Glissonic
Continuous Pitch Wind Instruments
Glissonic tarogato or Glissotar
What makes the Glissonic Wind Instruments different?
Blow on a wind, play on a string!
Glissonic is a completely new wind instrument family. The main novelty is that instead of tone holes it uses a longitudinal gap or slot on the tube of the instrument. The two sides of the slot are covered with magnetic foil which attract a magnetized ribbon on top. The ribbon is fixed on the upper end, stretched and lifted up from the lower end as a string on a violin. You can push down the ribbon anywhere, it will seal up perfectly above it, so you can produce any note in the pitch continuum. It can be played with eight fingers of the two hands or by sliding one finger up and down.
The glissonic system can be used on all kind of wind instruments: flute, whistle, clarinet, saxophone, tarogato, oboe etc. or even the cornett.
Crowdfunding campaign coming soon!
Glissotar is available for pre-order. Contact us for more info.
Contact us"In music, a glissando (abbreviated gliss.)
is a glide from one pitch to another.
Sonic is used to describe things related to sound."
Guthman Musical Instrument Competition
The Glissotar has won - which may be the most prestigious instrument innovation competition - the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, and got the People's Choice Award as well.
https://guthman.gatech.edu/2022-competition
The competition was originally designed to identify the next generation of musical instrumentalists. It has turned into one of the globe’s premiere events for music technologists. It is an event that exposes new technologies and novel ideas to a community of musicians who are natural experimenters. The instruments that the competition features are a captivating mix of digital possibilities and traditional performances that transform how we perform and experience music.
Daniel Vaczi performs with Ted Gurch, the Associate Principal/E-flat Clarinetist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. First a duet of a glissotar and a bass clarinet, then two glissotars.
The Glissotar
The Glissotar is the first fully developed model of the Glissonic family. It is based on the Hungarian tarogato, which is a single-reed instrument with a conical wooden body.
The Glissotar has a short brass neck so it can be used with a soprano saxophone mouthpiece. It has two octave keys, like the tarogato or the early saxophones.
The first pieces are made out of Purpleheart (also called Amaranth) which is a very durable Latin American tropical hardwood (this wood species is not listed in the CITES Appendices or on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species). It has a beautiful and extravagant natural purple colour.
The range of the instrument is the same as of the soprano saxophone, it is about 2,5 octaves.
Schematic image of the Glissotar
Glissonic tarogato or Glissotar
The past and the future of the tarogato
Project
In the framework of the project, composers were called to write short pieces for the new instrument. The interest exceeded all our expectations: we received 75 pieces from 26 countries from all over the world. Eight of the selected pieces were premiered at a concert in 31st of May 2021 in the Hold Street Church in Budapest. In this concert, glissotar was presented in conversation with a traditional tarogato and other instruments, with a program containing written pieces and improvisation.
Other twenty-five miniatures was recorded and released on the YouTube channel of the Souns Foundation.
We made a short film about the instrument and our concept.
The Project will be completed with a public lecture for children in October.
The project is supported by the Hungarikum Committee and the Ministry of Agriculture.
Videos
Audio
NEW ALBUM IS OUT!
Dániel Váczi Trio: Rebus (Hunnia Records, 2020)
Dániel Váczi Trio: Rebus
Hunnia Records, 2020
Dániel Váczi - glissotar (glissonic tarogato), sopranino saxophone
Máté Pozsár - Steinway D piano, Rhodes, analogue synthesizer
Zsolt Sárvári Kovács - drums
https://danielvaczi.bandcamp.com
Sound examples
Glissando
Dániel Váczi - glissotar
Tremolo and dizzy
Dániel Váczi - glissotar
Released strip
Dániel Váczi - glissotar
"A csitári hegyek alatt..."
Hungarian folksong
Dániel Váczi - glissotar
Rebus
by Leonardo da Vinci
Dániel Váczi - glissotar
"Confirmation"
by Charlie Parker
Dániel Váczi - glissotar
PhonUmbra
Free collective improvisation of the Váczi Dániel Multet, recorded at Lumen, Budapest, 20.03.18.
Dániel Váczi - glissotar
János Ávéd - glissoflute, soprano saxophone
Márton Fenyvesi - guitar
Balázs Horváth - double bass
Zsolt Sárvári Kovács - drums
Autochoralionos
Dániel Váczi - glissotar connected with AutoChoralion (MIDI controlled hand-pumped harmonium)
Inventors
Dániel Váczi
Dániel Váczi is a saxophone player, composer, inventor and researcher of musical instruments and games.
Born in 1972, Budapest.
He graduated from the ELTE as a biologist in 1998. He studied at the Jazz Saxophone Faculty of the LFZE in 1999 for one year.
