WEBVTT - TechStuff Tidbits: Ben Franklin and the Glass Armonica 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.760 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:18.720 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:22.280 and how the tech are you? It's time for a 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.759 tech Stuff Tidbits episode. This was a little different from 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:29.840 the ones I typically do, and it's because, uh, well, 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.400 it's because of a few things. First of all, among 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:37.440 all my other geek equalities, I am a musical theater fan, 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:40.360 and like a lot of musical theater folks and even 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:45.440 people outside of musical theater fandom, I absolutely was captivated 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:50.200 by Lynn Manuel Miranda's Hamilton's when that debuted several years 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:55.160 ago now, and one thing that delighted me was discovering 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.000 that he had written some songs that didn't make it 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:02.280 into the show, and one of those songs was about 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:05.759 one of America's iconic founding father as a man who 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:10.600 was never president but was a very important ambassador and 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:16.959 an inventor and uh kind of a smart alec, Benjamin Franklin. 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:20.280 And he wrote a song for Benjamin Franklin, who was 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:23.840 originally going to appear in Hamilton's, but ultimately it just 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.440 didn't really make sense for the scope of the show, 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:29.680 so it got cut, but he handed the lyrics over 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:33.480 to the band, the Decembrists. Apparently he said that he 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:35.360 had always thought of it as having a sort of 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:40.880 sound like the Decembrists other music. So the Decembrists composed 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:43.640 music to go along with these lyrics. They padded it 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:46.959 out a little bit and you get Ben Franklin's song 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:51.920 Word of Warning. That song, while hilarious, also has a 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:55.360 lot of coarse language in it. It is not family friendly, 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:59.720 I will say that, but it's very, very entertaining, and 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:04.320 in part of it long story short, too late, there's 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:11.480 a reference to the hardened glass armonica or harmonica, both 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:15.480 words have been used to describe it. And that made 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.520 me want to do an episode about this particular invention, 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:23.520 because not only was it a really cool invention, a 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:27.640 really neat idea to create an entirely new musical instrument 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:32.519 based off of older techniques, but also because this instrument 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:37.560 has a very strange reputation as a reputation for causing distress, 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.920 though it's entirely possible this reputation was invented rather than earned, 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.040 sort of like how reports of chaos in the wake 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.560 of the War of the World's Radio Broadcast seem to 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.840 have been more exaggerated not you know, if not entirely 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.880 invented out of whole cloth. If you've ever looked into 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.519 the supposed panic caused by the War of the World's 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.919 Radio Broadcast, you find out there wasn't so much panic 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:07.600 as there was a lot of media reports about alleged panic. Well, 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:09.679 it seems like that may have also been the case 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.880 with the the panic around the glass armonica. But we'll 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.520 get there, and I'll also call out another podcast which 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:19.640 did a full episode about that and it is really 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.160 really good. So first let's talk about what the hardened 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:28.760 glass harmonica or armonica was really based off of and 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.560 what it does and how it all comes down to 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:35.640 glass harps. So that's another name for an instrument that 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.480 uses a series of glasses, like like drinking glasses. Sometimes 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:43.000 they're made out of crystal wine glasses are pretty common. 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:48.680 The player of this instrument runs a wet finger around 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:53.480 the rim of a glass or sometimes multiple glasses, and 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:57.040 this produces an ethereal note at least if you do 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:01.720 it correctly, the glass sings, it vibrates and rings out. 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:07.240 So using different sizes of glasses, or by adding or 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.720 removing some liquid to a glass or several glasses. It 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:14.280 allows you to make different notes to produce different pitches. 