H2Organ: Water Music You Can Vote For

Music from water. That’s the concept of the H2Organ, created by Steve Mann PhD ’97 and his colleagues at FUNtain. You can hear it – and vote for it until Oct. 20 (6 p.m. EST) in the Smithsonian/Cooper Hewett National Design Museum contest. As of today, Oct. 16, the H2Organ was placing sixth among several hundred competing inventions for the People’s Design Award.

Mann, a University of Toronto professor who earned his doctorate in Media Arts & Science, invented the H2Organ through FUNtain, which describes itself as the world leader in water-based musical instruments. Since the 1980s, Mann has invented a series of musical products based on water. Nessie is suggests a water monster, but is actually a freestanding, friendly instrument. The H2Orchestra is a series of instruments using ice, water, steam, and plasma.

The products, some freestanding and some fixed like fountains, are based on a patented hydraulophone technology and players make notes and chords by stopping jets of water with fingers or hands.