Created by Benjamin Franklin, the glass armonica was said to cause madness in certain listeners. I’ve always been entranced by the scientific magic at work here – the tones of a glass created by rubbing one’s wet finger around the rim – varying by size and amount of water in each glass. In Franklin’s version, he simply used different sizes of glass, stacking them beside each other to offer different notes. This ‘glass armonica’ created a spellbinding sound, and composers began writing for it, until stories circulated that the music made by the armonica was causing madness and melancholia.
Listen for yourself, but don’t blame me if you slip into another state…
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