The mighty and mysterious Waterphone: " A while back Peter revealed the orgasm-inducing Blaster Beam as the source of some of the weird noises in Star Trek: The Movie. Other sounds came from Richard Waters' Waterphone, which also makes unearthly noises Poltergeist, The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Richard invented it in the late '60s, and he's hand made over 1,000 since then. It's a series of tuned brass rods attached to a base filled with water. The rods are played with a violin bow, and moving the instrument makes the water shift to bend the notes and create 'acoustic, schiziosonic, modulations'. There are three nice waterphone samples here a the Freesound Project - it's a really familiar sound that you might have never been able to quite place.
There are videos of Richard Waters playing his waterphone here, and intrepid Interspecies Music pioneer Jim Nollman uses his to attract killer whales by playing it in the sea. Unfortunately, the cheapest waterphone Richard makes costs $800...
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