The Glass Armonica

Benjamin Franklin's favorite invention wasn't electricity!

A musician plays melodies on a series of crystal glasses, known as singing glasses. (Federico Magonio/Shutterstock)

Wet your finger and run it around the rim of a wine glass. You get a note! A bored child at a formal dinner with fine crystal will inevitably do it. Further exploration will tell the inquisitive child that if you fill the glass with varying amounts of water, you'll hear different notes. Also, if you have different sizes of crystal glasses, you get a variety of sounds as well. Our ever-curious Founding Father Benjamin Franklin undoubtedly was bored at many formal dinners.

In the middle of the 1700s, Franklin made the dinner circuit while serving as a delegate for the American colonies. He spent an awful lot of time in London and Paris, where such entertainments might go well into the evening. Biographers wryly note that the man who wrote, “early to bed and early to rise,” often slept in the next day, sometimes past 10. That, though, is a story for another day.

The childish art of “playing the glasses” developed into an art form in itself. Amateur musicians often performed on sets of “singing glasses.” In fact, one might take up the challenge to play them at just such a dinner function. No doubt that our inquisitive Founding Father took a turn at the musical glasses.

He would develop their art a bit further.

A New Way of Turning Glass

Glass armonica, 18th century, by an unknown instrument builder. Wood, glass, various materials. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (Public Domain)

Franklin—ever the tinkerer—had a set of glass bowls of various sizes made by a London glassblower. Each had a hole in the bottom. He nested them together, separated from each other by cork, on a spindle. A treadle, not unlike that of a sewing machine, allowed one to turn the spindle and all of the bowls. Each bowl was the correct size and thickness to give the desired pitch without being filled with water. The device is played with moistened fingers as the musician turns the bowls. Franklin, borrowing the Italian word for harmony, called his device the glass armonica.

The first glass armonica was produced in 1761. It might have remained a musical oddity, but Franklin enjoyed taking it on his travels and entertained his hosts with popular Scottish music and, it’s said, even some of his own compositions.

The armonica came to enjoy great popularity in 18th-century Europe. In fact, it was so popular that Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Gaetano Donizetti all wrote music especially for it. It seemed that the armonica would become as much a part of the orchestra as the cello or violin. However, early in the 19th century, the armonica had been all but forgotten.

Unusual Reactions

According to the Franklin Institute, the armonica became associated with a few troubling events. A number of people who played the instrument “became ill,” complaining of “muscle spasms, nervousness, cramps, and dizziness.” Listeners, as well, weren’t immune to ill effects supposedly linked to the armonica. The instrument’s high-pitched sounds were thought by some to cause madness—or even summon the spirits of the dead.

A more scientific explanation was that lead from the glass might have been absorbed into the musicians’ fingers, causing the observed ill effects. That wouldn’t explain the effect on the audience, however. When a child died during an armonica performance in Germany, it was actually banned in a number of places.

The instrument fell out of favor and was all but forgotten. It’s worth noting that Franklin ignored the dire warnings being circulated about it and played the armonica right up until his death, suffering none of the ill effects.

He Gladly Gave the Armonica Away

International composer William Zeitler playing the glass armonica. (Courtesy of William Zeitler)

By the time that Franklin died in 1790, more than 5,000 of the instruments had been built. His wife, Deborah, said of the sound that it was “the music of the angels.” Unlike inventors of today, who rush to the patent attorney and seek out lucrative licensing agreements, Franklin seemed possessed by a grander vision. He wrote, “As we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.”

So Franklin never saw a dime, much less a half-dollar, from the armonica—or from any of his inventions for that matter. His inventions were but additional contributions to the prosperity of the nascent republic that he had helped to bring into existence. Franklin said of it, “Of all my inventions, the glass armonica has given me the greatest personal satisfaction.”

Composer William Zeitler plays the armonica in our time. He describes the instrument as a series of “custom-blown wine glasses.” He wets his fingers and begins to play, turning the spindle at just the right speed to start a note. Each note, Zeitler explains, needs to be started at its own correct speed. To play more than one note at a time, the musician must start each at its correct speed. Differing volume is achieved by varying finger pressure and spindle speed at the same time. Clearly, there’s an art to playing the armonica.

William Zeitler is one of the few professional glass armonica players worldwide. (Courtesy of William Zeitler)

Too much finger pressure will break the glass. Also, an armonica player lives in fear of a stage crew member dropping his beloved instrument with catastrophic results. Zeitler remembers the time that his armonica did crash to the floor. As it struck the ground, he mentally did the mathematics of replacing the glass bowls. With some trepidation, he opened the case and found that all of them had survived!

Thinking of Franklin traveling on the roads of the day with his beloved instrument, one has to be amazed.

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