Learn how to make wine glasses sing with this nifty video guide from the Royal Institution, the home of British science.
Using wine glasses to create music is an old parlour trick, and it's very simple to do at home. Watch the video below to see how it's done.
You will need
- A glass with a stem, like a wine glass
- Other glasses with a different shape
- A plastic or wooden spoon or a pencil
By striking the glass gently with your spoon or pencil, or running a wet finger around the rim, you can produce sounds - and if you're especially talented, even a tune!
As with all of the other videos in this series (you can see them at the bottom of the article), there is an educational message to accompany the fun.
By filling the wine glasses to different levels, you can let your child explore how the volume of water in each one affects the sound they produce.
Doing this experiment helps children understand the relationship between vibration and sounds - because touching a full glass causes the contents as well as the glass to vibrate, it will produce a different note to an empty glass.
Download a helpful giant soap bubble fact sheet here for more detail on this experiment and the science behind it.