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.280 If you add more water to a glass, that actually 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:23.039 produces a lower pitch. I'll explain why in just a second. So, 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:26.960 with a collection of these glasses that are each tuned 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.320 just right to represent specific notes on the musical scale, 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:35.560 a skilled player can actually play a tune on glasses 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:37.920 running their fingers around it. I'm sure you've seen this, 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:39.960 or maybe you've seen videos of it. Maybe you've done 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.440 it yourself. It's not difficult to do. You can actually 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.359 just do this with your typical glass. It has to 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:51.040 be glass typically, because that's what you're gonna be able 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:54.680 to get something to make a note that's that's audible. Now, 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.560 to understand what's going on, we do have to go 0:04:57.600 --> 0:04:59.880 into some physics. And first up, we need to t 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.680 about friction. Now, I'm sure all of you know what 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:07.360 friction is already, but just to set a foundation, friction 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:11.839 is the resistance you encounter when one surface moves across 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:17.400 another surface. Obviously, that resistance depends upon the surfaces. Like 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.120 if you were to take two pieces of silk and 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:22.840 rub them against each other, you would find that they 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.840 produce a lot less friction than if you took two 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.880 pieces of rough grade sand paper and then rub the 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.039 sandpaper parts against each other. You have a lot more 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.920 friction in that second case. But when your finger makes 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:41.080 contact with a glass, there's friction between your finger and 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:43.800 the glass, which is a good thing, or else you 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.000 would never be able to pick up that glass, and 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:47.920 you would never be able to take a drink, and 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:52.039 you'd be very, very thirsty. But the friction can be 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.560 enough to make your fingertips stick against the glasses surface 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.919 a little bit, so it's actually not that easy to 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.400 move your finger smoothly along the rim of the glass. 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:07.920 And for that reason, glass harp players will first wet 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:11.400 their fingers. They'll dip their fingers in some liquid. Uh. 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.680 I remember back when I was first learning about this, 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.320 when I was a kid, it was always vinegar for 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.320 some reason, but it could be other stuff. Wine is 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:25.320 also pretty common, especially uh for things like someone doing 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:27.480 this at a party. They would use wine glasses with 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:31.520 wine in them filled to different levels and it would 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:35.839 be called like singing wine. And uh. This introduces this 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.880 liquid on your fingers introduces a layer of lubrication that 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:45.240 allows the finger to slip against the glass more readily. 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:48.480 And of course it is possible to make your fingers 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.000 too slippery, because if there's two slippery, then they aren't 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:55.279 producing enough vibration for you to have a note. So 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:57.479 what you really need is the perfect balance so that 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.919 your finger is creating enough but not too much friction 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:04.320 as you're moving it around the rim in a circle. 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:06.680 And when this happens, when you get that just right 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.040 with the right pressure and the right amount of lubrication, 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.600 the motion you are creating will cause vibrations to move 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:16.160 through the glass and this ends up being the note 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:20.680 that you hear. Now. I have talked a lot about 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:24.160 sound in tons of previous episodes of Tech Stuff, but 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.200 we'll go over it again really quickly. Sound, when you 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:31.520 get down to it, is really vibration. Our perception of sound, 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:35.480 hearing being the primary way for most people to perceive sound, 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:41.040 involves sensing vibrations. So in hearing, this typically means that 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:45.280 something has produced vibrations significant enough to cause air molecules 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.520 around it to fluctuate, so you get little changes in 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.800 air pressure. Air molecules are kind of pushing against each 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.640 other and then pushing back. So the air molecules themselves 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.240 are vibrating, and they vibrate outward from the source of 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:01.040 the sound. If the vibrations are great enough, if they 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.120 have enough amplitude, and we aren't too far away from 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:07.880 the source, we can experience these fluctuations of air molecules. 