hydraulophone

English

A hydraulophone being played.

Etymology

See hydraulic and -phone.

Noun

hydraulophone (plural hydraulophones)

1. (music) Any of several musical instruments that employ the movement of water rather than air.
   • 2007 May 17, "aleksios" (username), "Re: music with unconventional instruments", in rec.music.classical and alt.music, Usenet:

     Straying from classical music, there is Steve Mann's hydraulophone (which, even if not quite a match for a Silbermann organ, is great fun on a summer day): […]

   • 2008, Richard Kronland-Martinet, Solvi Ystad, Kristoffer Jensen, Computer Music Modeling and Retrieval: Sense of Sounds:

     The creation of a novel instrument called the hydraulophone, whose sound production is created using water as a medium

   • 2009, David Gildiner, “The Hydaulophone: Music from water”, in Imagine: Early Childhood Music Therapy‎^[1]:

     At the core of the Hydraulophone is the idea to create a new tool that encourages children to discover their sense

   • 2009, Steve Mann, ACOUSTIC, HYPERACOUSTIC, OR ELECTRICALLY AMPLIFIED HYDRAULOPHONES OR MULTIMEDIA INTERFACES‎^[2], US Patent [3]:

     On professional hydraulophones for concert performance, the water jets are often arranged like the keys on a piano, and the instrument is played by pressing down on one or more of the water jets, one for each tone of a diatonic or chromatic scale.