What is a glass accordion?

The glass accordion, also called glass armorics, is a type of musical instrument. He inspired the sound that one could make by triggering his wet finger around the edge of drinking. During the 18th century, street artists created music in this way and changed notes by changing the amount of water in each glass.

Benjamin Franklin served as contact between several American colonies and England, their mother country over the years leading to the revolution, and that was when he lived in London, heard music made of glasses. He considered a tone more than a novelty and invented a glass accordion. In 1761 he created a series of graded bowls with a comment height depending on the size of the bowl, so it is unnecessary to have water in the bowls. This meant that the bowls no longer had to be the "right side up" and could be nested into each other, from the smallest to the largest.

bowls on the spindle

The glass accordion was therefore a series of glass bowls tuned to specific tones, with holes drilled on the bottom so that they could be moistenedEsses on the spindle. The spindle was placed horizontally into the cradle and was connected to the pedals of the foot. The player could turn the spindle - and hence the bowls - by running the pedals and could control the speed at which the spindle turned.

How to play

The player made music by damping his fingers and pressed them on the rims of rotating bowls to create individual notes. Pressing more than one bowl is chords. The music was described as etheric and angelic.

popularity in the 17th century

This tool has quickly become popular in Europe. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven were among the composers who wrote music for it. Glass Blowers had difficulty maintaining a step with demand because Glass Harmonics has appeared in many fine homes throughout Europe.

Malady Myths

But the rage was relatively short -term. Many artists claimed that music had emotionally upset them and one of theAnd a significant player on the accordion, Marianne Davies, ended his days in asylum, which many people attributed to her close connection with the instrument. When the early hypnotist Franz Mesmer began using a glass accordion in his demonstrations of "Mesmerism", the instrument gained part of the discussion in which it was held. Soon, all disease varieties were attributed to both the instruments and the hearing of his music.

It is possible that players from glass accordion could get lead poisoning from the glass used, but the demands on bad effects on health simply by hearing are unfounded. The sounds produced by the glass accordion are the same as they are made by the Tibetan brass singige bowls that sounded by shaking the wooden bars around the edge. Singing bowls are used in Tibet for meditation and religious celebrations for hundreds of years, so any adverse health effects would almost certainly be recorded.

Modern rebirth

The glass accordion fell out of kindness and after about 1820 it was no longer made. In 1984It was revived by a glass manufacturer in Boston called Gerhard Finkenbeiner and some players used it at the beginning of the 21st century, especially at tourist places that depict colonial life. Modern glass accordions are rotated by electricity, not foot pedals and bowls are made of pure quartz crystal.