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.240 The changes in air pressure can affect our ear drums 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:15.120 cause the ear drum to vibrate, and tiny bones in 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.679 our inner ear connected to the ear drum also connect 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:23.000 to the cochlea. Uh, it's a structure in our inner 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.000 ear that contains an organ called the organ of corte 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:29.240 or court. I. Now, I don't want to get two 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:31.240 bogged down in all of this because it gets into 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.920 a lot of physiology that I'm just not prepared to 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:39.440 chat about. But essentially what's happening is little nerves in 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:45.199 our ears pick up these vibrations and transform that into 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:50.679 signals that our brain can interpret as the experience of sound. 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.120 So when you try trace it all back to the 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:58.160 source again, it's all about vibration. Now. The rate at 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:02.520 which something vibrates is called a frequency, and we use 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:06.040 a unit of measure for frequency called a hurts, and 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.079 this tells us the number of times something has a 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:13.800 full oscillation within a second. So an oscillation is you 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:16.280 can think of it as going from the starting point 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.320 to the end point and back to the starting point again, 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.000 like if you're if you're making waves with a jump 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:25.520 rope or something like that, it's one full wave length 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:29.760 would be an oscillation. So if something vibrates only once 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:32.319 a second, that would be one hurts. The range of 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:36.920 typical human hearing is between twenty hurts or twenty oscillations 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:40.640 or vibrations per second, which would be a very very 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:45.160 low pitched sound, and it goes up to twenty thousand 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.920 hurts or twenty killer hurts that would be a very 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:51.960 very high pitch sound because whatever is vibrating is vibrating 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:55.640 twenty thousand times per second. Also, as we get older, 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:59.600 we typically start to lose hearing at certain pitches, so 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:03.520 are arranged narrows. This is why you will hear stories 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.640 about stores that will play sounds at much higher pitches 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.520 that irritate young people because they still have the capability 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.959 of hearing those those pitches. Well, old people like me 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:20.439 remain completely unaware because we can't hear those those pitches anymore. Okay, 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:27.400 that's the very basics of hearing from a very very 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:29.880 very high level. When we come back from this break, 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:33.640 I'm going to talk about resonant frequency and what that 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:37.000 has to do with glass harmonicas. But first let's take 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:49.520 this quick break. Okay, we're back. Now we're gonna talk 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:54.800 about resonant frequency. So if you have a glass and 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:58.000 you lightly tap it with say a spoon like think 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.720 about you know, weddings and stuff where people would tap 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.840 their glasses in order to signal that the groom and 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.719 bride should kiss, or that the bride and bride or 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.640 groom and groom should kiss. You know, it's any of 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:13.360 those cases. So if you tap a glass, it produces 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:18.240 a tone. That tone it has the resonant frequency of 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:22.880 that glass. This is the natural frequency of the glasses vibration. Now, 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:25.560 that depends on lots of stuff. It depends on the 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:29.600 size and the thickness of the glass, and also whether 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.280 or not anything's in the glass. Like I said earlier, 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:35.360 if you put liquid in a glass, you start to 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:40.120 lower the pitch of the tone it produces. That's because 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:45.880 liquid actually inhibits vibration. It makes it it's more work 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.120 to vibrate because you've got more matter that you have 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:52.000 to push around. So the more matter that's in the glass, 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:55.520 the lower the pitch is going to be because it's 0:11:55.520 --> 0:12:00.200 going to vibrate fewer times per second as a lee, 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.400 so you get a lower pitch. All right. If you 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:08.680 produce a sound that has the same frequency as the 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:12.400 resonant frequency of a glass, then that actually induces vibrations 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.800 in the glass as well. So in other words, if 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.520 you were to tap a glass and it played out, 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:20.960 say middle C, which would be a very low note 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:24.880 for a glass, but whatever it produces middle C, then 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:27.760 if you were to produce a middle C sound with 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:32.280 enough amplitude enough volume, you would cause the glass to 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:35.679 start vibrating at that resonant frequency, and you could potentially 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.120 do it enough for the glass to deform to the 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:42.320 point where it