He founded his jazz trio in 2001. It became a quintet called Multet in 2009. He is also a member of other bands: Trio Squelini - often with Ditta Rohmann cellist as a guest (world-jazz), Kada ad Libitum (free improvisation), Ektár (world-jazz) and Budapest Improvisers Orchestra (contemporary classical mixed free improvisation). His discography contains about 30 CD.
He developed a “Reticular Music System” which is both a music theoretical approach on the one hand, and a technique for composing and improvising on the other.
With the collaboration of László Fassang and others he made a concert (Etudes for player organ) at MüPa Budapest in 2014 that researched the augmented possibilities of the organ with computerized MIDI control. This work was continued in 2015 (Organmatrix), and extended to dance, animation, and intermedia. His application called SoundEmbroidery - a sound-visualisation tool based on the new and original principle of PitchCompass, programmed and designed by XORXOR - was created and developed for this occasion. He also uses the MIDI controlled acoustic piano player of BMC.
He has engaged in building various music-automatons, and participated in the development of the gigantic music box “Hangjáték” made by Medence Csoport for MüPa as an adviser and composer in 2015. Along with two partners, he produces and distributes programmable mechanical music box called Skatuya.
Among his many music instrument-inventions the glissando-woodwinds - glissonic flute, recorder, tarogato, saxophone, chalumeau (clarinet), oboe - are in their final stage of development. He has plans for a new symmetric - dihexatone - keyboard too.
He has also invented a new game of logic called Urobo. It is based on the circular hierarchy of the 12 music notes.
With his wife, Nóra Jakobi (psychologist, music therapist), and others he has participated in several workshops for children at ÉlményMűhely (Workshop of Experiences) in the field of experience-oriented mathematics focusing on play (Urobo) and its musical aspects (Skatuya) in 2014 and 2015.
Tóbias Terebessy
Designer, founder of Medence Group Art and Service Partnership.
www.medencedesign.com
Previous projects:
2015-2016: MÜPA Budapest – design and implementation of sound art
2004- : designing and constructing original musical instruments for the Bélaműhely Sound Art Group
2003-2011: Sziget Festival Budapest – designing, building and implementation of the location of the Octopus art programmes, organising programmes, operation
2006-2010: Sziget Festival Budapest – designing Medusa Light Zone
2005-2008: Trafó, a Festival Temps D’Image: Becoming Butterfly, Zevgar, Singing joints – Concept and implementation of stage-set and visual effects
2005-2008: Moholy Nagy László Design Scholarship – neo-nomad light creatures and light shapes
2000- : Medence Csoport Art&Craft&Design Company – founder co-owner (medencedesign.com)
1994-1999: Sopron University Institute of Applied Art – wood designer artist
History
Despite the great number of inventions starting with Leonardo Da Vinci, we were astonished to find him in the first place on this field too. He has a small drawing in the middle of other things in the Codex Atlanticus, Foglio 1106R, showing two flutes with longitudinal gaps on them, with a short text, saying:
"These two flutes do not produce sounds at intervals but rather in the manner of the human voice. This sound is produced by moving your hand up and down, as on a trumpet or a flute. You can also produce sounds at tone intervals of 1/8 and 1/16, and any other sound you like."
www.leonardo3.net/en/l3-works/machines/1479-glissando-flutes.html
Nor the drawing or the short text doesn't explain how he thinks to solve the problem of covering the gap with hands only. The way the Leonardo3 Museum's researchers reconstructed the idea is similar to the well known swanee- or slide whistle.
There were several attempts to make slide saxes in the past 120 years. The most similar was the King C Saxoprano in the 1920's, but it seems that the sealing was imperfect with the rubber band (in the absence of magnetic strip) so it was not a great success. The other models (Royal Slide Saxophone, Swanee-Sax, MellowSax, Straight Slide Alto Saxophone or the Circular Slide Alto Saxophone) has solved the sealing problem more or less, but they all operated with one hand sliding up and down, like a trombone, not with eight fingers, which makes a big difference in playing. Here is probably the most detailed and accurate article about it, written by Paul Cohen in 1994-95:
Royal Slide Saxophone
Voices of the Slide Saxophone II
Voices of the Slide Saxophone III
As we found these great ancestors long after we began with our project, searching for similarities on the web, we came across Bart Hopkin's most recent "Moe" instruments. He found almost the same solution in San Francisco as we did it in Budapest, in parallel, not knowing from each others:
barthopkin.com/instrumentarium/moe-sax/
After we discussed it with him, he wrote about it in his blog too:
barthopkin.com/more-moe/
And check out his other instruments too, they are truely amazing!
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