The waterphone has been exhibited in museums and galleries and is the subject of several short documentaries including "Art Notes," aired on public television in San Francisco, and "Celestial Wave," a movie short. Over recent decades the waterphone has become popular with symphonies, touring bands, and recording studios. Contemporary classical composers who have written parts for waterphone in compositions include
Sofia Gubaidulina,
Jerry Goldsmith,
John Mackey,
Dan Forrest,
Christopher Rouse,
Colin Matthews,
John Woolrich,
Carson Cooman,
Andi Spicer,
Ludovico Einaudi,
Andrew Carter,
Jörg Widmann,
Bernie Krause of
Beaver & Krause, and
Todd Barton. The instrument has also been used prominently by rock musicians.
Tom Waits is a waterphone collector and player as is
Mickey Hart. Other users include
Richard Barone (both solo and with
The Bongos) and
Alex Wong (when playing with
Vienna Teng), and it can be heard in music by
The Harmonica Pocket. Classical/rock crossover percussionist
Tristan Fry of the fusion band
Sky used a waterphone on the band's composition 'Meeheeco' (the original version is on 1981's
Sky 3, although the instrument can be heard much more prominently on the live version from
Sky Five Live). Canadian musician and composer,
Robert Minden, has been composing for his collection of five vintage waterphones on many recordings since the mid-1980s. His ensemble,
The Robert Minden Ensemble, formed with daughters Andrea and Dewi Minden and colleagues Carla Hallett and Nancy Walker in 1986, features the waterphone as a central instrument within their 'found object' orchestra. The waterphone is used to great effect in
Howard Goodall's The Dreaming, a musical commissioned by The
National Youth Music Theatre of Great Britain, based on Shakespeare's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. Goodall uses its ethereal sounds to evoke the mystery of the woods. In
Derek Bourgeois' Symphony No 59 – Percussion symphony, which requires 16 percussion players there is a very prominent part for waterphone. The waterphone has been featured in the soundtracks to many movies, including
Poltergeist,
The Matrix,
Dark Water,
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, A sound sample can be found at
The FreeSound Project. There is a yearly "Waterphone Music Competition" sponsored by Richard Waters. It has also been featured heavily as a sound effect in shows such as
Gordon Ramsay's
Kitchen Nightmares and
''Hell's Kitchen'' (though only in the US versions), which was also used in the
Bravo (UK) idents between 1997 and 1998. As the waterphone may be taken into the water, on several occasions the waterphone has been used successfully to call whales and other cetaceans, especially by
Jim Nollman of Interspecies Communication. The true story of such interspecies communication was the basis of the stage show and album
The Boy Who Wanted To Talk To Whales by The Robert Minden Ensemble in 1989. The waterphone was also used in a live performance of "
Violently Happy" by Icelandic singer
Björk on an episode of
MTV Unplugged in 1994, which is featured on the DVD
MTV Unplugged/Live and the album
Debut Live.
Jean-Michel Jarre has used the Hyperstellar Waterphone on his album "
Oxymore" (2022). == Waterphone development and innovation ==