breaks. And you've probably seen or heard 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:46.040 of demonstrations of this. The classic example is you have 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:50.240 an opera singer producing just the right vocal note with 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:55.120 just the right amount of of oomph, of amplitude of volume, 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.840 and singing loudly and longly enough to cause a glass 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.680 a shatter. It's a pretty common thing to see in 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.480 like movies and TV. And obviously MythBusters did and a 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:09.920 thing on it as well where they reproduced a tone 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.040 and show that it is possible. It's not easy to 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:15.760 do necessarily, but it is possible. Uh. And side note 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:17.800 on that it is easy to get an object to 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:22.000 vibrate and its resonant frequencies, which can also include harmonics. 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:24.960 That gets super complicated. We're not going to dive into 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:29.560 harmonics in this episode, but uh, it is uh, you know, 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.480 harmonics is what it sounds like, right, So if you 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.400 were to produce a harmonic frequency to a resonant frequency, 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:38.400 you can also get something to vibrate. But it's very 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:42.600 difficult to get something to vibrate at any frequency apart 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:48.000 from its resonant frequency and harmonics. Okay, so let's get 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:51.520 back to the glass heart. Rubbing your moistened finger along 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:53.600 the rim of a glass can create just the right 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:58.280 amount of friction to cause the glass to vibrate at 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.120 its resonant frequency, which produces a note. And if you 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:04.520 make a whole bunch of glasses and they're all of 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.440 slightly different sizes and thickness, or you fill them with 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:11.320 different amounts of liquid, you can produce lots of different notes, 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:13.920 and if you tune these glasses so that they match 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:20.000 frequencies of specific musical notes, you can play music. It 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.720 does get a little complicated, and um, we should also 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:28.120 mention that tuning things to specific musical notes it's not 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:31.640 as straightforward as it sounds, partly because there are different 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.440 definitions of what makes up a musical note, depending on 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.360 whether you're a scientist or a musician. And what do 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:42.480 I mean by that? Well, Joseph Savour, a French scientist 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:47.600 of the eighteenth century, proposed that middle C the note 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:49.640 middle C, which if you were to look at a 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:52.040 piano keyboard and you start on the left side of 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:55.600 the keyboard, middle C would be the fourth C note 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.640 as you go to the right on the keyboard. Well, 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:02.960 he said that middle c's frequency should be two hundred 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:08.640 fifty six hurts. However, there's another standard called the Stuttguard 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.680 pitch or the A four forty pitch, and that one 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:16.000 marks middle C is having a frequency of two hundred 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.640 sixty one point sixty three hurts. If you were to 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:23.600 listen to these two tones right one after the other, 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:26.120 it can be a little challenging to tell them apart, 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.800 because while to fifty six and to sixty one point 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:34.080 six are different, they're still really close. And the human 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:38.280 ear is not great at picking up very subtle shifts 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:42.440 for the typical person. I mean, there are extraordinary people 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:46.160 out there who are able to detect such things easily. 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.440 I am not one of them. So why did the 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:53.160 scientific community say middle C should be two fifty six? Hurts? 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:57.000 It's because tot is a power of two, which makes 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:01.240 things easier when you're doing calculations. But musicians sort of 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:05.800 aimed for this a four note at being four forty. 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:10.200 Uh frequency and that internment that middle C had to 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:12.760 be to sixty one point sixty three once you started 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:17.560 to work outward from a four forty. So yeah, two 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:22.560 different ways of tuning, and uh, it gets pretty subtle, 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:25.800 but it does make a difference. Now, whatever pitch standard 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.880 you're determined to follow, your job as an aspiring glass 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:32.880 heart player is to pick out a selection of glasses 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:35.800 that can produce a tone that's reasonably close to the 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:39.880 various pitches of musical notes, and then you you designate 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:42.440 them in some way so that you remember, all right, well, 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:45.240 this is a this is B, this is C all 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:47.160 the way up to G, and then all the incidentals 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.120 or accidentals. You would need to have those arranged just 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:52.840 right so that you could produce the tones that you want. 