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What do you know about Benjamin Franklin? When you hear his name, you probably think about his famous kite experiment to conduct electricity. Or, you may remember him as one of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. You may even know him to be a great scientist, inventor, philosopher and statesman.

But, did you know him to be a musician as well? Did you also know that he was the creator of a new instrument that enchanted some of the most musical men of his time like Mozart and Beethoven? What follows is not your regular history lesson and has all the makings of a great story. The best part is that the story is true!

While visiting London in 1757, Ben Franklin attended a concert by a man who played wine glasses. Sounds strange, but if you’ve ever tried it, you know that a wet finger rubbed around the rim of a wine glass can make a beautiful sound. Different shaped glasses with different amounts of liquid in them can produce many different notes. Inspired, Ben Franklin set out to produce an instrument that could capture this lovely sound.

Along with a glassblower, Franklin made and assembled many glass bowls of different sizes with holes in the bottom of each. Each of the bowls was tuned to a different note and painted different colors. He then set to work assembling the bowls. He took a rod and slid it through the hole in the center of each bowl.

The order of the bowls on the rod went from biggest to smallest, except none of them touched one another. He then set the rod with all of the bowls horizontally and fit it onto a wheel that was turned with a foot pedal. When he pumped the pedal with his foot, the bowls would turn round and round. With wet fingers, he could rub each of the edges of the bowls to create different notes. He completed his instrument in 1761 and called it the “Armonica” which is the Italian word for harmony. Later, it became known as the glass harmonica.

To get a better idea of what this instrument looks like, you can learn more about the armonica.

An excited buzz surrounded the new instrument in Europe. Queen Marie Antoinette of France played it and many composers including Mozart and Beethoven wrote pieces for the armonica. For about 40 years, the armonica flourished and was played by many people. The sounds it emitted were said to sound like angels.

Oddly, it was such a powerful sound that rumors began to spread that it caused nervous disorders and insanity. The rumor spread because a doctor, Franz Mesmer, played the armonica to hypnotize people. A woman who claimed to have been hypnotized by the armonica said her mental health deteriorated afterwards. Such rumors devastated the potential of the armonica as a great instrument.

Almost 200 years later, the glass harmonica made a comeback. In 1982, a professional glass blower named Gerhard Finkenbeiner revived the instrument by re-creating it. He took the original dimensions first designed by Ben Franklin and built it. There were a few differences though. The new model had a motor to spin it around and the glass bowls were made out of Quartz which is a much stronger glass and produces a more pronounced tone. The glass harmonica is not nearly as popular as it was when it was invented in 1761, but thanks to Finkenbeiner it has not been forgotten either. To play an online glass harmonica, you can visit this cool site.