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The Glass Harmonica was invented by US statesman, Benjamin Franklin in 1761. It’s sound is created by the same principle of applying a wet finger to the rim of a wine glass, and in the past this is how the instrument was constructed and played, with rows of glasses ‘tuned’ with quantities of water.
Franklin’s instrument replaced the wines glasses method with a spindle of rotating glass plates that increase in size to produce notes of a different pitch. Franklin worked with London glass blower, Charles James to build one and it had its world premiere in 1762.
