it's a loop yeah so the game and as long as you're uh playing and exciting this is these things are vibrating the first one that i saw the spacing was about that far apart so you only had you know octave and a half two octaves the reaching i couldn't do you know i needed them closer together and more notes he said oh no no no dennis no no won't work just that's too close it's just interferes won't won't uh have distinct notes it will to mix and i said all right i'll pay you make a set of five of them just see if it works and he goes all right i'll do it and he just went back to the shop and then he came back to sauerburg and he goes it works and i said okay i want one the next thing is we got to get the water which is that thing down there the water really brings up the unusualness normally you don't want to get your instruments wet right there's no other instrument i want to get wet tighten this you can hear the resonance already yeah yeah one of the deals with this instrument is all about tightening screws it's almost like preparing a race car rattle's starting to happen if you don't get your screws all tight all right so let's check i think we've got it all and what is this oh yeah the whiskers he called them whiskers he said they're like a cat they're whiskers now his theory which i just think is bunk these pick up at the top end the vibrations of the top notes and you'll see these guys wiggling while you're playing i'm a little suspect of the idea that these actually do anything and that's very important part of the design at least they said so are these whiskers tuned they're just oh look they're all the same length it's got a wind time quality yeah it's got a jingle yeah all right sure i have a feeling it was a joke for acousticians who are studying this that they they added something that really is to make people red herring you know to make people sort of go whoa but they're cool look at this thing i know it's awesome look at it you're being this thing in 1988 like whoa yeah the whiskers definitely add oh well it's a remember the heritage of this instrument is sculpture appearance yeah that makes sound cause it's kind of like we're playing hardware because you're tuning the well if you look at the piano inside without a case it's hard yeah i guess you're playing hardware there they used to call this this you could get it yeah yeah yeah it is it's all home depot stuff yeah but all this i mean it's really quite quite engineered i love the dog bowl yeah you need a dip and then i pushed him i wanted this range and these top notes are fussy as hell so you need to get surgically clean yeah i completely scrape every surface until it starts to grab you can feel the grab because if there's any oil or sweat on your fingers it just won't work and then one of the things is the habit is you never touch your face your ear that's no it's hard no you don't have to dry oh you don't want to be drunk i don't want to be dry yeah you're right soak soaking yep because like you said your fingers should be pruning you take a pad to wet the uh oh yeah because you want these all to be wet you wouldn't think all right but first i got to dip this whole instrument in water and then i can start playing it okay [Applause] i am hearing the whiskers but it's just rattling [Music] hmm [Music] okay [Music] mom [Music] the whiskers are terrible they look great they're terrible they look great they're they just they do a thing no they're so annoying i wish bernard was around to hear you say that sorry bernard oh wet wet yeah and surprisingly the lighter the touch on the higher notes the better reaction you'll get [Music] ah yeah oh okay now i'm going to show you some of the varieties so you're stuck at the end what are you going to do and if you go the other way you get that break it's just like a bow yeah just like a bow you have another hand yeah [Music] so with a little practice you can do a continuous note another one is just stroke a single note and you can get it loud you pinch try the pinch punch pinch and pull really go both hands just go now listen it starts to resonate and you start to get the wines and move down yeah there you go really there you go yeah really yeah give it a give it a good shot oh you're really oh yeah it's metal you do you confuse it it's just watch out yeah you can abuse it like oh they have crazy be more wet you got to get wetter yeah yeah now there's that you're getting into wolf nose more delicate touch more delicate much lighter oh okay [Music] [Laughter] [Music] that doesn't sound too bad no it sounds great is it bad does it end unresolved you don't resolve oh you don't like that i just want you don't like it's just like we're sad the end [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] i got the last one do you know what the high note low note is yeah we got what four i don't know i don't think that got a low c so this one does play and then we've got no that's the wolf note it wants to buy an f sharp you have to hit it just right [Applause] you see there's no literature for the instrument so you don't really have a required range and i just made him add notes until it wouldn't work and he gave me i think he gave me three of them where they don't work and that was just to make me irritated you know cause i can get the c if you're really careful yeah i imagine if you yeah you got that it's the harmonic you got to give it a lot of moisture and you press between get ready get on it but don't push just stroke stroke the thing there that's it now keep going up it should go you just use that stroke yeah there you go [Music] there you go now try the f see it's there it's just it wants to be there there oh okay you can use it you just gotta be really really careful and again this is rubbing the glass to excite it just like you would with a wine bottle you did it you got a better knife [Music] are there a bunch of these there's four of these in america four of these in america museum of modern art has one the pittsburgh institute of steel has one a composer out in hollywood working very actively in hollywood films all those movies we were talking about and mine but i was the first i was before him he heard me do it so i did the faculty movie and i did uh scream three with marco beltram oh really yeah you played this on that movie yeah and i played um the whole score it was really wonderful that guy with that little bit of a crooked nose and the blonde hair and he plays kind of stoners so what's that guy's name huh yeah yeah and it's called a minus man a sympathetic portrait of a serial killer yeah i saw that movie yeah and that whole movie score is this yeah the whole score is this and you and then he brought in some instrumental ensembles to play parts with me but i'm playing every track [Music] [Music] be here all day it sounds amazing it really does it gets like super quiet and else and yeah yeah and it's after it's an aftertouch it's like it swells in the middle as opposed to an attack [Music] it's weird yeah it's like total war of the world now everything is tuned [Music] and it's just it's all these hollywood movies so this is a hollywood sound effect device so try it yeah metal don't hit the wall and once you get the freedom of thinking of it as a sound producing device you end up tapping all sorts of things the whiskers just rattle there yeah that's all they do so you join me so the next one to show you now that we're into the sound effects making [Music] it's very satisfying especially your thumb you need a lot of mass to do it there you go well thinking of that i i found that it makes the best invitation of a new york subway going around the turn [Music] there you go [Music] oh very nice very nice yeah keep the tension in the middle that's very good yeah and that's something [Laughter] yeah it is that really does sound evil yeah it's great [Music] [Music] try up at the peak see what you get sharper and then down at the circle you see where you get there well that's probably enough of that huh [Music] [Music] my but the piece i wanted to fight for is this one [Music] um [Music] [Music] hmm [Music] um [Music] um [Music] that's beautiful that's so beautiful pretty isn't it dennis james master of instruments that are made of glass and very wet very cool instrument yeah dennis thank you so much for allowing us to come in and see this instrument sure this isn't the last unusual instrument we look at on this channel so there you go if you'd like to subscribe you do that here sure thanks so much for watching we appreciate you

Channel: Rob Scallon

Views: 1,007,095

Keywords: Rob Scallon, music, musician, guitar, guitarist, cristal baschet, glass instrument, glass rods, wet instrument, water instrument, instrument you play with water, dennis james, crystal baschet, weird instrument, sculpture instrument, instrument you play with wet hands, metal and glass instrument, music made with water, water music, theremin, pipe organ, carillon, scallon, glass, water, Cristal, baschet, unusual instrument, big instrument, hurdy gurdy

Id: XXec9ggTha0

Length: 19min 43sec (1183 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 21 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Ob-sol]

Oh I love this instrument, the Cristal Baschet!

[u/Cheap_Bet]

Super cool! I love Rob--he finds the most interesting people who play the most interesting music. :D

[u/GQYumi]

Why would it be sacrilegious?

[u/Bagonga]

This fandom throws around the word sacrilegious like it’s nothing.

There’s nothing sacrilegious about this, it’s a really cool instrument.