KUANTAN: The Movement Control Order (MCO), it appears, has unearthed the musical talent of Muhammad Naufal Samsudin who has now emerged as an instant celebrity on the social media platform.
Due to boredom from being incarcerated at home, the 27-year-old began experimenting his own water glass xylophone as a musical instrument to create different pitch notes and tunes with a pair of plastic chopsticks.
The photographer at a higher learning institution here who shares his water xylophone music videos on the social media, which includes Malay, Hindi and English beats, plans to start his own You Tube channel soon.
The Kedah-born said the idea struck him on April 20 as he could not leave his rented house at Bukit Rangin here due to the MCO and the guitar which he ordered online had not arrived.
"My two housemates and me had spent the past few weeks cleaning the house and playing games ... we were already bored. I always had a keen interest in music so we decided to experiment creating music from glasses filled with water.
"We picked identical glasses and I started to "tune" the pitch notes by pouring water into each glass until I got the "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do" notes ....I arranged nine glass of the same size to get the different tunes," he said when contacted here today.
Naufal said he tried to get the sound as close to real tones including ensuring the lowest pitch (water in the glass has to be more than half) while the glass with no water or less water in it produced the highest pitch.
"It took me about an hour to get the proper tunes to play the "Happy Birthday" and "Suasana Hari Raya" song. The following day I tried a Hindi song, Tujhe Dekha To Yeh Jana Sanam from the evergreen Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge movie and it took some time before I started to hit the proper notes.
"I started to share the music on the social media and received strong backing. People began requesting songs, wanted me to share tips and even share behind the scene videos (when experimenting the proper sound)," he said, adding he shares the music on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Naufal from Kuala Nerang said he surfed the internet for more ideas on the homemade water glass xylophone but found that not many Malaysians were actively involved in such home made and unique musical instrument.
"I remember this as a fun musical experiment during science lessons during school days. Now, I find it very addictive and have been receiving a lot of support from family members and friends on my newly discovered passion.
"It is important to be focused when playing as each glass produces a different sound. Speed is important to ensure the continues vibrations but a slight mistake will ruin the entire tune," he said, adding he was now in the midst of getting the tunes for an English song titled "Astronomia".
Naufal's Suasana Hari Raya video was viewed more than 124,000 times, retweeted more than 10,000 times and received 8,000 likes while his music video posting has resulted 5,000 new followers on Instagram.