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.080 And then you would play glasses in specific sequences and 0:16:56.120 --> 0:17:00.640 combinations to produce music. Really talented players can play multiple 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.120 glasses all at the same time by spreading their fingers 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:05.520 out really wide and making contact with the rims of 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:09.480 multiple glasses and create things like chords, which is amazing, 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:11.440 Like when I see someone who's really good at this, 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:17.160 it is phenomenal. Well, earlier glass instruments actually involves striking 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:22.840 glasses with like a little a little striking stick for example, 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:28.280 like a little padded hammer. Um. There are written accounts 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:30.760 that date to the late seventeenth century, so the late 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:34.480 sixteen hundreds, in other words, that actually described playing glasses 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:36.919 by dipping one's fingers in wine and then rubbing the 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.560 rim of the glass. So we know that at least 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.360 as early as the late sixteen hundreds people had started 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:46.680 to play glass harps in this way. And now we're 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:50.919 ready to talk about Benjamin Franklin and his contributions to this. 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.760 So the story goes that Franklin was traveling Europe in 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.920 the mid seventeen hundreds. He was acting as an ambassador 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:03.320 for the United Eates and visiting uh places like England 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:08.560 and France and attempting to, you know, advance the interests 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:12.239 of the colonies at the time and and get them 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.720 in a better position. Uh. And that he attended a 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:20.040 concert at some point in this range of years during 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:23.960 which a musician entertained the audience by playing the glass harp, 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.720 and that got old Benny Boy to thinking. See, when 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:30.800 you have your traditional glass harp, the musician has to 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:34.600 definitely move between glasses. They constantly are keeping their hands 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:38.399 in motion as they're rubbing the rims of glasses in 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:42.200 this circular motion. But Ben thought, what if you could 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.480 rotate the glasses and then you just press a wet 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.320 finger to the rim and you can just hold your 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:50.120 finger there. You don't have to move your finger around 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:53.800 the glass. The glass is rotating, So that way you 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:55.919 can produce this note, but you don't have to do 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:59.320 this circular motion the whole time. Wouldn't that make it 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:04.160 easier to play the glass harp? Well? Yeah, but how 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:07.040 do you do that? So Franklin figured that if you 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:12.960 could create a stack of tuned glass bowls, each tuned 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:18.480 to a single note, and then separated from all the 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.200 other bowls with some sort of dampener, like a cork 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:26.400 type material, so that they're not making contact with each other, 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:28.840 because if you did that then there would be issues 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:33.240 with producing the right vibrations. You could create a stack 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.120 of containers tuned from low to high or high to low. 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.600 The largest bowl would produce the lowest note, the smallest 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:43.800 bowl would produce the highest pitch note. So step one 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:48.480 was just having glass bowls made that could produce approximations 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.879 of specific musical notes, then finding a way to stack 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.880 them while not having them actually make contact with each other, 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:58.560 and then finding a way to rotate them so that 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.520 you could rub your fingers against the rim of each 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.439 of these balls and produced these notes. Then Franklin came 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.160 up with this amazing idea of drilling a hole through 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:11.680 the bottom of each bowl. Through those holes he inserted 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:15.640 an iron rod. So now you had a stack of bowls. 