Glass Armonica
Glass harmonica musical instrument consisting of a set of graduated tuned glass bowls sounded by the friction of wetted fingers on their rims.
Glass armonica. Ben franklin completed his glass armonica in 1761. Glass armonica a popular entertainment in england in the early 18th century was playing music on upright wine goblets with tones made by rubbing one s fingers around the lip of glasses filled with different quantities of fluid. William zeitler plays his arrangement of tchaikowsky s dance of the sugar plum fairy from the nutcracker 1892 on the glass armonica invented by benjamin franklin. Franklin began to take his beloved armonica with him when he traveled and played popular scottish tunes or original compositions for his audiences.
Hence these type of musical instruments is also classified as a friction idiophones. He didn t simply refine the idea of musical glasses which were played much like children at the dinner table play them today with notes being determined by the amount of water in the glass. Davies as she toured europe with hers while franklin returned to philadelphia with his own. Later composers such as beethoven mozart and donizetti would write music for the armonica.
It is composed of greater than ninety nine percent pure silicon dioxide producing the purest tones available in glass. Apparently franklin built a second instrument for ms. Quartz is one of the most fascinating materials available today. Initially franklin named it the glassychord but soon settled on armonica as the name for his new invention after the italian word for harmony armonia.
This is the song hanna plays. In 1761 franklin created a mechanized version and called it the armonica after the italian word for harmony. The glass used to make the finkenbeiner glass harmonicas is pure quartz fused silica and contains no lead. Rather franklin made chords and lively melodies possible on his new instrumental invention.