William Close makes variations on the Long-String Instrument that he calls Earth Harps. These instruments engage architecture as well as naturalistic spaces where they are installed. He is famous for building the Symphonic House, a house where the architecture is an instrument and used as a resonating chamber for long-strings that are installed throughout the house.
Earth harp website 1)
Feature of his Symphonic House on Oddmusic 2)
Controversy
William Close claims to have invented the Long-String Instrument.
The invention of the instrument should rightfully be attributed to Ellen Fullman.
I am under the opinion that the rightful honor of inventing long string instruments belongs to Ellen Fullman who has not been credited in any way by William Close. The honor of having invented the Long-String Instrument belongs to her for her 35+ years of pioneering study on longitudinal vibration and for constructing the first instruments like it in the 1980's, about 20 years before Close began making Earth Harps. These instruments are almost identical in the way that they function.
There is a lot of originality in the context that Close uses his instruments, especially when it comes to architecture and landscapes, but his work does not constitute a unique invention, rather an artistic contextualizing of the long-string instruments Ellen Fullman invented. I find his over emphasis on inventing this instrument to be heavy handed and an intentional lie to claim ownership of an honer that is not rightfully his. Ellen Fullman is an underrepresented figure in the story of her own research and the information on building Long-String Instruments has largely been separated from her as the origin of the instrument.
