The waterphone is an instrument that evokes an entire environment with its sound. If I were to imagine a landscape built by its sound waves, I would be picturing an echoing basement with dark geometric shadows, stretching and connecting in false borders. Or a seascape—wailing echoes cutting through the waver of distorted lines. This spooky ambience is the waterphone.
Developed by Richard Waters in the 1960s, one of its many influences was the Tibetan water drum. The instrument itself has a body comprised of a stainless steel metal bowl containing a small amount of water, encircled by a crown of metal rods of varying lengths. When played, the performer grasps a cylinder that rises from its center. A percussive instrument, the waterphone has different sounds that can be made by bowing, hitting, or plucking the metal rods. By tilting the instrument, the water moves, bending the initial note and causing distortions and variations in the sound.
The waterphone was brought to my attention by my sister, and upon further research, I found that it is actually featured in several horror movie soundtracks, including Poltergeist, The Matrix, Aliens, and The Shining. In Poltergeist, the instrument cuts through the orchestra with unsettling shrieking sounds, followed by a resonant ebb. The receding harmonics that vibrate after the initial strike of a bow or mallet are like a slow dissolving of ripples into smooth water. ‘But what lies beneath the waters’ surface?’ the instrument seems to be asking. It makes perfect sense that the waterphone would be used to build suspense and discomfort—it is so versatile. It can make rumbling sounds, thin shrieks, harmonic hums, clear pitches emanating from a hit of a mallet, and occasionally ghostly sounds equated to that of a whale. So when the waterphone suddenly shrieks, rumbles, and hums, while the spectral manifestations appear to the little girl in Poltergeist, this is what otherworldly beings must sound like.