Dennis James would do just about anything for music. In his quest to master the glass armonica, he has had little choice. Invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761 and favored by Mozart, the ...

The instrument had a spinning rod with glass bowls of different sizes, each tuned to a different note. Musicians used a foot ...

Benjamin Franklin may have helped give birth to a new nation, but the glass armonica was the Founding Father's "most cherished creation," according to English professor Corey Mead. Best known as a ...

Explore the enchanting world of the glass armonica, an 18th-century invention by Benjamin Franklin, and its unique music. Navy chief removed from duties for investigation My Undocumented Filipino ...

To play the armonica, a musician powered a foot pedal to rotate 36 concentric glass bowls and produced notes by putting wet fingers to the spinning glass. In Austria, the glass armonica provided ...

In addition to inventing the lightning rod and bifocal glasses and signing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin developed the glass armonica. The instrument ...

The story goes that in 1761, when Benjamin Franklin invented the glass instrument he dubbed the “armonica,” he kept it from his wife so he could surprise her by playing it one night after she ...

The title of the CD album he has on display says that it is a Glass Armonica. It uses wet glass bowls or goblets of graduated sizes to produce musical tones. This happens when wet fingers rub the ...

"Elusive Matter" and a second new show -- "Transference," Andy Paiko and Ethan Rose's fascinating contemporary exploration of the nearly forgotten musical phenomenon of the glass armonica ...

Today he is one of a small handful of American musicians who regularly play the armonica — a row of glass bowls on a spindle, rotated by foot pedal and lightly rubbed with wetted fingers.

Despite Franklin's lasting contributions to science and politics, his favorite invention was perhaps this rare creation: "Of all my inventions, the glass armonica has given me the greatest ...