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:21.200 The original armonica had thirty seven of them, and they're 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:24.640 on a stick. And then he turned the stick horizontal, 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.480 and then he mounted it in a cabinet and connected 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:31.159 the rod to a wheel that could rotate. So this 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:34.840 is the rotational action that causes the whole rod and 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:37.440 thus all the balls that are mounted on the rod 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.240 to rotate. So you just put your finger against the 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:43.520 rim of the bowl and it sings. So he connected 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:48.760 that wheel to a foot pedal, a treadle similar to 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:52.120 what you would find on an old treuttle powered sewing machine, 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:55.080 and he used a belt to connect the two so 0:20:55.720 --> 0:21:00.000 by peddling with your foot you could provide the rotation 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.960 chinal force needed to turn the wheel, which in turn 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.240 was connected to this iron rod that had all these 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:09.760 bowls mounted on it. So you would treadle, it would 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.439 spin the bowls, and then you would move your fingers 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.480 on the rims of these bowls to produce the music. 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:27.159 That was composer William Zeitler playing the glass armonica. It 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:34.480 was truly ingenious and it's drastically simplified playing the glass harp. 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:37.359 I mean really it was a different instrument that was, 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:43.240 as he called it, the harmonica or harmonica, and Franklin 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:47.440 was known to give performances in Europe. He also produced 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:49.879 some of these for musicians to play. He himself was 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:53.680 an amateur musician, and according to what I read, people 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:56.159 were delighted to attend one of his performances where he 0:21:56.160 --> 0:22:00.080 would play well known pieces and some compositions of his 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:04.240 own on the armonica. But there were other musicians who 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:12.200 became truly famous for playing this instrument. I imagine it 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:15.479 was quite the challenge for him to tour around with 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:18.280 this thing, because you have to pack it up in 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.359 such a way to minimize the possibility of damage. You know, 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:24.560 you have a lot of glass pieces in there. In fact, 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:28.040 there are a lot of historical harmonicas that suffered damage 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:31.480 during shipping incidents in the modern era where you had, 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:38.320 say a museum receiving a glass armonica from some like 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:41.480 some of Franklin's descendants, and then in the shipping some 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:45.040 of the bowls got cracked and broken. So it was 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:49.280 a really delicate instrument still is to this day. I mean, 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:53.800 the armonica still is a thing, although you're more likely 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:56.679 to encounter it in a museum than you are on 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:00.680 the stage. Now we're gonna take a little break. When 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:14.520 we come back, we're going to get to the weird stuff. Okay, 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:18.879 we're back. So Franklin invinced this glass armonica and drastically 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:23.880 changes how you can produce music by by creating these 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:27.639 vibrations and glass with your fingertips. And his invention was 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:32.240 a pretty big hit in Europe according to the Franklin Institute, 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:35.880 and old Benny was just happy to donate his invention 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:38.400 to the world. He didn't patent it. He didn't file 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:42.919 a patent for this invention. He apparently thought that there 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:46.800 was sort of a moral imperative to share your ideas 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:50.880 with the world in order to contribute to the general improvement, 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:56.000 and that trying to keep an idea to yourself or 0:23:56.080 --> 0:24:01.520 to maintain ownership of it was almost like an immoral 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:04.919 or evil thing to do. Um keeping in mind that 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:08.280 he also was enjoying a lot of support from his country, 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:11.399 so he wasn't in a position where he was like 0:24:11.560 --> 0:24:15.040 starving or anything of the sort. So he was in 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:16.879 a real position of privilege as well. We have to 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:23.320 acknowledge that anyway. Composers, including really famous ones like Mozart 0:24:23.640 --> 0:24:29.560 and Beethoven, wrote pieces for the glass armonica, but the 0:24:29.600 --> 0:24:35.040 instrument was somewhat limited in scope. You could actually change 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:38.639 the the amplitude or volume of the notes you played 0:24:38.960 --> 0:24:41.760 by adjusting how much pressure you were putting on the 0:24:41.840 --> 0:24:44.680 rims of the bowls as you played them, but only 0:24:44.720 --> 0:24:48.080 to a point. And if you were to combine the 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:51.960 armonica with an orchestra of other instruments, it was very 0:24:52.000 --> 0:24:54.800 easy for the armonica's sound to get lost in the 0:24:54.840 --> 0:24:58.320 mix because there was a limited amount of volume you 0:24:58.320 --> 0:25:02.640 could produce. So it had limited utility, which meant that, 0:25:02.720 --> 0:25:06.480 you know, you could have these nice little pieces written 0:25:06.520 --> 0:25:10.919 for it almost distractions, but you couldn't easily incorporated into 0:25:11.359 --> 0:25:16.560 more um ambitious works of music. Another drawback of the 0:25:16.560 --> 0:25:20.360 harmonica is obviously it is a very physically delicate instrument, 0:25:20.440 --> 0:25:22.320 and when you make an instrument out of glass, he 0:25:22.359 --> 0:25:26.080 really takes some risks. They were expensive to make because 0:25:26.119 --> 0:25:28.199 you had to get the bowl sizes just right to 0:25:28.280 --> 0:25:31.440 produce the notes you needed, and so the instrument also 0:25:31.560 --> 0:25:36.359